02:31

Ruth Deutschmann

Kufstein

1999-03-26

Sylvia Manning - Baumgartner

Nicolse D ´Incecco

1940

We should execute the Poles. I come to the 181st Police Battalion. And I hardly come into the building of this battalion in which I should be somewhere classified, is the company commander - a captain - and the first question is: "Can you write shorthand and typewriter?" "Yes, sir." Store "Buy it in your office, immediately to the office!" So I came into the office and I could write well and quick shorthand machine. The lie had such a mountain of work there. I had to join the military. And since I was once too - I was once divided, there was a fortress in Lukow this was because hundreds Polish intellectual businessmen were jailed for a long time. I had to then go with the food issue. Oh, the poor devil. Like us bad names, as they screamed, we should at last shot, which we of bandits, which crooks that we are fascists. And of course I had to listen to everything, but then, as it was over - I've said. "No more I go to the captain and tell him I can not go in there." Then a phone call comes from somewhere. I sit in the office at the typewriter. The captain left off dictating. He dictated, I have co-written the same. If a call. His unit - our company - must be in the next week at the umpteenth execute all the prisoners in the castle. And the captain immediately rejected. He said on the phone: "You, my company is already everything from older men, all married and have women and children You can not ask us to do that we can not." But he has not given and the captain has not given way. And they have argued over the phone. I've listened to it all, until the captain said: "I ask for a transfer to another unit." And there has hung above the other. The captain has only looked at me and I him. Towards the end of course I have my friends - and there were many Austrians in the company - information, so quietly and secretly. You had to be very careful. I've told them: "You know what's we have to kill the Poles." And that has spread like wildfire throughout the company disseminated. And everything was against it. It was almost like preparing a strike: "We do not, under any circumstances." And the next day they informed the captain himself. I gave him then said, because he asked me what people say - so I told him of course with some caution. And he passed on that and said, "No, we can not under any circumstances - we can not do that you can do and be what you want, but please allow me, I will not order.." Again he hung up. It was clear that if we would have to carry out this execution, I would next shot! I should have! But I was then stood down in the ditch next to the poles and had also been shot. At the time I first had the idea of an escape. But that was not so easy. The End of History: Two days before the execution is a telephone message from Berlin, it is sent to an SS unit from Leipzig to Lukow. And this SS unit will carry out the execution of Polish prisoners. And therefore, this Captain has saved my life. For I would certainly be there perished.