Elżbieta Lobert

"In Denmark we were living in guarded barracks, surrounded by the barbed wire. There was no exit or anything like this. One room was inhabited by ten people. We had no idea how Poland looked at the time. We were thinking that nothing had really changed there. They used to speak Polish and it was all right. We used to live all together. After we had received that letter, with the help of the Red Cross, we were driven to have some photos of us taken. We had to do it, otherwise we would not be able to leave. All the paperwork was completed very quickly and we received the documents we needed We were taken to an international camp, which was located in a sports hall. There – it was freedom. It was finally allowed to go out and we also received some packages. They contained some of the things we had not seen in years. The packages contained: chocolate, cigarettes, sausage. We did not even have any clothes because all the stuff was left in Olsztyn. Neither me nor my mother brought anything with us. Just after a few days it turned out that there are transports back to Poland: - Please get ready to leave. This way we left that paradise and arrived in Gdańsk. We were received by the army. They registered our names. My mother was shouted at, she was told what kind of mother did not teach her daughter to speak Polish".

"In the meanwhile I was studying, graduated from a university and got a job. My first workplace was in Górów Iłowiecki. This period of my live brings happy memories. There were a lot of very good people in that place. Afterwards, when I graduated from a university I was looking for a job in Olsztyn. I got a job in the Department of Education. In the old times, or maybe even today it [the local authorities] used to be divided like this: the district of Olsztyn and the city of Olsztyn. I used to work in the inspectorate, in the Department of Education of the district of Olsztyn. My position was the head of the kindergarten section. I had to take part in different kinds of audits and attend meetings. It lasted five years. It was required to go there by train to Baczew. Truth to be told, the train schedules were decent back then but still I had to take a ride and then from the train station walk for a long time to get to the Presidium. So I thought that I would try to get a job in Olsztyn. I was accepted for the same position there. I had spent five years in Baczew and then three years in Olsztyn. The job was rather hard. After all, it was working with people. And the people were different then they are nowadays. Meanwhile, next to a children’s hospital on Wyspiańskiego street a new school was established and so I applied there. I was one of the founding organizers of the school. I was in charge of a kindergarten. In 1968 a new hospital was built and it exists until today. We relocated and I had been working there until I retired. Working there was fine. I was quite young when I retired, because I took advantage of a moment when it was possible to retire at the age of fifty. I have been retired since 1979".

"It was peaceful and everything was OK when suddenly on the 19th of January 1945 – the first bombing of Olsztyn. My mother and also my father lived in Olsztyn. My father worked in a railway company. That day my mother with our neighbour walked down the hill to the place where I was staying and everything was fine. The bombing lasted throughout Friday and Saturday. On Sunday it was peaceful. The evacuation had already begun and they told us to leave. The farmers did not want to leave their land and their livestock so I also kept saying: No, no, I will not go. Kieśliny was at the front line. They were some fights there. My aunt – my father’s sister started killing her ducks and geese and cooked them. Everyone was getting ready to leave".