Tag #156888 - Interview #78802 (Maud Michal Beer)

Suddenly we hear a woman's voice: ‘A royte Fuhn!’ [‘A red flag’ in Yiddish]. In the streets, which within a moment were full of people, cheering erupted after the terrible silence. The ghetto breathed a sigh of relief, that it had gotten through the previous horrors and with joy greeted the liberators, the troops and tanks of the Red Army. Everyone who could, ran to them. The Russians were throwing us bread. One of the striped ones, who'd recently arrived, was run over by a tank when he wanted to pick up a piece of bread from the ground.

We didn't have the luck to be liberated by the bountiful Americans. The Russians brought only square black bread and potatoes. The main thing was, that we were finally free, and neither were we hungry anymore. We were afraid of the soldiers, didn't go into the streets alone, and just in case always had our mess tin in our hand for defense. Our happiness was marred by the thought and awareness that so many people who'd been waiting for this moment hadn't lived to see it. We girls met up one more time in our room before going our separate ways, and said to each other that it was up to us young people whether there would be any more horrible wars, taking so many victims, and taking from all people their happiness and contentment.