PARTISAN KILLED AT FARMERS HOUSE (ROMANA VERDEL)

We were always in danger of something happening and it did. One day three partisans came (friends of the farmer and one relative) and came in for a snack. The farmer said: “You did not put up any guards.” So they answered: “We will be gone in a minute, anyway.” They really got up and went outside but they stayed in the hallway and kept talking for a little while. And the children did what they always do when somebody comes round. I was standing right next to a partisan when the police or the Gestapo (or whatever you can call them) came to the house and they just shot wildly into the house, just wildly. Two partisans died straight away and the third one followed me, when I ran away through the door, left, into the kitchen. There he wanted to get out of the door. He was wounded. A bullet went through my apron but it didn’t hit me. I hid myself in the kitchen, in a hole under the cooker. The Gestapo, or policeman, came in and stuck his machinegun into the hole. But he looked in, as well, and saw that there was only a child and pulled me out. I was not frightened any more. I don’t think I felt anything. I was in shock, or something. Then I had to step over these partisans. He made me step over the dead people! One of them was not dead, yet. He really begged to be shot again and he was pleadingly looking at us. I had to step right over their heads. I still remember these eyes the way I saw them back then. That will probably stay. Whenever I see blue eyes like these somewhere, I remember this man. I do have a problem with that; I cannot forget that. Then they took me inside to the two old farmers and my cousin. One of them just wanted to shoot us and burn the house down after. Another one came in and said: “You shouldn’t do that. The partisans have to be buried, everything cleaned, and in two hours time a patrol will come and there mustn’t be anything showing; not a sign that anything happened.” And they really did that. The farmer buried the partisans and the farmer’s wife cleaned up, wiped the blood up. It was very hard for her to mop all that and she cried so hard, when she was kneeling in the blood, so hard. The two of us (the cousin and I) we were totally shattered. The farmer’s wife said: “You stay indoors and don’t go outside. Don’t you tell anybody what happened.” And we didn’t. If somebody told us to keep something to ourselves, we did. It was as if we would have put it in a box and locked it away. Anyway, we protected the partisans so much when we were kids; they were our friends and the Germans were our enemies.

more clips: Contemporary witnesses of the Nazi-Regime • 1944 • Verfolgung • Verdel, Romana
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