European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

I played being unconscious.

Whenever they picked me up I fell down again until the woman said:

“This one is so exhausted, you cannot take her either. Just let her stay here.”

That possibly saved my life.

When the aunt left she went to a bunker in Ojstra, in Carinthia, near Eisenkappl.

This bunker was betrayed and she was shot dead.

The others got away, but she didn’t.

If I would have been there I don’t know what would have happened to me.

At the farmer’s it was really nice.

But it was still war and it was the last farmer before the border. There was bad fighting there.

Hiding with partisans in bunkers

At the end of January 1944

the aunt got us ready and dressed.

We asked: “Where are we going?”

The older ones already knew, but the little ones didn’t.

She said: “Well, we are going to church.”

So we asked: “At night? Why are we going to church at night?

Why is there a church service at night tonight?”

The aunt answered: “Well, because there is. Let’s go.”

We had put a lot of clothes on – whatever we owned and she took a blanket.