Tag #116171 - Interview #100368 (Dobre Rozenbergene )

I also became an angel. I worked on the aerodrome instead of a grown-up man. The work was hard: I dug ditches with a heavy shovel. In the morning I got a slice of bread and some sugar; if I had a good host, I could get a piece of sausage or pig’s fat. At times I was given frozen marmalade or a potato. I was happy to get anything. The person I was working for got a yellow working card, and was protected by it during the actions. Then my pals helped me be included in a good crew, which unloaded cars. We unloaded firewood and stacked it. Now I managed to bring some firewood home. It was the most precious commodity in the ghetto. In the evening Leya and I came home – it didn’t take me long to consider the room where we were staying home. When we came home, Grandmother would have already made scarce dinner from the food we could get. She was constantly praying and fasted when she was supposed to in spite of starvation. Leya became like a second mother to me. Before the war she got married. Her husband Yakov was in the lines. Leya didn’t have children, and her unused maternal instinct was directed at me. Leya was like a mother to me in many ways, as well as my best friend, as our disparity in years was not great. She never left me by myself. If during the actions I was taken to the wrong side, she came with me and it turned out as if either God or my parents from another world were protecting me.