European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

I thought that if I were to say I was from Kropa, they wouldn’t know where it was.

If I were to say I was from Gornji grad, it’d be even worse. So I said I was from Celje.

This man, the one who pulled out the map said that if I can show him where Celje is on the map, then I am a Yugoslav.

He said by the time he counts to ten; if I can’t, then I go to the Slivnjak, down by the plum trees.

Then he counted ras, dva, tri, shetiri… And I showed him, here it is.

He patted me on the shoulder and said ti Jugoslav, meaning: you are a Yugoslav and now you’ve convinced us.

I went to Siberia.

We went with these German people; they took us to Siberia, where we met up with other Slovenians.

All the Slovenians gathered together and we were told that we may each choose our own group.

And once the group was formed we would get our work.

That’s how we came together; there were ten of us Slovenians. Then we got our tools, saws, axes …

We were sent into the forest to cut down trees.

There was enough food while we were in Russian captivity.

Perhaps there wasn’t much bread. The Russians up in Siberia, in the taiga, they only cook ‘supa’ and ‘kasha’.

You’re probably wondering what ‘supa’ and ‘kasha’ are. ‘Supa’ is everything that is cooked and still fluid.

‘Kahsa’ is porridge; everything like mashed potatoes, solid foods.

We only got fish food there, which there was enough of, not much bread, but enough.

After a while, it was still winter, all the Slovenians and also Croatians

and other nationalities were all together according to the nationalities.

Maybe the Slovenians and Croatians were together …