"It was the end of the word. The end of the road. There were five large barracks where they kept us in. Everyone found a little corner for themselves. One barrack had allocated beds the others just two entrances, first and second one. On the both sides of the barracks there were bunks with wooden bolster on beds, long corridor in the middle and a brazen stove so we could cook. Just then typhus spread. We had a gamekeeper, he was kind of a guard. It was forbidden to leave the place without permission. It was eight kilometers to the next commune. The place was divided into parts – eighth kilometer, sixth kilometer and then third (this was a commune) and etc.. There were barracks on the third kilometer, on the 6th there was a canteen and a few more barracks and then on the eighth kilometer were only five barracks. At the eight kilometer the typhus was started. Hell started here. They put all of us together there… Lice…and everything were there. People started to suffer. They turned one barracks into a hospital. The people were dying in numbers! Me and my mum were also suffering. Dad and my brother managed to avoid it in some way. Me and my mum were down with an illness but finally in some way we managed to recover. Immediately the Poles found some small hill covered with birches. They set up the cemetery there. They started to bury the deceased. The crosses were made from birches. Soon, the whole hill was full of crosses. People were really dying in numbers! We had no medicine. Everything was taken for the war effort. Only one nurse was there, but what was she able to do …? Those that survived – survived, those that did not, they went on the hill.
Shortly after, they made a shop, and started to bring some food ( we had to eat something, we had no food, no money, nothing). They used to bring some pearl barley in the sacks and bread also. They made a list of families and family members – the amount of grain and other food per person. We had to go there to collect it. One of our ladies was serving it. If we went quite far away, first we would meet the gamekeeper to ask for permission. He lived in a small house which was some kind of dug-out. After that, we could leave the place. If somebody asked on the way we had to have had permission with us. We then came back to the barracks".
"We had servants at home. For example for harvest time, often fifty, sixty people were coming from the mountain. Everything was cut with a sickle. There was no scythe, so we had to cope with a sickle. There was lots of work in harvest time. People were sleeping in a haystack. They used to bring some clothes or took some from us. This is how they were sleeping. Two or three people often stayed to prepare food, dinner or something… The same people used to work every year. For every day activities we had permanent servants. Mum wasn’t able to cope with everything at home. She used to stay in the kitchen, or with the kids. The cows had to be milked and groomed and the pigs had to be fed. Everyone had their own duties – with cows, horses and pigs. We kept people for help because we would never manage to keep the farm in good condition by ourselves. Most of those people were Ukrainian families. Mum and Day weren’t bad for the people. They paid as they should. Mum helped them a lot – they often got fresh milk to take home. We had milk and everything else! A lady who used to help, always took some milk or bread, butter or lard. When pigs were killed, we put fat into the barrel and we salted it. Nobody used to melt it. We kept salted pork fat in barrels and people would take it as they wanted. I can’t say that my parents ever exploited anybody. People were fine with the job. That’s why everyone craved for work. If we had any odd jobs, it was enough to let them know and they would appear. Sometimes they also were buying things, and Poles as well. Often, Ukrainians married Polish women or Poles married foreigners. There were mixed marriage there. Ukrainian people sown the fields with the flax and the hemp. Then women spun, made hand-knit cloth and sewed at the end: clothes, and finally made embroidered shirts. Every woman had their own embroidered outfit of clothes ready for church".
"The Jew came and said ‘Mrs. Popławska, the front line is going to be here so you must be moved away’. He added: ‘But you’ve got a weapon’ ( my mum actually had it). My mum answered: ‘I returned it to headquarters. There was an announcement so we returned it.’ But he said: ‘It’s not true. We have a record and your name is missing here. If you don’t give it back something bad could happen’. He took me and my brother and placed us next to the wall telling us we might be executed. Then my father said to my mum: ‘Bring it and give it to them’. My mum went to take it and the Jew followed her to find out where it was. She returned the weapon. They were watching for her not to take any valuable things with us. They said: ‘Don’t bother taking anything’. They just threw the bedding and sheets outside the house because she wasn’t able to think clearly. She started to dress me and my brother because it was winter then. She took whatever she could from the wardrobe and wrapped it in a blanket. They were carrying all the staff outside the house. There was a lot of crying and despair but we had nothing to say. Russian watched us, standing with a gun on his arm. He didn’t say a word. The Jew made the rules."
She was born on 24 May, 1934 in Obertyn (stanisławowski district). Her mother came from Szczurów (małopolskie district) and her father was born in Kubajówka, not far from Obertyn. Czesława Wałkiewicz‘s father died when she was four. Her mother married again to her second husband, who was distant relative. Czesława Wałkiewicz and her siblings grew up on her parents‘ big farm in Obertyn. Soon after the war started on 10 February 1940, the whole family was exiled to Lesozawód in Irkutsk Oblast . Czesława Wałkiewicz‘s brother was the only who stayed in Kolomyia, where he used to attend school. In Siberia, her stepfather worked in a sawmill and her mother was employed as a spinner. Shortly after Czesława Wałkiewicz‘s stepfather was took to serve in the army. In 1946, when the war ended, Czeslawa Wałkiewicz, her mother and sibling came back to Polish land. She lived in Poznań for a while, then in Silesia, where she managed to find her stepfather. The whole family settled in Osiczyn, near Krzyż, where the family‘s uncle lived. At first they shared a house with a German family. When the Germans left, Czesława Wałkiewicz‘s family took over the flat and set up a farm here. Czesława Wałkiewicz attended school in Krzyż and where she completed the fifth and sixth year of education. After school she took up a job in the Forest Inspectorate in Busko. She completed one more year of the School of Forestry in Wologorze and passed the final exam that let her work in the forest inspectorate office. Czesława Wałkiewicz also managed to pass, hunting exam in Poznań. Meanwhile she met her future husband. As the Forest Inspectorate went downhill, she decided to leave the job in Krzyż. Together with her husband, they went to Warsaw where his family was living. At the beginning they used to live with the family but soon moved to the flat in the Brudno quarter. Czeslawa Wałkiewicz helped in her cousin‘s shop until she retired. She still lives in Warsaw.
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