Tag #135655 - Interview #101687 (Berta Grunstein )

The Germans wanted us to stay in that concentration camp for one night. But in the meantime the Russians arrived. The Germans gathered us to take us away. In the rear there were reeds. And a girl, who was from Borsa – that is in Maramaros – told me: ‘Come, let’s go and hide there, until the Germans leave.’ I was still a child and I was afraid to go, but all the others ran away. And whoever didn’t run away, she was taken further. So I ran there too, and we stayed hidden in the reeds until four in the morning, then we went back to the barrack. There was hay and straw on the ground. We sat down; there was gun-fight all around us, and we were waiting. Later Russians came in holding their guns ahead. They saw we weren’t Germans, so they didn’t care much, and went away. We stayed there, then we went into the town to look for some food. It was a very small town, I don’t know what it was called. The houses were empty, the Germans all fled, the whole town was empty. We entered the houses, we were looking for the larders, for food. Bread or whatever we could find in the larders, jams and things like that. We took some clothes, shoes to get dressed… We went back to the concentration camp into the barracks until things cooled down, and after two days we left.