European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

That’s how well we communicated, we worked well together, and we gave food to these girls for their efforts.

Once, the younger girl said Ivo, listen, I have a bomaska for you.

You’re wondering what a bomaska is?

It’s a quarter piece of paper on which something is written, half in German and half in Russian.

Can you read Russian? Yes, I said, so-so. She asked how so-so? I just said so-so.

The Russian alphabet has more letters than Cyrillic’s.

I knew a little German and a little Russian and a little Serbocroatian and of course Slovene; so I read it.

The younger girl told me that if I get caught by the Soviet’s, that this bomaska will get me an extra piece of bread.

I had no idea why this bomaska was so valuable.

At any rate, it’s what the younger girl said to me,

that when the Russians capture me I must show this and I’ll receive an extra piece of bread.

Mobilization into the Wehrmacht

We were recruited while serving in the Arbeitsdienst.

I was assigned to the German infantry.

By the time I got home in December 1942, I was recruited into the German army, forcibly mobilized.

I was an 18 year old youth at the time and had no idea what the army was or what a weapon was.

I came to the German army at Brno in the Czech Republic; it was called Brünn in German.

I was in the army December 1942, and January and February.

We had what they call in German Ausbildung, which was a drill using German weapons.

We were given an assignment of which I knew nothing about: to fight against the Russian soldiers.