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GLOSSARY Poland glossary |
transcript |
| Section 1 | Tell us, please, what did you do before the war? I went to school as all kids did. And later, when the Germans came, I worked for the Germans. Later, they took me away to Germany, and ... |
What were your relationships with your relatives before the war? I lived with my parents all the time. |
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And what happened next? The Ukrainians murdered people, and I, I worked for the ... Germans, and at ours just then, the Germans came to us, for I was working for them, so they came from time to time and they ... cause I worked in a place, where there was a kitchen and there was, what do you call it? Such a buffet there was and I worked there, even in the buffet and in the warehouse I also worked for the Germans, and everything, and later the Germans took me away, and they were taking away... they took all my family away, I mean only my brother was left behind in Równo, and we were all taken away, to Germany, when we left, they took us to lagers (work camps), it was in Weissen... in Weissenstadt, Weissenstadt the name was. They took us to those lagers and from there, we spent there a month, and later some Germans came, such bauers (farmers), you know, such landowners and they took workers for themselves, and so I found myself at such landowner’s and I was there. How long did I spend there? Half a year, I think. Until I got a letter from my mother. Cause when they were taking us, each landowner took only one worker, you know. But it wasn’t very near, well, over 10 kilometres. And I found myself 360 or 380 kilometres away from my mother. And she wrote to me, and it was so that we’d had those German acquaintances and those Germans had told us that we wouldn’t be kept together only they would scatter us, and that’s how things happened. But we wanted to find out where each of us was, cause when you’re so far away ... you never know. Cause how could I know where my mother was, or my sister or others? And so we would write to one of the Germans we knew, the one that I had worked for, and he’d told me, told us to write to him there, didn’t he? And his family would send us the addresses where each of us was. And so we did. And cause I wrote, I mean my mother wrote to me and ... and she addressed it, not my mother, that baueress (farmer’s wife), and she wrote in German, didn’t she? To my address. And I got the letter, and the Germans intercepted the letter, cause it was addressed in German so they thought I had some sort of arrangement with some Germans, didn’t they? [gets a bit irritated] All, all my belongings got turned upside down. There, in the room they were looking for photographs, they were looking for everything. Did I have a Kraut (German) friend. Such a, what do you call it? Some sort of a schatz (kitten), they called it in German [laughs]. And they searched my mother’s place as well, at everyone’s. And they didn’t ... they found nothing. Eventually they left me in peace. But I was taken to Germany for three weeks. Christmas, New Year, the Twelfth Night, I spent in prison. And later, when I was released, they sent me to another farmer, not the one I was with previously, but they gave me to another one, and the other one had a lot of pigs [bursts out laughing]. You know, he had a hundred pigs or even more, and every night, six or seven of them had young ones, you know. And then, there was an Ukrainian working at that farmer’s, and he told me he would kill me. He did! |
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| Section 2 | Why? Because I was Polish, so he would kill me. And I was scared, and I ran away from there. One evening I went to milk the cows and I left everything and I ran. And just then, there came my husband, Staszek, and he took me to his place, in his village. And I stayed there. |
How was that? I mean, how old were you when you were at the farmer’s? Well, I was 18. Cause it took more than a year. And I was 17 when I left home, wasn’t I? So, later he took me to his village, and there, in that village, there was [thinks for a while] a smith, and he let me stay at his. I was ... I was there like a hostess, cause his wife was constantly ill, you know. I everyday she would ... she would go to the doctor in Hoff. So I had to cook and milk the cows and everything around the house. And later ... frankly speaking, it wasn’t so bad for me there - only it was at the Germans’, not at home [laughs]. And so I arrived at, at ... I was 20 years old, down at those farmers. Up to 20 years I was, well, two years, there I was for one year and there I was ... that is altogether I ... I spent three years in Germany ... altogether. And later, when the Americans came, you know - cause Americans came there - and so my father came to pick me up. Three hundred and sixty kilometres on foot. And he took me to his ... to my mother and only from there we ... we left there to ... to, what do you call it? [Thinks for a while]. There, that town, Nirnberg. To Nirnberg. And from Nirnberg, we went back to ... to Poland. |
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Yes, and...? And we came here to Kozle, didn’t we? We first came to Miedzylesie, and from Miedzylesie to Kozle. We spent a year in Kozle, almost a year, in that lager for so long, cause it was, it was already autumn. It was well into autumn when we, there, later they took us away from there. Well, who, who was to go where? That’s how people got ... scattered. One went somewhere, another elsewhere, and we went to Miedzylesie. And in Miedzylesie, we set... settled down in Nagodzice. And so, well, obviously, I already was married. I was 20 years old when I got married. In 1945. And so we got to Miedzylesie and we stayed there. |
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What other people’s attitude towards the Germans? Well, to the Germans? [Thinks for a while] Yes, you know, the Germans lived together with us. Cause wherever we were sent, we had to live together with the Germans. And it was all so ... so quiet, they didn’t do us any harm. Maybe they were afraid or something, but they didn’t do us any harm. |
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| Section 3 | And the other way round. What was the Germans’ attitude towards those people who were there, in Germany at that time? [Thinks for a while] Those who here? Those who were here? |
Then, in Germany. Well, the Germans living here didn’t do anything either. You know, they were afraid, afraid of us. They thought we would chase them away or something. So they were afraid. But I can’t say anything, everybody worked as well as they could, in farming and together with us and there was nothing special about. |
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What did life look like before 1941. I mean, in general, for example, schools, or ... everyday life? Well, I didn’t have small children then, so nobody of my folks never went to school then, children were too small then and, and, others, normally went to school here in Miedzylesie. Quite a long way away, but they did. |
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But before that, before, before, before you were taken away by the Germans? When the Germans took... |
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Before you were 18. Ah, well, as I already said, I worked at a farmer’s and that’s all. I had to work in the fields. |
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And your relatives? The relatives were scattered here and there, so how could I know? They also worked for farmers the same way. One of my sisters worked in, in that, a factory. I mean, Zosia, wasn’t it? She worked in a factory, porcelain factory, and the rest of us worked for the bauers, didn’t they? Another sister of mine, on the other hand, was closer, closer to the family cause she was still a small child, Janka was a small child. So she was closer to the family, but also, she had to work in a farm. Father and mother were on one farm and she was on another. Yes, that’s it. Do I know? Germans like Germans, how much, how much I, how much they made me suffer, you think I was, I, when they held me like this here, I tried to free myself, cause I wanted to go to arbeitsamt (work office), cause I was scared of that Ukrainian. He kept on threatening me he would kill me, that he would kill me, so I ran away from the field and I ran to the… I wanted to go to arbeitsamt, and the German guy phoned the police, and the police arrived immediately and they caught me on the way. When one held me like this here, he torn away all my buttons and things. But I wasn’t afraid. I wasn’t afraid. He held me, and he tore all the buttons away and he held a gun and said he would kill me, and I simply raised my hands and I said: “You don’t want to take me to my mom, then shoot me if you like.” And I said they wouldn’t take me to mom, he lowered the gun and he didn’t shoot, only said I should go home. And he, I did go home, and later I just ran away [laughs]. |
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| Section 4 | Yes, and what was your reaction and other people’s reaction to your having to leave this place, from Równo and other places, to Germany? Well, the reaction was we had to run away cause the Ukrainians were murdering people. They would shoot and murder people, so we had to run away from home and all. Cause if they’d caught us ... if we hadn’t run away, they would have murdered us at home. |
And their feelings for example, I don’t know, were they afraid to leave or, I don’t know? Nobody was, no, no, nobody was afraid to leave cause we were scared of the Ukrainians. Everyone was scared of the Ukrainians. I’m telling you that, that they would come in the evening and they would shoot, and they would kick in the doors, and break things, and destroy things, so what were we supposed to do? They murdered people. One held a child up, and he threw it against a pole and that was the end. He killed. So we had to run. |
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How did you imagine your future then? What was there to imagine? When there was such a, such a calamity that, that the Ukrainians murdered people and so you could go out, could you? You couldn’t go out for fear, could you? You couldn’t go out of the house cause you’re afraid, to ... further from home, cause, cause you’re afraid ... everywhere, death was everywhere. And that is all there is to it. |
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Was there some sort of, for example, an agreement between the Poles? Did you...? You couldn’t have no agreements with the Ukrainians. |
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How about the Poles? Nobody talked cause they were scared, on every street U... U... Ukrainians were everywhere. |
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Did you help each other out? Did you...? There was no way of helping cause, cause, cause everywhere it was, you know, there, where we lived it was like that: I lived here, you know. There lived a neighbour nearby, and in this direction, there were fields, grain and vegetables, everything in these, on, on the field. And there were the Ukrainians. Also nearby. So, so you couldn’t go anywhere through, through the garden, you couldn’t go, cause, cause, cause, there was always an Ukrainian. |
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And why did you move from Kozle to Miedzylesie of all places, not elsewhere? Cause we wanted to find a home. And no. And, and I couldn’t go to Równo only I wanted to settle down somewhere. And where could I settle down? That was the only place with settlements. Most people settled here. And so we also came here. |
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So you followed others, didn’t you? Yes, yes, I came here with my family. And it was not only us, there was that... that... well, what was his name? Koriat came here with us, and we all came here together. |
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| Section 5 | Didn’t you have someone like, some sort of relatives to go to? Didn’t you have anyone to go to? No, We didn’t have anyone yet that we could go to, no. |
And so the only thing to do was to follow all the others? We all came together to Miedzylesie, and Miedzylesie, at the station, there was such a thing, it was called PUR, you know. Such a mee... such a meeting point, so to say. And when settlers arrived, there on the station were only sisters, not nuns or anything but such ... lay sisters, you know. Sisters and there and such from the Red Cross so to say. And them and the authorities from Miedzylesie. Not the present ones, cause the ones that were there are no longer, they are no longer. They took all our papers, gave us each 100 zlotys and that was it. And we were left to ourselves. What could you do with 100 zlotys? So when we had already settled, I... I in Nagodzice, you know. With my husband and my parents settled right next to us. And so, cause we were able to, cause there was another farm nearby. Where Germans used to be. And we settled down and we lived together with the Germans. And they, they didn’t say anything, they milked the cows and everything and so, and we already had some food cause at least there was milk, and all that. And that was, such was the reaction. It was so quiet and at least they didn’t murder anyone anymore, you know. |
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When you were in Germany, didn’t they try to change Polish names? They wanted to make volksdeutsches (literally, German folk) out of us, you know. Cause my husband’s name is Rynkal. And it sounds a little German, so they liked the name. And they wanted us to [become] volksdeutsches. But we weren’t at all interested. Maybe there was someone who would stick to them, but we didn’t. |
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But you were not forced to do that, were you? No, no, no, no. |
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Only who wanted, yes? Yes, it was only who wanted to. |
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And how about your religion? I mean...? Religion, you say? That was, you know, who wanted to go to church, cause it was rather far, several kilometres. But we knew where, where there was a Catholic Church. And so we kilo... kilo... on Sundays. On weekdays nobody went to church cause it was far, but on Sundays we gathered together in such a ... as if on pilgrimage. Several people went to church together. We would set out in the morning and come back in the evening, and we asked the Germans to let us go. And so they let us. And so we went. But it was only on Sun... on Sundays that we could to church somewhere. Other that that we couldn’t. |
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Didn’t they try to introduce the German language? I mean did they force you to learn it? No, cause, you know, everyone, everyone was learning to speak German, cause in order to communicate with them, and so whether you wanted to or not, you had to learn it in order to understand them. [laughs] And so it was. What good would it have been to me to communicate through gestures only, and so if you knew a bit of the language, it was something. And besides, some of us stayed there longer, some shorter, so we learned from one another. And survived somehow [laughs]. |
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| Section 6 | Were there any differences, for example, between everyday life or the culture in Germany and earlier in Poland? No. |
And when you’d already settled down in Miedzylesie, what was you everyday life like? Well, there were coupons if you wanted to buy meat and all. Here, there were coupons for everything. You had to queue for food. Yes, here you had to have coupons for everything, everything, shoes and all. I still have some of those coupons [laughs]. |
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And what is your present attitude towards the Germans? Germans? I’ve got nothing against the Germans [laughs]. |
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Don’t you consider them enemies? No, why should I consider them enemies? It’s all a thing of the past now. What happened, happened, and it doesn’t matter any more. |
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And what are your recollections of the war years? Well, what is there to recollect? [gets upset a bit] Those times will not return. When he, when my husband died and I was left all alone, what can I recollect, there is nothing. Even if you try hard to recollect something, it will bring no good, there is nothing to look for. You know, I wrote back to Warszawa, as you saw me do, and I wrote and I wrote and they believed me that I had been in Germany. |
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And when you came to Miedzylesie, you started your own family, and did they want to stay here or would they rather live in Równo? Well, everyone wanted to live in Równo, I also would like to move to Równo and live there. I have been in Równo. I was in Równo with my husband, we stayed there for two weeks, there lives one of my school friends, you know. We went to school together. And she’d found out that I was in Miedzylesie, there is Russia, you know. In Równo. And she wrote to me and asked, she sent me such an invitation, for me and for my husband. And there. And we went to Równo. But it isn’t the same Równo that there used to be. But we’ve been there. And I was afraid there, cause there were lots of Ukrainians there. And also, this German woman told me that he was there, you know. That Russian neighbour of them. I mean an Ukrainian, cause they were Ukrainians. The one who’d been in prison, who murdered Poles. She told me that, the German woman. We were afraid, but she said if he’d done anything, would have been taken to prison. But we were scared. Yes, and I went to the cemetery in Równo, our cemetery. There is such a big one there. |
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Has a lot changed there? A lot has changed, all the streets, everything is different, they had moved things about. And the shops are different, in different places. But everyone, everyone, how do you say that? Everyone for his own [laughs]. But I went to the cemetery. |
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| Section 7 | Are you glad that you came here of all places? If you’d had another chance, would you have gone elsewhere rather than to Miedzylesie? Well, now I’d got accustomed to this place, to Miedzylesie, and I didn’t want to go anywhere else. I had small children so where could I go? I’d had one move, from Nagodzice. Cause we’d lived in Nagodzice. Ludwik was born in Nagodzice. Lila, Lila was born in Nagodzice, too, and when she was three years old, we came here. |
Who’s Ludwik and Lila? Who are they to you? Well, they are my children. My children. Jurek was six years old. |
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Tell me, please, if you can, once again, where were you born? In Równo. On the sixth, I mean it’s the sixth month, on the ninth. |
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And that is in Wolyn, isn’t it” Yes, in Wolyn. In Równo. Równo in Wolyn. |
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I’d like to come back to the Germans a bit. Volksdeutsches, who were they? Volksdeutsches, volksdeutsches are people converted from Polish to German, you know, such, well, you know. |
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And now, do you have anyone in the family you are happy about? I am happy about all the children [laughs]. I’ve got six of them and I’m happy about all of them [laughs]. |
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Yes, but for example, great-grandchildren maybe or something? Well, my daughter, Stasia is in Germany. And there are two grandchildren, and there is the little one. And I’m happy about them too, but I can’t see them, cause it’s so far away. |
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How many grandchildren have you got? Grandchildren - I’ve got [laughs] fourteen. |
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Thank you very much. Second Interview on 20 June 1999 at Miedzylesie. |
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| Section 8 | How did you meet your husband? Did I have to meet him? [laughs] We were in the same village, we worked together in the same village. |
He lived here? Sure he did, he worked in the same village as I did ... [laughs]. He worked for one farmer, I worked for another for ... only three houses away [laughs]. What more do you need? |
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And how was Christmas celebrated? when you were working for the farmers? How could it be? …normally. I was at mine and he was at his. But ... it was like, like it is in foreign land. When you’re no longer at home, it can never be like home. |
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Did the Germans spend Christmas with... together or separately? No, no, no. I was at my farmers’ and he was at his. |
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Yes, and for example, did you spend Christmas with your hosts or were you separated? Sure I was with mine, I had to, where else? The most we could do we went to church, together, a whole group of us, I mean with other people who... who were working there in that village. Cause there were 10 of, 10 people working in that village. |
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You mean 10 Poles? Ten Poles. And so we gathered together and went. And so I went from one village to another and to church. We went in the morning and came back towards the evening. And the hosts never said a word to us then. We went and we came back, on our own. |
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Who prepared Christmas dishes? Well, the hostess, the German woman. Not me. |
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For some time you lived in Nagodzice. Why did you later move from Nagodzice to Miedzylesie? What was I supposed to do? When they... when we gave up the farm, we had to move somewhere. And Staszek found a flat here, in Miedzylesie, on the outskirts of town, here at number six. And I lived there, above the shop. |
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Why did you have to give up the farm? And who was supposed to work there? I knew nothing about farming. Cause I didn’t originally come from a farming family [laughs]. Only in Germany I found myself at a farmer’s, but I was no farmer myself. So later, when we came back, there was nothing else to do. So we did what ... whatever was available. We got a place to live ... we had a place to live, cause the Germans lived there, when we came, the Germans lived there. And when we arrived, they the place for us, I mean they gave us some rooms and, and we were there. We counted for farmers by then, you know. And they, they were just labourers. And later the Germans left and we took over the place. We stayed here. And so I lived there for five years. Five years I spent in Nagodzice as a farmer. |
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| Section 9 | And here, did you get an appointment for the flat in Miedzylesie or did you have to find it on your own? Not here, Staszek came and saw where empty flats were, and he went to the Town Council, cause there was one already. So he went to them, reported himself, got the flat, registered all the children. And we moved in. When I gave up that other flat, I had to move somewhere [laughs]. And so it was. |
And what did you here ... cause in Nagodzice you had a farm, what did you do in Miedzylesie? Well, Staszek, Staszek got a job in the butchery here. |
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And you? And I stayed at home at first and looked after children. What could I do? Year after year a child ... child after a child after a child, so how can you get a job? What would I have done with the children? So I took up the butchery laundry, I washed for the butchers. And they paid me, I had to wash it, iron, and give back the clothes twice a week. And so, slowly, slowly, Jurek grew up and later he went to the butchery as well. |
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And your husband, did he work only at the butchery? Staszek worked at the butchery all the time. |
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And here, didn’t you keep some animals, I mean some domestic stuff? Well, we did. Oh, yes, we had, down there, we kept pigs, the pigs ... they were sows. And when they farrowed, we sold the young, and we lived like that, slowly. Children, children grew, so you had to live. If we couldn’t sell them, then we would ... we could live somehow, and you had to clothe the children, send them to school later, and all. |
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So where did you keep those children [laughs] those pigs? In the cellar. Oh, what cellars did we use to have… it was like three cellars, not one. There still is one of those cellars isn’t there? There were two more, further. But it was all destroyed, there was another house here, there was door here, and through that door you went from one house to the other. It wasn’t anything like an annexe or anything. It was a proper house. You had to climb three stairs here, and there it was, you went this way. There was a beautiful flat there, but what could you do? Later they took it and ... totally destroyed it, and then they put bricks in the door, and then they demolished it altogether. |
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So it was from number six? From number six you moved here, didn’t you? Yes. Here, upstairs, from the window Jurek is now looking through, from that window we could jump straight on, on, onto the roof of that other house, that’s now demolished. It was a very nice flat there, but they demolished all that, destroyed everything. And here, there was a smoke-room here, there was a stack of straw, hay. It was a smoke-room, there was a coffee burning machine, and things. |
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Who ran all that? Well, in the past, there were such people who did, I mean not Germans but there was someone. Here ... here was a meat processing room, another one, such large shops. Oh, Jesus, how beautiful flats there used to be, everything was here. |
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| Section 10 | But later the smoke-room was closed down, wasn’t it? Well, later, later that smoke-room belonged to us. |
And you used it? Why yes. When we lived upstairs and we had those pigs and so we needed to smoke the meat somewhere, process the meat, and all that. Where would I do it? I did it here. And my old man, the old man he worked at the butchery, but he also would go to people to do the pigs at people’s as well, cause he had to earn money, so many children and things, you had to feed them and clothe them and all. And later I got a job as well. I got a job at a shop. And when I got the job I was out of the home most of the time. And I was, two days, two days I worked in Czechoslovakia [laughs]. To work I ... [laughs] When I started working so much I decided to go Czechoslovakia. I went there to work. Within one day there I got ill, cause, you know, I’ve got that, that bronchitis, and it is very harmful to work in the factory. |
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What factory? Linen factory. After all they’ve got the same textiles as we do. And so, it was in Czechoslovakia and then, I went to work one day. When I returned, when I came back from there, I couldn’t sleep all night, I started coughing like, I thought simply got TB, ha, ha, my old man says you’re not going there any more, and he wouldn’t let me go at all. It had taken me three months to arrange for a job there [laughs]. And I worked there only one day, and laughed at me that the Czechs didn’t even pay me for that day. |
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Were there any problems getting a job? Oh, no. It wasn’t that difficult, you could go to work in a shop, either here or elsewhere ... anywhere at all, it was much easier than it is now. Or you could go to a factory here, but I wanted to, I thought it would be different in Czechoslovakia, different work, different pay. So when I went there, and I couldn’t, then I went to work in a shop and that was it. And then I went to the butcher’s to work, then to the dairy, then to another grocer’s, and then elsewhere and so and so in those shops, all the time until 1982. |
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And your relatives, did they live nearby as well? Did they move or...? My mother and father lived with us ... I mean not far from us. In Nagodzice, they lived in the next village ... I mean they lived next door, not next village. And later my father and my mother we... went to Paczk... to Paczko... yes, to Paczków. They went to Paczków and in Paczków they stayed for a couple of years, and later they went to ... What do you call it? Walbrzych, no, not Walbrzych ... Come on, where do we belong? |
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To Walbrzych. To Walbrzych? Well, then to Walbrzych, exactly. Near Walbrzych, there is such, there is ... What do you call it? Border. There, on the border my brother was then. |
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Did he work there? He didn’t work, cause he was in the army on the border. And he, I mean, I ... I forget the name of the village where ... where they were. And we often ... visited them. Mieroszów. And in that Mieroszów we were, we visited them. And later, they came from there again. From Mieroszów they came to, to Miedzylesie and there they stayed. In Miedzylesie. And they lived in such, you know where, where Sinkowska lives. Here they stayed. |
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| Section 11 | And your brothers and sisters? Well, my sister lived in Dolnik, Zosia ... and them, Janka, ... Janka was a hairdresser, you know. She got married and got a job as a hairdresser. Here she worked as a hairdresser at first, and later, later she went somewhere. I don’t remember all that so well. And Irena got married, and she lived here in Miedzygórze as well. He was a shoemaker, so they, you know, lived, lived, where? Here, you know [coughs], well, there, where money... where currency is ex... exchanged. What do you...? |
Where there’s a currency exchange? Exactly. And there he had his workshop as a shoemaker. My brother-in-law. Irena’s brother, and they lived upstairs. He had this shop downstairs and they lived upstairs. |
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So, your relatives weren’t far away? My relatives were close by later. And Zosia, Zosia lived in Dolnik, and then they ... moved to Paczków as well, and ... and Zosia died. Tadek and Zenek were still small children. I took them to mine, they went to school then. They went to school from here ... they stayed for a while. That’s the way life went on. |
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And what happened to that brother who was left behind in Równo? Well ... I told you ... he was an army man in Gliwice. And later that ... Marysia, I mean his wife with a child came and they ... settled in Warszawa, and from then on they were in one place. |
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But no ... Why did they leave, cause ... from Równo? Cause he couldn’t leave the child and her, alone. |
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Couldn’t he leave with the family? Well, it wasn’t the way it is now. He was a partisan, although I, you know, I don’t remember it so well, whether he was a partisan and was hiding or, or whether he was hiding from the Ukrainians, I don’t know how it was. Yes, all I know he was hiding from the Ukrainians. |
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So he couldn’t simply leave? No, he couldn’t leave. And later, when he found out, you know, that they started forming Polish troops again. Polish Army, you know, he joined the army and ran away with them ... And she was, she was Lithuanian, that wife of his. |
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Did you keep in touch with him? Your brother? And how could you keep in touch with anyone in Germany? To Równo I ... wrote three times, I think, in those three years I wrote three times to Równo. And I got replies, but only that Leon wasn’t at home, that he was enlisted, that he’d left and all. And more or less, I wrote, where is he, you know. But if he was in the army, he never was in one place, here today, there tomorrow, practising, disarming mines and all that. So what else could I learn from them, why else should I write? And then he came, he came to me to Miedzylesie, no, we were still living in Nagodzice when he came to visit us. And he ... he came to us a few times, and with the child he ... he came, later on he had, he had two sons and a daughter, Basia. And so those sons, you knew one of them, didn’t you? Nionek, his son, came here as well. Did I say he had two sons? He had three sons. He had Rysiek, Nionek and Alek. Rysiek got killed by ... bandits killed him in Warszawa. He married an Ukrainian girl, you know. Desperately, this mother of his wanted him to marry an Ukrainian. And he married an Ukrainian, and this Ukrainian girl came to Warszawa, and he wanted to take her out in Warszawa, to show her what fun they have in Warszawa, so he took her to a party. He took her to a party and he never returned from it. They killed him. Killed him and threw him down from upstairs to ... down. Yes. |
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| Section 12 | How long did you spend in Kozle - a year? No, How long did I stay in Kozle? Something around two months, not more. |
And there, where did you live there? Well, in barracks. So how long could you stay there? Well, there [coughs] we started looking for a flat from the very beginning, but all the villages were full of mines, flats were demolished. So what could we do? What could we find? We were simply scared. So we took what was ours and went away. A couple of ... pillows from feather so I could make short clothes for the baby [laughs]. And that was all. And we came here, settled in Nagodzice and so we stayed. What can you do? That’s life. |
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