Tag #153871 - Interview #94293 (Nikolai Mesko Salamonovic)

In 1944 I volunteered for the army, because of my parents. I wanted to avenge myself on the Fascists for what they had done to my parents. I got into the Russian Army [Red Army]. At that time there was already also the Czech [Czechoslovak] Army. The recruitment of volunteers was being done by two colonels. One was recruiting for the Czech and the second for the Russian army. I entered the Russian one. When the officer learned from my name – Mermelstein – that I was a Jew, I became trustworthy, because the Jews had been persecuted. Mermelstein, a Jew, and what’s more he also speaks Hungarian. The colonel was very pleased and said to me:
“Go home and come back in two days.”
“But I want to go! Because of my parents and brother and sisters! I want to kill! I want to avenge them!”
“Listen to me son, you’ll avenge your parents. We’ll transfer you to a place where you can avenge them. Why? Because if you go to the front, as a soldier, they’ll either kill you right away or you’ll kill a couple of soldiers, let’s say you shoot them. But those soldiers maybe aren’t responsible for anything and were forced to do everything! We’ll put you in a place where you’ll be hunting only the big Fascists!” And truly, from January (1945) I served a year and a half in the army as a Hungarian-Russian translator, who hunted Fascists in Hungary. We searched them out and jailed them.