The story of Gizela - Afik Shiraz. Abinun Shmuel

prisoners, who ate battle rations for satiation immediately upon release and paid about this in their lives, since their bodies were not yet accustomed to eating. Going forward, we got off the train cars. The weak patients were taken by the Russian army for isolation, for medical treatment and recovery. Many did not hold on and passed away. Then the Russian soldiers brought us up to their cars and transported us within Germany, from place to place, from one camp to the next. Many died on the way, until we reached the camp in Spremberg, where we were treated by doctors of medicine and by food for almost a month. To re- habituate our bodies to digest food, we received scant quantities that were gradually and carefully increased. From Spremberg we walked in the fields through Kottbus to Forst on the Polish border, about 70 kilometers away. The walk longed about two months. Sometimes we stopped for a night or two in the same place. We ate what we found - corn, radish or zucchini, whatever grew on the trees or in the ground. One day, I was picking young leaves that only sprouted, thinking it was spinach, but a woman we were with recognized those were tobacco leaves. At night we slept on a plank or bench that came in our way, or any other bedding we found. Luckily it was the summer season and so we could sleep under the sky. Among us were also Yugoslav and Italian soldiers prisoners who joined us on the way. Since my feet were weak, the Italian soldiers loaded me on their wheelbarrow with their equipment for a few hours, to allow my feet to rest. In Forst we stayed about a month and there we were put on trains and drove through Czech Republic and Hungary until we arrived to Subotica in Yugoslavia in the Vojvodina province (a wheat-rich rural district) in August 1945. We were introduced for isolation in a convalescent home to make sure we don't suffer from ן nfectious diseases. The isolation was supposed to last forty days but eventually we were held for less than a month. It was the first time since the release I had felt how my body was recovering. In Vojvodina we had good food in abundance, and at this stage our bodies were also stronger and capable to digesting the food we were given. It took my body about three months to learn to cope with food gradually. After recovering a little, I was approached by the Belgrade Jewish community and they said, "The little ones of you can be transferred to an orphanage, but you are already eighteen, so you do not fit. We suggest sending you to Sarajevo, since you were born in Bosnia”. My sister refused to separate from me. The cousins, who were younger, stayed in Belgrade and transferred to the orphanage, while my sister and I were sent by train to Sarajevo. The road back to Yugoslavia

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