Page 26 - Kristopher Mayich on the Eastern Front

ISSUE : Issue 33

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1983/6/1

us. They exchanged with us. We had lots of cigarettes and tobacco, and some rum. They had lots of bread. We were exchanging that with one another. My lieutenant took me and three more Hungarians, and we went to them across the line, without rifles. I talk the Russian language. The lieutenant told me, "Ask them what they're shooting up there." They told me, "Brothers, don't shoot one the other. Kill your officers and go home, like we do. What are you fighting for?" The lieutenant asked me what they said. I told him that. "Turn back," he said. We went back. After that, it wasn't allowed for us to go up there; they weren't allowed to come to us. Went like that for two days. The third day, said, "Move out beyond them to Odessa base on the Black Sea." We weren't fighting, just walking behind them. (What did you think of the Russian sol? diers? Did you think they were crazy?) No. No. We thought they were doing all right. We were glad that happened in Russia--war going to be over. But we were wrongo We turned back from the Black Sea, went to Ru? mania- -Rumania gave up fighting. They laid down their arms. So we went inland. We were up there a couple months, resting. Well, anyway, we were moving from one place to the other like that. One day-- week before the war was over--by the Swiss Alps--I had 6 men, we were on patrol. We hit Italians up there. They came behind us. "Stop!" We threw the rifles down. They took us away. Before, I wasn't worried that I was going to get killed. That meant nothing, to be killed. But it meant a lot of things to lose the arm, lose the leg, lose like that. It would be better for a man to be dead. They were shelling, our artillery, shel? ling the road; and so we were going behind their line. That's the time I was scared, I was worried I was going to be killed. I'd be sorry if I'd be killed. But anyway, I wasn't. I went in a concentration camp by Verona. (An Italian concentration camp?) Yeah. 250,000, all prisoners of all kinds. They kept the nationalities separate. Rumanians, Germans, Hungarians, Polish, Czechoslovak- ians, us. 25,000 Austrian soldiers were up there. In July, they let Czechoslovak pris- oners go home. And I went with them. I es- The Nova Scotia Museum Invites you to enjoy our land and see the treasures of our past. Firefighters' Museum North Hills Prescott House Haliburton House Uniacke House Lawrence House Yarmouth Granville Ferry Starr's Point 1814 Windsor 1836 Mount Uniacke 1815 Maitland1870 Balmoral Grist Mill Balmoral Mills 1874 Sutherland Steam Mill Denmark 1894 McCulloch House Pictou 1806 Cossitt Heuse Sydney 1787 kHi Fisherman's Life Sherbrooke Village Nova Scotia Museum Maritime Museum of the Atlantic Jeddore1857 Sherbrooke 19th century Barrington Woolen Mill Barrington 1882 Old Meeting House Ross-Thomson House Perkins House Wile Carding Mill Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic Ross Farm Barrington 1765 Shelburne 1785 Liverpool 1766 Bridgewater 1860 Lunenburg New Ross 1817 Nova Scotia Museum 21 locations throughout Nova Scotia ... for more information contact Nova Scotia Museum, 1747 SummerSt., Halifax (902)429-4610

Cape Breton's Magazine