Page 139 - Witness: Passing the Torch of Holocaust Memory to New Generations

Like Angels from Heaven
Faigie Libman reading her mother’s account of the moment of
liberation, after the Death March, in January, 1945, Germany: “The living skeletons crawled out of their huts. Some of the stronger women went to the highway, to find out what is going on. Suddenly, they saw men riding on horses. One of the women yelled, ‘I think those are Russian soldiers!’ The other women stayed frozen in their tracks. The riders stopped to ask the women who
they were, and what are they doing here? The captain of the group, on a white horse, was a Jew. He told the women that the Russians are marching a mile behind them. With all the strength they could muster, the women pulled down the captain from his horse, and started to hug him and kiss him. They nearly choked him to death, had his friends not reached him in time. Women were laughing and crying, some got hysterical. ‘Like angels from heaven, you saved us.’ In reality, we still thought it was a dream.”
Faigie continues:
“The moment I knew I was free, we were hugging, and I think that
this was the first time that my mother was at a loss for words. It was like the most unbelievable thing was happening. The Russian soldiers looked after us, they liberated us! And I didn’t have to worry that somebody will squeal to the authorities that I am impersonating, that I am not who I am.
“It made me so happy that I could climb a mountain! I can go to school, I can be my own self.
“A ten-and-a-half-year-old child....
“As long as I live, I am always going to have a warm spot in my heart for the Russian soldiers. If not for them, I wouldn’t be sitting here. They gave me life!”
Faigie Libman singing the Partisan Song with Eli Rubenstein in front of the Rapoport Monument commemorating the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
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