Miriam Fried

"I mentioned that in Novi Mesto there was a beautiful synagogue in such a Moorish style, something similar to the one in Bratislava on Rybné námestie, which the communists then destroyed. And all the women and children were concentrated in this synagogue. But I was four years old, four and half a year old, enough mischief, I said, I'm not going in there. It was sunny, I stayed, it was warm, I'm not going in that winter. So I stayed outside. There were German soldiers sitting on benches around that synagogue. That was not the SS , it was a normal army, the German army, soldiers who had to go to the Wehrmacht at that time. So I started playing with those soldiers and they accepted it very easily, because a little boy four years old, blond, blue-eyed, speaks German. It was not possible it's a cliché to them that he's a Jewish kid. He's not a Jewish kid. They talked, they played with me. There was one, I think I remember him, a twenty-year-old boy. He played with me, after about an hour I tell him: 'Uncle, I want to go to the toilet.' And he: 'Come on, I'll take you.' 'But I want my mother.' He got up, he had a bayonet next to him, he took the bayonet on his shoulder and said: 'Well, wait, I'm going, I'll bring your mother.' He went to that synagogue and really came back with that mother of mine. As we went to the latrines, they were a little further, my mother was a heavy smoker. And he says to him: 'Don't be angry, please, don't you have one cigarette for me?' And he looks at her like that and says: 'I'm very sorry, gracious lady, but I'm a non-smoker.' And it flashed through my mother's head: A German soldier will say to a Jewish woman, gracious lady. Es tut mir leid, gnädige Frau. She looks at him and says, 'Help us get out of here.' He stopped, says: 'Turn around!' He takes that bayonet, points it at us and says: 'Go!' And he went with us through the whole of Nové Mesto, even with the pointed bayonet, until we reached the borders of Nové Mesto. There he tells us: 'Go! Run!'"

"After a few days, wandering around the mountains, we suddenly met a woman. Such a typical peasant woman, wide skirts, I don't know three or four skirts she had, tall, thin, old. She had wood in those skirts She went to look for wood for the winter: 'You what?' Father: 'We are Jews and somehow we have to... we have nothing.' So she looks at us and says: 'Come with me!' And so she took us to that cottage of hers. When we got there, it was a small, blue-colored, adobe cottage. There was one room and a kitchen. Such a tiny front room, on the right side was the barn and on the other side was the house. When we came in, we were first overwhelmed by the warmth of the home. On the right side was a big oven, a brick oven, and it was radiating from it. I can see that in front of me, I can still see it in front of me today, how the heat was radiating from it, and in the middle was such a large wooden table and there was a loaf of bread on it. The feeling of home. So she gave us something to eat right away, she had some soup. She gave us something to eat right away and sent my parents upstairs to the shed to sleep and left me next to her. There was a toast by the oven and I slept there with her . And the next day he says to his parents: 'Listen here! I can't save you, it's impossible. But I'll keep the little one here. When you come back, I'll give her back to you.' If you don't come back, I'll raise her into a proper person.' That was a woman, she was a widow, she had five sons. Three of those sons were with the partisans, and two of those sons were still - they were still young, they were ten, eleven, I don't know exactly how old they were, because they weren't there. They were studying down in the village. And that Katka, she took care of me like my mother."