Joshua Fishman - July 13, 1982
Escaping from the Russians
Were any family or friends with you at this time when you were...
In Russia?
Yeah.
No, I--it--I was mobilized. I was taken away by myself. I met uh, at that time some--a couple boys. One boy was from ??? who was also in the forest near the partisans. And um, I met him once when he joined with another one who came from a different city uh, ??? taken to the army too. I was also working on the ??? and I met--I was I the radio station and I met those two boys at radio station. The--they, they tell me they're running away--they're going home--running away home uh, because starvation was so bad there was very, very few people who I mean, many, many people died from starvation there. I said I still have something to eat. I used to go out and buy and sell the black market and I could still buy food and eat. Later on I didn't have that uh, they send me away to a different place where there I still had money on me which I earned but I couldn't buy anything because I wasn't ???. So there I decided I had--I will escape myself. And there were some Ukrainians there too and they, they, they told me--the two of them told me, "We know, we know Jewish people are smart people. Let's go all of us and we'll escape and go home." For what reason I didn't want to join with them--to be friends with them? First of all I didn't want to be friends with them because of who they are--because of who they were. And the, and the other reason was uh, I, I just wanted to be on my own. I went myself. I don't know what happened to them. They, they might have run away later. By myself and uh, they caught me three times, the Russians and uh, luckily enough I found some excuses. I had--I escaped a couple times and a couple times they um, couple times told them--I give them a name from a Ukrainian who they let home because he was so sick he would die anyway. These, these were the people who were on a list from slave labor. So I gave--told them this name, "I am so-and-so," and the checked over there and said they found such a name who was released from work and they let me go.
Where were you trying...
By the end ???
I was saying where were you trying to escape to when you...
To, to join with my mother in ??? She was ???. So...
In the end.
...if I would come there I had the means to change, change my name to--I could have given my brother's name. They wouldn't know that uh, I was--I am the one. And uh, anyway, the--I heard that the Polish citizens the Russians they let go to Poland. Poland was very da...taken away from the Germans. I was going to say uh, if you play back I will know what I finished.
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