A16 A Russian man helped

Narrator: Johann Zeiner
Reporter: Patrick Schandl

I was a soldier with the German army in Russia in 1943. All this happened near the German controlled airport of Uman. One day we got the order to get out of our car and to prepare an attack. The Russian front was so close to the airport so that we feared to lose control over it.

It was February, the weather was nice and it wasn´t so cold anymore. So we wore rubber boots. Suddenly, over night winter came back. The coldness was terrible. My feet were like frozen.

Suddenly we were ordered to withdraw. In the middle of the night we had to withdraw from our position. My feet were so swollen that I hardly could walk. We were only a group of ten soldiers.

We were lucky to reach a Russian house. We got into it. I took off my rubber boots. The house owner saw that I couldn`t walk anymore. He fetched a bucket full of snow and put my feet into the snow. Then he rubbed my feet with snow until my feet would fit into the rubber boots again. Now we could move on.

This Russian man had helped me. Otherwise I would have possibly lost my feet.