A32 The Russians laughed

Narrator: Johanna Mantsch, then a farmhand
Reporter: Goigitzer Elisabeth

When the Russian invasion forces were here in summer, I worked with some other women to bring in the hay.

We worked near a town called Raabs an der Thaya and we had to cross a wooden bridge. The other women and I heard when somebody else crossed the bridge.

After having moved away a bit from bridge we heard that somebody was crossing the bridge. I turned round and saw Russian soldiers crossing the bridge.
I told the other women what I had seen and we started to run. We ran over a small hill. There was a beet field. When we arrived there we continued working. When we saw that the Russians were gone, we went back to the meadow and continued working.

When we came back at noon, there were the Russian soldiers in the courtyard. When they saw us, they started laughing. The farmer asked them why they were laughing. They told him that we had run away from them. So the farmer knew why they had laughed.