Tag #145233 - Interview #91277 (Zalman Kaplanas)

We had been trained for three months and on 9th May 1942 we were supposed to be sent to the lines. At night, on 8th May I was woken up and called in the headquarters dug-out. It was dark in the dug-out. The light was coming from the table lamp. The representative of SMERSH [22] was sitting at the table. I was interrogated. I was asked questions about who I was and who my parents were. I was telling my ‘legend,’ but the lieutenant was asking for more and more details. Suddenly I heard the voice coming from the middle of the dug-out: ‘Enough fooling around, we know everything about you, who you are and where you come from!’ The captain came up to me and told me that in the best case scenario I would be sentenced to ten years in the camps [23] or sent to the penalty squad for fraud and deliberate misleading of the army commandment. I began to justify myself saying that I was lying only for one reason: to be in the lines.