Walentyna Suryn

"There was a very interesting meeting with German farmers who still lived there. My first impression was very unpleasant, because the Germans, which is understandable, met us with dislike, like usurpers, invaders on their land. But we understood their situation, because we experienced a similar thing in the east, because people were also coming after us from the east, from Minsk, and other more distant Belarusian, Soviet, or Russian places. We stopped for a while with my sister and brother-in-law and could look around slowly for an appropriate farm for us. And I remember such an unpleasant, but apparently conciliatory meeting with a German farmer, a bauer. He just came to us and proposed us to take his farm. I remember the bauer was called Ikert, I remember his name. A fairly nice old man. We went with my husband, he thoroughly showed us his agricultural land, land under cultivation and meadows. Because the land located on the Noteć River, or rather the farms, earned their living on cattle breeding, because there were beautiful rich meadows there. So he thoroughly showed us around, showed where the boundaries were, the fields were all sown. It was sad. I know it was very difficult for him, he put on a brave face, but it was hard for him, it is understandable. Then we went into his small house, women were sitting there. Women are more emotional about everything, are affected, so they simply did not want to talk to us. Perhaps our German really was not so articulate, sophisticated. I learned German for five, or seven years, I could communicate, so I started... There was an old lady and a young woman sitting, her husband served at the front, she was waiting for him to come back home. It was an interesting meeting. I somehow managed to communicate with those German women and they somehow calmed down, started to show me where they had their supplies made from summer fruit, even offered me some, they told me how they had made it, I pretended to be interested in everything. I remember, the German man said why he came to us and proposed that farm to us. Because he wanted to know and remember who stayed in that farm. He even took our name and surname, ours … and said that it would be nice for him because “you are teachers, so I expect you will work honestly” and honestly will not destroy all their possessions which they had left. "

"We went into town to see how that German town looked like. Everything was wide open, open shops, but almost empty. Some nails, hinges, it was like that. Drawers in the shops wide open and only nails, hinges, some frames, everything scattered. Because – when the Polish troops entered, all those villagers from Pęckowo, Drawsko, Chełst, from all sides, started to pillage, there was no getting away from it, and they robbed all shops, all the shops were robbed. Only nails and those hinges were left for us, some wires. I could not see any clothes, and there must have been different shops: “Hey! There is washing powder and washing soda!” “Where?” And he says: “Near the church.” So off we went and in the yard, across from the church, we looked there, and that was true. We did not have washing powder for a long time then. It was hard, everything was dirty, because we were travelling ten days, or something like that. And we did not have any soap, or washing powder. We came in, and there was the whole yard covered with feathers: “What the hell? Where is that powder then?” “Look for it in the feathers!” So we got covered with feathers there and started to dig around in those feathers. And it turned out that the soldiers who were retreating, Soviet and German soldiers perhaps, split German feather quilts open searching for buried treasure. And those feathers covered the entire yard. And we, repatriates, all in feathers, were looking for soap. We were looking and we found sacks of soap and powder. No, there was no powder, only soda. But that was what we wanted. We searched around, where to put it? There were paper sacks, so we took them and the feathers, we took the feathers away on us, and down to the sacks of soda and soap. These were our conquests! And we dragged like that to that stopping place of ours, in the square. The hero was the one who had more feathers on."

"I remember that year, it was 1945, it was such a warm autumn that my nephew was ploughing already post-German soil in the filed. They were ploughing and sowing. We settled on that farm, we missed our life. The Germans were being displaced and the Germans whose farm we inherited were crying, saying goodbye. They said their only solace was they knew who came after them, who inherited it, that they expected those people were honest and would respect their work. The land was sown … And one interesting thing. There were sown fields and there was sugar beet. The German woman showed me a small jar and said: “We make beet syrup.” Because it was made there, not only by the Germans. And we did not do it, we sowed beet root for the cattle, it was not actually beet root but mangold, and these were sugar beets. A beautiful patch. We took out those potatoes. The German woman told me how they made it and we made that beetroot syrup. It was beautiful like molasses, so thick. I still have it, I gave it to everyone in a small bottle, because that syrup is already sixty years old."

"After half a year of our stay the Germans were displaced to the west, to Germany. There were very unpleasant moments, very unpleasant, because Soviet soldiers did not always behave morally. There were plunders, rapes. I remember, there was a young lady, a daughter who was so scared to go alone to her girlfriend who still lived in one of the houses and always asked me to take her, because she was scared. These were unpleasant moments. There was one more very unpleasant thing, when the granddad with the grandma and the young woman after that soldier with three kids just left our farm, the one we took. I do not remember how they went to the stations in Krzyż. But the following day they came back crying and said that “Soviet soldiers robbed” them and they had no shoes, nothing, and “in the attic”, they said, “we still have”, like everywhere there was always something left in the attic. So they asked us if they could go to the attic. I told them: “It is all yours. Come in and take what you need.” So they took those old shoes, put them on, found some old jackets. They got dressed as they could, with what they could find. And then they really went to the station on foot or by some wagon, I do not remember and all went to Germany by train. Later on they sent some messages, because they cared very much about how that farm of theirs was doing. So we sent messages through their soldiers, too."