[…] I just graduated from school, I completed only seventh grade and the war broke out. And I had to stay at home. At Polish school, we had German language lessons, one hour a week. But I didn’t attend them […] many of us didn’t. I preferred to play football in the garden. Later, under German occupation, it would be useful. I remember I showed (Germans) off. One woman, a dressmaker taught me how to sew. And they, those Upper Silesian, denounced me that I was unemployed […] And Germans informed me that I must turn up in an office in Frysztat (currently a district of Karvina, Czech Republic). Therefore, I went there and they ordered me to work on the railway. I thought: - 'Probably I must have an pick axe or hoe?' I went to Zebrzydowice. There was a translator who translated everything they said in German and everything I said into German. They told that I am slim, tall and smart […] I understood everything. I quickly learnt to speak German, such words as: essen, schlafen, singen, tanzen, springen. They told that I could be a conductress. Fine […] And she translated that. And she told me that I can go but must come back tomorrow. I got a ticket to Bogumin and I had to fasten steam locomotives, carriages and […] what were they called? Switches. And I understood... And when they had explained everything, I said: Danke schoen! (Thank you very much) - Was? Sie kennen Deutch! (What? You can speak German?) – I answered: Ja, ich lerne mich (Yes, I’m learning) - Schön. Das lernen wir zusammen arbeiten (Fine. We will learn together how to work (?) And fine. - Jawohl! Das freu mich. (Yes! I’m glad) And: - Heil Hitler!"
"[…] My brother was taken to the army. It was close to the border with France. I arrived there from Marklowice (a neighbouring village). I was 15. The trip started in Zebrzydowice at 8 pm and I arrived at Berlin at 6 am. I didn’t have to change trains but train had many stopovers. When there were no lights, the train had to stop. I arrived at Berlin, from Berlin to Dresden and from Dresden to Essen. And then I changed trains. I was fifteen, I had a suitcase."
"[…] It was a German name, everyone had to change German names. My uncle’s surname was 'Hermann' and he had to change it to 'Wieczorek' to get a job on the railway. There were many people who changed everything, surnames. Soon after the war, they didn’t want Germans, to hear about them. Oh well, waste of breath."
Wanda (Berta) Wija, nee Nachły, was born on April 24, 1925 in Zebrzydowice which was a part of Cieszyn district. She was raised in a peasant family, professing Catholicism. Her father, Antoni Nachły, born in Strumien in Cieszyn Silesia and her mother, Emilia Nachły nee Walica, coming from Zaolzie, run two-hectare farm. Berta changed her name to Wanda after the World War II. She had four siblings: Maria, Antoni, Karol and Olga. Nachły family lived in Zebrzydowice, on the border with former Prussian annexed territory, near Cisówka. Before an outbreak of the war, Wanda graduated from seven-year Polish primary school in Zebrzydowice. Denounced as unemployed by the residents of neighbouring village, she was ordered to work on the railway in Zebrzydowice and she worked as a conductress on the route from Cieszyn to Jastrzębie-Zdrój for 5 years. Her brother Antoni was enlisted into Wehrmacht and sent to Nordheim near Heilbronn, where fifteen-year-old Wanda visited him, travelling alone by train through Berlin, Dresden and Essen. Wanda‘s family did not evacuate in the spring of 1945 and she was a witness of a combat between German and Soviet armies in Zebrzydowice commune. She remembers cruel behaviour of soldiers of the Red Army: plunders, devastations and rapes. She barely escaped rape. After the war, Wanda considered leaving abroad to a Dutchman - Jan. She finally married a miner from Kończyce Małe, Adolf (who later changed his name to Tadeusz) Wija. They married on January 11, 1949 and later stayed in Adolf‘s family house with his parents. Wanda helped to run a farm and raised of her children. When she was 45 years old, her husband died tragically in 1970. Wanda usually speaks only Cieszyn Silesian dialect. She also speaks Czech, Russian and German and she even knows a few sentences in Romanian. She lives with her son Erwin in Kończyce Małe.
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