European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

What will my sisters say?! My mother?! Me taken prisoner!

I get out and I see the pile of our arms lying there, because these Vlasov guys told us to leave it there.

This pile lying there and my friends standing in a row

and the Vlasov guys tying their hands at the backs.

When I saw it, I hid my head and backed under this juniper thicket or something,

a low growing one and got underneath, kneeling.

My sten with a missing cartridge was between my legs,

I leant on my elbows and just waited for things to quiet down.

These Vlasov soldiers tied my friends and you could hear them yelling.

As they moved on, they plucked up their courage yelling: Hurrah! Hurrah! Besides, they all were totally drunk.

All. If anyone of them died we used to check what weapons they had and they always had their canteens filled with hard liquor.

So I heard these voices moving away and it got pitch dark.

Suddenly somebody started whistling ‘Jeszcze Polska nie zginęła’ [Polish anthem].

After some time I whistled back.

Then he says: ‘How many of you?’ I said ‘Just me.’

‘There are four of us’.

So there were four more smart guys like me who hid in the thickets.

Somebody had matches just to check whether we knew each other or not.

The ‘Szary unit had around 500 people.

So it was hard to know everyone.