Tag #138660 - Interview #78499 (Bernat Sauber)

They didn't call me for two days. I don't know how many gendarmes were walking in the stable just to prevent us from talking to each other. On the third day I've heard the call for number 46. It was told that if they called number 46, I should run, no looking to the right or to the left, I just had to go in the first room, the office. There were some 5 people there: 2 detectives and 3 interrogators. they had different functions. The first thing they said tome was: 'Well, Beri – this was my nickname, from Bernat – tell us now why you are here?!' They began asking questions, but finally they got to the point: 'How did you raise money for the Red Aid? Did you hand it over to this man?' At first I denied everything. Then he told me: 'All right..., so you won't tell us?! Nevermind! I will call you back in the afternoon, and then you will even remember how your mother breast-fed you!' I couldn't imagine what would happen. The interrogations began around 7 or 8pm. They called me again, and I ran to them rightaway. And there I stood. 'Tell us now! We have it all here, we know exactly how much money you raised, when you handed it over and where that money was from.' Only then I noticed on one of the walls – I don't want to exaggerate – 15 types of beating tools, canes, black-jacks and anything you could imagine, it was all there on that wall. The black-jack was the genital organ of the bull, processed and put on a steel wire, it had around 50-70 cms. Then he said: 'Hold out your palms!' It was a thin cane, but how bad it hurt, it was just unbearable. He gave me some 10 hits, and then I began screaming for him to stop. But this was only the beginning: 'Tell me, if you don't want me to continue, whom did you raise the money from?!' I knew if I told them whom I was raising money from, they would punish those people, too. Even when we had no idea what was to happen, we had an agreement. There was a very poor Jewish family, an old woman and 2 other persons, three in all, who had absolutely no means of subsistence. We always gave 1% of the money to this old woman. We had an agreement that whatever should happen, we would say we raised money from YX, but he thought we were raising money for that poor old lady. I wouldn't tell them, though. 'Take off your shoes!' They seated me on a bench that had a back, tied up my legs and hands, then they began hitting my sole. Next they forced me to dance barefoot. My feet swelled up from the beatings so much, I thought I couldn't take it anymore and I would have to tell them everything, but in the end I didn't. This was the second torture. After that they didn't call me for two weeks.