Brygida Wornowska

"I had comfortable conditions because I had a sister six years older than me. She went to school in 1967. If I did not know something, she always helped me. She was capable and she coped somehow. She did not know the language but as she went to school it was fine. Only once she had trouble with math but mom  helped her. Only tat thing was that when you say in German for example eighty-seven in Polish you say seventy-eight. I remember that once the sister came back home and said to my mother: - I had all wrong. You told me wrong. It turned out that she wrote like her mother said".

"After the war, under Stalin's rule a man who was looking for work came to us. There was no peasant with us, and my father was no longer young. But  the father said: - He is suspicious. He was very careful not to listen to Radio Free Europe or to saying anything when that man was around. He said: - He has no work-worn hands. Some time he was with us, and suddenly, one night he was gone. He left only a small piece of paper that he thanks us. If something had been going on in our place, we would have got twenty-five years".

"Then there was also the matter with the identity cards. My father said he would not take his ID, as he would never be a citizen of Poland and would not change his nationality. Functionaries of Department of Security or the police were coming by and telling us that we have to apply for the ID. They were coming in the morning, during the day, in the evening, at noon. Every moment someone was here. Once we blocked the door and hid in the corner, and they ran around the house and looked through the windows. I remember it, so I had to already be quite grown-up. During one of these days of bullying us, my mom says: - Just shoot us and it will be done Then I started crying, because I thought they would really shoot us. I will never forget it. I do not know why they were doing it, because in the end everyone got this ID".

"Nothing like that ever happened to me, and I was never hiding. I went to work when I was eighteen. I have a colleague, with whom I went to high school. Later she stayed at the university. I am still in touch with her. She has always said to me: - Glory to you Brygida, because you were always yourself. My friend at work wondered what it would be if the previous times came back. Someone said that I would be a boss. I say that maybe yes, but I'd be good and I would explain everything".