03:30

Ruth Deutschmann

Benjamin Epp

St. Anton

2008-08-19

Sylvia Manning - Baumgartner

Nicole D´Incecco

1945

Then we were moved to a large camp. There were a lot of barracks there and right away they started to .. The partisans searched us and took virtually everything we had. - Watches - they were particularly interested in watches or fountain pens or - anything. They took anything that was a bit shiny orlooked expensive or things they maybe hadn't ever seen before. They took away everything. We stayed there for a short while, ten days or maybe longer. Then we were sent to Ljubljana, or close to it. I don't remember if it was directly in Ljubljana. In any case we were driven down there. We had to wait there and then there were - there must have been a few thousand prisoners there. The place was as big as two or three soccer fields. That's where we stayed. I don't remember exactly how and where we lived there. I guess we slept outside most of the time. I only remember that we had to go to one end of the field if we had to go to the toilet or if we wanted to wash. To get there you had to jump over a ditch which was about two metres wide. We didn't know how long it was, we didn't know that. If there was - we didn't know how far it went. Anyway, it was covered with 30 or 40 centimetres of humus. And whoever didn't jump far enough would land in the humus and see what was underneath it: It was a mass grave, to be exact. The putrefying liquid .. would come up between your feet. - - - We stayed there for a few days. Then prisoners who had been soldiers were brought from everywhere. Austrians, Germans and so on. And - then the actual death march started. They herded about 20 to 30 thousand soldiers onto the road - the numbers are only estimates which I heard.