Elisabeth Panic

"I remember Miller family, he was German. He experienced war in Germany and came back here. Later, the county had to give a permission to come here. As a German he didn’t get it, they didn’t need Germans. So this woman stayed alone with her children. He got married again in Germany, set the family, could nothing else to do. This woman worked really hard in ironworks, it was really hard job and she had 4 children. She had to raise the children up alone. There were lots of such women. Here 90 people died which is more than 9%, almost 10% people who died during the war, it is lots of. They were the men at their prime age, they set the families. They were really hard times for the women".

"That was a very bad day then and it happened already in April. One have barged into the house, totally drunk, the old officer and a 17-18 years old boy with him. He was mad about the clocks and the rings - that was all he wanted. What could be there in April? All that we had was stolen earlier. If we wanted to save our lives, we should give everything, right? He approached my 17years old sister, and here on the corridor, said: ”Give me the clocks, you small German!”, I still remember those words. As she didn’t have them, he hit her in a face but he noticed that she had nothing. So he kept running around. The house looks different now, but here, where the bathroom is there was a kitchen and a tenant’s room and here was a bedroom too. He went to the room where the owner had his 2 pairs of shoes. One pair of everyday shoes and the other pair of officer’s boot, very elegant. He had them hung there. When the soldier saw those boots, took them and calmed down. He came back to us, gave the boots to the younger and told us to marshal. As if he would like to shoot us. But then he just went away. He said not to move but we looked through the window and saw him getting into a car. The small guy handed him the boots and we saw him happy of having them. Fortunately, the boots save our lives as he was so drunk that could do anything. That was the worst memory that I remember directly".

"EP: So I remember that because it was the first year of existing country of Poland here. So we went to a church and on a crossroads were lots of papers written in German. They said we were not the ducks and did not say “3 x yes”. I don’t know what was on the other papers. But they weren’t for “3 x yes”. PR: But was he a priest? EP: No, no, it happened during the night. When we were going to a church the papers were already on a road. It was Sunday and the elections were then. They were such a..I know that some have been suspected but I don’t know what happened with them. I guess they didn’t find them. Anyway it was written still in German not to vote “3 x yes” for communist rule. Then I was too young for that. Well anyway, people then, they had enough of this politics, this war, and generally everyone was afraid to say something. If one said, let’s say, too much against Poland, would be called an enemy. Whereas if one said too much for Poland, then the other would say: “You see how fast he went on the other side?” So it was like no one liked those issues. We were, we felt as the Silesians and we knew we had to subordinate and lived friendly. So I didn’t feel that someone was different from anyone else. In German times it was said that we were Schliesen, and now at school they told us to call ourselves Deutsche. It was when all those parties arouse. People were feeling more familiar, because it was Silesia, and saint Jadwiga, you know, she was a Silesian duchess, and Silesia was a wonderful duchy then so the people were proud of being Silesians. Silesia was, as one who studies History knows, passing from Czech to Austria, and then to Prussia. So it was passing from hand to hand and people were subordinating. The faith and work was important for them. Politics and such things, people weren’t keen on that".