Ruth Deutschmann

Benjamin Epp

St. Anton

2008-08-19

Sylvia Manning - Baumgartner

Nicole D´Incecco

1946

There were three cabins. One big one and two smaller ones. All of us had to fit into the larger cabin. We had to construct bunks. We had to do that ourselves, we prisoners. Some slept at the bottom and the others in the middle or on top. - I slept on the top bunk. We at the top had the stench and the others had the filth that fell down. There were no boards. We had to fell small beech trees and place the logs one beside the other instead of slats. If you had a blanket or something you could cover the logs with it, otherwise you had to lie directly on them. Our bones and everything hurt because we didn't have any padding. That's where we slept. The whole summer long. Our clothes were not in good condition anymore either. We had - for example I did still have a jacket but it was much too big for me - I also had a shirt. Not to mention undershirts ? we didn't have any left. One pair of underpants. They were a bit longer and reached to my knees. And - - - only the bottom part of my shirt was left - that means the arms ? basically the sleeves, and a strip down on both sides which I tied around my waist. That was all I had. And a pair of shoes. The soles were almost worn through - We were there all summer long. We had to fell trees in the forest, in the beech forest. Those woods are huge. Five men together. And we had to - each single one - had to stack a metre ? a cubic metre of wood - onto two logs. Every day. We weren't able to do that. There if I - beside it there are - Beside the forest where we were logging there were large patches already cleared. And up there many - there were many raspberries and blackberries. If it hadn't been for the berries we all would have starved to death. So we took turns. Some of the partisans were good people ? they knew about it. They let us go there. We took turns every hour to go to eat those berries. That's how we got through the summer, by eating berries.