Halina Niedobová

“My father was back then returning from a night shift across a forest and not far from the house he met a familiar policeman, a German who still had a heart, and he told him to get back because they would shoot him. Back then, they shot at least one of the Stoszeks and they set their house on fire. We saw it on fire. Our dad had not returned from work yet. And then we saw Gestapo officers marching in pairs after a job well done. (I mean it) in the figurative sense. Dad had not returned yet. We were absolutely frightened what had happened to him. Then he came. If the police officer had not warned him and if he had gone on, he would not have been there. I can still very clearly remember how proud they were when they were marching around our windows. “

“It was a few days before Christmas. It was already the evening. My aunt and her three children were living with us at grandmother´s. Their dad, my aunt´s husband was sent to a concentration camp on the same day as our dad. He was also a teacher. Many of them were sent there that day. We were sitting in the kitchen and my mother turned pale: ‘But dad used to whistle like this!‘ She went out and did not return for a long time. Then she came back, told us that dad really returned but that he could not immediately come to see us because he had to have a bath first. There was no bathroom in the house, but we had a laundry room in the outbuilding where she heated water for him. When he undressed, they had to burn all his clothes because if was full of lice. And only after it he came. I will not describe the joy. It was pure. We were happy and so was he. And he looked nice. It is important. But he only looked nice for three days, then it went down. They had injected them something so that they would get swollen and they would not scare people that they returned emaciated from the concentration camp. Then he was skin and bone.”

“We as the whole family had to present ourselves in an office in 1940. I do not know the name of the office, I was too little at that time. I know that they examined what colour of eyes and hair we had and if we were suitable for Germanic race. We were standing in a hall and there were many people there. Then we went to a counter where they looked at dad, asked him some questions and then they said that everything was all right that he could be Nordic race. It might not have been said exactly like that but they told him that he could get a Volkliste and they asked him if he wanted it. And I can exactly remember what he told them. He said it in dialect. ‘I was born Pole and I will stay Pole.‘ I did not know what it was about I only remembered it.”