The Six Escapes - Finding Lost Civilizations

miserable, you will stay in a basementsolitary dungeon.” That was the last I sawof him. Within a week I was interrogatedseveral times. One morning I washandcuffed and taken to the office, wheretwo Croatian fellows were handcuffedtogether. The policeman told us to walk infront of him at all times, and no tricks ortalking. We were walking on a busy mainstreet, as "partisans." I was embarrassedand kept my head down in hopes thatnobody would recognize me. In fifteenminutes we ended up at a railway stationand boarded a train for Zagreb, Croatia.Along the way I was unable to find out fromthe policeman where he was taking us.After about two hours we arrived at thesmall town of Brestanica (formerlyReichenburg), which is located somekilometers before the Croatian border. Atthis point we got off and walked on awinding dirt road all the way to the top of apine-forested hill. We were led into a bigcastle, where we were intercepted byuniformed guards, then walked through acourtyard full of prisoners (mostly youngmen, but also some women and children).Next we were taken to the second floor andinto a large room to share with maybe 15other inmates. We were given a blanket,and told to sleep on the wooden raisedfloor, which sloped slightly down from thewall. It took me days to get any sleep onthe hard floor. I also had to listen to theother inmates’ complaining or telling theirescape adventures. Some of them hadbeen caught before; others had beendeported from Austria, or Italy.