Simon Trakinski - Simon's life saved by a pair of boots
Transcript: So we came at night to a roaring brook... this was the fall. And we weren't sure that it's safe to cross so we waited till morning. And in the morning we crossed the water. And the other side on the rise there was a village. And they observed us from that village. Now we were going from there, we started to march into, into the woods and the first brush we encountered we decided to lie down and rest because during the day time we couldn't walk, you would be discovered. And sure enough people from the village reported us to the police. And while we were asleep we had guards posted. The guard came running, all of a sudden there are people coming and started shooting. Now some of us were so, so tired that we lie down as is and fell asleep. Others took off their shoes or boots, you know, because they were all wet. So they started to pull them back on and they didn't respond right away to run. So there were what? Five or six of us killed. And I happened to run away because I had my boots on cause a friend of mine put his head on my legs he was so tired he fell asleep. I didn't want to wake him so I didn't take my boots off. So that saved me, okay.