Sahbra Markus continues to tell us her amazing story. As we join the story in Part 8 Sahbra has just escaped the church and her parents have come to get her. She is understandably angry because of all the horrible things she had to witness and endure at the church. Her family continues on their journey on foot. Her father’s foot bleeding having to walk for miles. It’s nearing the end of the war but that is not known yet. As in every part of this story, their journey is not easy and I am sure you want to find out how they make it through.
Episode Transcription
Intro Plays
Ari: Welcome to whispers of bricks. My name is Ari Schonbrun and I’m your host today. We have Part Eight in this episode part eight of separate Marcus’s amazing survival story of the Holocaust. Please help me welcome Sabra Marcus. This is Part Eight, Sabra. And last we talked you were just escaped from the church. And you were miraculously it seems that miraculously you had found your your mother in the forest. Let’s pick it up from there. And give us the rest of the story.
Sahbra: Yeah. So here I am. I’m lying there still. My face to the ground. Back Papa had taught me you know, when you’re hiding. And I heard noise. And I had rustling in the bushes. And by God, there was my mother. And I looked at her. You see had God showed up in person. This couldn’t have been a whole lot less. Unbelievable.
Ari: That I mean that’s, that’s totally totally amazing. So.
Sahbra: But today, why are you here today? Why? And I kept asking. You see? I was a very inquisitive child. I trusted no one I believe no one because everybody was out to kill us. Why should I trust you? The only one trust I trusted and believed and loved still do. Is that beautiful Russian young soldier from Kiss me gay gave me food. Oh, my goodness. Oh, I Yeah. I have a friend that just came to visit my my friend Lily. Your cat? Yes. Little girl. My friendly. Hi, Lily. Okay, by Lily. But she saw a glass of water she had to come and see what it is. So there we are. I am in total disbelief that my mother is actually standing their heads and said to me Oh, he said that’s the work. I say I asked her I said no, no. Have you been here all this time? And she said no. We just got here. I said this is the church’s over the air. Mama good church. I want to use what I didn’t understand what I couldn’t get through in my mind is Did she actually come to pick me up is what I was trying to ask. Did she remember where she left me? Up? She’s been gone for so long. Why isn’t she come back to get me? This is where resentment sets in. have been here for months and months. I have been tortured and worse. I’ve been through hell. Where have you been? Well, it’s simple. She and Papa have joined the Partisans. And they have been fighting and killing Nazis since they were little busy.
And where were your your two brothers at this point?
Named with grandma. Okay. With the lady and yeah, the former people.
Right, right, right. Okay.
Of course my mother doesn’t understand the resentment. She doesn’t understand the anger. She and Mama. She and Grandma and Papa everybody left me to those damn Nazis and priests.
What am I supposed to do say thank you. I was in hell for my I’ve watched children die. And worse and worse. Nobody came to help me. You think I’m angry? Oh no, you don’t know the meaning of the word.
I could a string of any adult with two bare hands. And I am four and a half member said, Papa and I are trying to help to win the war. Now, these are words I understand, because the Nazis kept talking about they’re gonna win the war and amendment. Everybody’s gonna win the war and nobody gives a damn about me. I know and understand lots more than any of you give me credit for at that age, I assure you, my anger was not only was it justified, but the problem was, nobody understood that a child of that age can actually have absorbed, learn, suffered and been so badly abused. And what it does to your psyche, what it does to your heart, what it does to your soul. I promised me I will never trust anyone, especially not my mother and father, anybody else in that place. They put me into that horrible hellhole, better known as a Christian Catholic Church. Do you know what I’m going through now? Do you know what’s happening in Canada now? That the hundreds and 1000s and 1000s of graves, unmarked graves of children and adults are being found in the schools. Catholic schools all over Canada, they took away the children from their parents, so they could erase their their knowledge of their own language. These are all native children from numerous tribes and bands. They were all taken from their parents and put into those horrible schools. Not allowed to say a word in their own tongue, have to learn English or have to learn French they will beat into a pulp 1000s of them died and thrown into graves into holes and covered up. This is what’s going on in Canada this minute as we speak. And you know what this is doing to me. All the 1000s and 1000s of Jewish children this was done to die the Nazis not they didn’t call themselves schools several survivors are still alive from those so called schools. The stories they tell with absolutely terrifying. Schools are being ran by Nam nuns and priests. What kind of religion is this where they mutilate and abuse all these little children of all ages Mama said we are leaving. We have to go someplace else. As we kept walking as partisans took us to a place where again I saw Papa take out a small bag and he started pouring he was pouring in again. I saw the sparkle of at this point that please forgive me. I have a cat here that likes to talk. Excuse me. Alexa is telling the truth? I’m wrong. It’s his supper This is Alexei.
Oh, another one.
He’s got his Ali. Alexei. Yeah, and he says it’s time for dinner. So okay. Let me finish what I was saying. Can you hear him
I hear him but it’s fine because we can we can you know, whatever we
can you give me two minutes. Give me a few minutes. My cat doesn’t speak English. He speaks Russian. So. So let’s go. Let’s try. Oh, how much time should we use? How much time have you got?
Whatever you want? 15 minutes? 10 minutes?
I’ll try that depends on and it says in charge. Alright, let’s go. So are we running? Yeah. So we will be led to a meeting point where my father again paid someone
and with diamonds I assume?
Yes, of course. And this time we were told I was told we are going to leave the war. What I didn’t know is that the war was actually concluding. It was just minor skirmishes here and there. And many people that didn’t know the war was over. They they kept still running around murdering each other the reason purple gators diamonds to that man. And when I looked I think the war was two minutes from over. And in many places that was over, except some people still didn’t finish fighting. You know, there’s always stragglers. It was money given to a person that was leading. Huge, huge group of people. And they’ll be going from Poland into Czechoslovakia from Czechoslovakia to Austria. And from there, we’re going to be left to make our own way into Austria. And we were going towards Salzburg. Salzburg Yes. Salzburg. And it’s all by foot. Oh Leifert crossing each country by foot. And don’t mind Don’t forget. They had already gone to pick up the kids. Before we joined that group, the kids were waiting. Send the message to bring them so we had to go a little bit out of the way get the kid join the group. And I looked at my father’s feet there were no shoes. Why wait? Where are your shoes? Where my father shows Papa? Your feet what’s what’s wrong with your feet? Your your shoes proper. His feet were wrapped. Again and again and again. Who knows how many rags and when he walked, you could hear squish, squish, squish. With every step you took, you could hear squash. And the man that was leaving he had a whole bunch of helpers. And he said to her I said to my mom. If he lets go if he gets lost. I am not sending anywhere to go look for him in the woods. And I will not stop this massive caravan from moving along. I heard that I was holding on to my mother’s pocket. And that’s when my mother kept repeating the same sentence again and again. Remember, you’re a Jew. Never forget you’re a Jew. Don’t let go of my coat. You’ll get lost and die. Words lost and die. I have heard that 1000s of times 1000s of Sometimes you’ll get lost and die
is part of the interview. So I tell you we kept going and going in then all of a sudden
there was no more squash. You know, my father’s feet. It was blood in his the rags that was squishing each time he took a stand. It was squish scores. Every time you took a step there was a scores. But there was no scores right now. Mama that was lost. Mama, don’t be silly is right there. I said, No. I don’t hear squash. You don’t hear score? What do you mean? I said, every time Papa takes a step I can hear squish. The blood in his legs is squishing every time he walks on the ground. Papa is gone. Mama do something. So one of the leaders came running, tell her to shut up. She’s gonna get us all killed. And Mama said My husband is a little slow behind us. Please go get him. He says I told you the rules. If he doesn’t keep up with us, that is not my problem. And I will do nothing about it. I’ve told you the rules. I gave you the roles. We are not going back there. She said. Do you know what happens when three children start screaming at the same time? And my mother looked at me she was our Mischka. Mama. Now she says I’ll say when when I say now start screaming as loud as you can. And the man says I warned you I gave you the rules. She says we paid you many diamonds. You are not going anywhere without my husband. He said that he could be dead down there. She says we’ll bring the corpse and she’s she looked at her time. And high was sleepy. She’s high and you want to start yelling very loud. I looked at me and I said when Mama says now. The men peeled away from us. rent to the floor forward area. Came back with two soldiers. Yeah, two of his soldiers and went to the deck. And they found my father and we all stood there for a good half hour. We stood there and waited. They found my father. Each one of them dragging on half of his body. My father just fell from exhaustion and the pain of his feet. They were bleeding profusely. His feet were red. And it was all big, big bundles of of rags. So my mother says Now everyone can sit for five minutes. 10 minutes. I will rebandage my father’s feet. Yeah. And I said but mama she says make sure that nobody walks away without us. If they start walking, you start screaming. Okay, I was scared. Yes. Mama.
wasn’t wasn’t she afraid that they would let just like shoot you guys.
They do. Shoo you can they shoot the nuts. We’ll hear the guns.
Okay. All right. I’m sorry. Okay, I’m sorry. Okay.
It’s my way or the highway, remember? Yeah, she produced nothing except die. But she’s already been served with that for the last few years. Yeah. Are you still here? All she kept saying is Bo Hashem. Thank God. You see. Okay, so mama fixed him up nice. Anyway, everyone, so we kept on walking. I have no clue how many days how many weeks. But then one day we were all told sit, be quiet. We will notify we will send a runner to notify the people at the bottom of that hill over there which looks far away that you people are coming so they don’t shoot you. And so they send a runner and the runner came back And they spoke chairman, but don’t forget, I remember Chairman, I know the language. I just spend almost six months with those bastards. I spent all those months with those Nazi officers. I learned the language I spoke it as well as they did. I learned that language. I was so good at that language that I hated me as much as I hated them. But I knew that somehow somewhere, it will save my life. So I kept learning. And I learned every day more and more and more. And that runner came back and spoke in German, and in Polish and to somebody else and Russian and informed everybody we are just minutes away from the Austrian border. And not all that far away from a major city by name of just forgot it again. I get so upset with it. zalze work. We are right next door to
Salzburg is a city in Austria. That’s one
of the most magnificent cities. Okay, so we arrived to the border of Austria. And this is a whole story all by itself, which we will do in the next session.
Ari: Okay, man, Sabra. It’s just, you know, it’s just absolutely amazing. Thank you so much for sharing your story. You know, there’ll be more coming, I’m assuming. So thank you again, let me just tell my audience you’ve been listening to whispers in BRICS. My name is Avi Shaumbra. And I’m your host. This is the end of part eight of Sabra Marx’s amazing story. Stay tuned. And until next time, listen to the whispers avoid the bricks and never ever give up on your dreams. Bye for now.
