Tag #154390 - Interview #90535 (Leonid Kotliar)

At first we were in a common camp Sleutwitz and our camp fuehrer was Meier, a cruel bandit. He always wore an SS uniform and he started fights. There were guards with Alsation dogs in the camp. One of the guards was a Czech German and the rest of them were German. One old German man came to wake us up in the morning. He once brought me an ointment when I rubbed my foot sore. Another German was a scrapper. In the first two years we were paid 8 [Deutsch]mark per month and then they began to pay 16 [Deutsch]mark.  Occasionally we managed to leave the camp to go to town, but then we had to hide our ‘OST’ badges to not be caught by the police. When we were lucky we could buy some bread or a pack of forshmak from rusty herring. Once some vendors came to the camp. I bought a striped viscose shirt for 1.5 marks. I washed it and wore it on Sunday. Ivan and I also bought trousers from a Serbian man for 8 marks. I wore a jacket that Joseph gave me at work, an old German man from a next-door shop. I dug up his vegetable garden in spring. His wife was a very sympathetic and nice lady.  Their only son was in the army and she suffered a lot for him. Joseph’s wife told me about their son. She said: ‘He looks so much like you’. She gave me a jacket and a vest, a gummed coat, bridges and even a hat. A Polish man came to take photographs. He charged little for his services and I had two photographs made for me. 

The feeling that I was working for Germany oppressed me and I was looking for an opportunity to do some harm. Twice I placed small nuts in the exhaust pipe and the ventilator blade broke.  Both times the shop was closed for two days.