Ryszard Gaik

"Dad was handcuffed, with his hands on his back, and his face was different. He was beaten up; there were bruises and blood clots. Meaning he had been interrogated. And Dad saw Mum and nodded that it was bad. Well, they noticed it right away; they pulled my mum away. Of course, they were all guarded. That was the last time mum saw her husband, our dad. We had no idea what happened next. We did not know where they were, whether they held them somewhere locally or had taken them away. On 8th January 1940, we get an original postcard from Ostashkov: “My dearest, I am in the camp in Ostashkov. I’m doing very well, how are my children doing? I miss them so much; I miss you so much. I love you so much. At the end. Trust that I’ll be back”. Of course, that was a lie; it was not true at all. “I’m doing very well” – who could be doing well there? We have heard a lot of different things. And that was the last time we heard from our dad."

"It was incredibly, incredibly hard. Hunger, diseases, various insects were eating us up. Anyway. Insects I am not going to list, on eyelids, in our ears, all over our heads, under armpits, everywhere. And all the straw on the floors. Well, in the summer, it was a bit better because when it was summer, we threw that straw and sawdust out, and we padded this floor with… let’s call it, grass. And this changed a lot, and it was somewhat more pleasant. And it was going on for a while. The winters were the worst because there was nothing to burn in the winter. (…) We went to the Turpak family, who offered us sympathy. Mrs Turpak had three adult sons, they were very musical, and they were drafted as well. She could not cope with that, and she liked to talk to our mum. And mum always comforted her, even though she was in a difficult situation herself, but she always told her: “Don’t worry, your sons will come back, the war will end.” And she said: Gala, how do you know, and someone told mum – take the cards and tell her fortune. Somebody there had cards."

"One day, the time had come, and we got on a train to Zgorzelec. We were put on that train, and we went through Wrocław. In Wrocław, the train stopped at the main station, and people got off. And they said – “Where are you going? Why are you going to Zgorzelec? Wrocław is a big city! Get out!” And we had Zgorzelec on our evacuation card, and we got off in Wrocław. And what about Wrocław… There was an information point in Wrocław, it was very well-organised, it was all very interesting. It turned out that there was this Repatriation Office on Paulińska Street, and they told everybody to go to this Repatriation Office, the State Repatriation Office. And we got there, through the ruins of Wrocław – it was all destroyed at the time. So, we got there, and we were admitted to the State Repatriation Office, even though we were supposed to go to Zgorzelec, but somehow, we managed. We were little kids, mum started crying and pleading, and they let us stay. We were there for… I don’t know, 2-3 weeks, maybe 2. Anyway, we waited because Poles were given flats here in Wrocław. One day, we were given a flat in Kowale (…). Well, one day before Christmas, they packed us on a truck with three families."

"I remember everything was reduced to rubble. I have to say that they drove us from Paulińska Street to Kowale for almost two hours because they drove us over the rubble, over everything. And the fighting started because it took us two hours to get there. The road there was covered with ruins. Some of the buildings were still smouldering. There was smoke and a nasty smell everywhere. The Grunwaldzki Square was turned into a big market square, the Plunder Square. It stretched from Grunwaldzki Square all the way up to Grunwaldzka Street, and there was rubble everywhere. And people came there from all over Poland and traded everything they had. And everything could be exchanged; it was all about exchanging goods. For example, my mother and her neighbours would go from Kowale to Grunwaldzki Square and take things from our house left behind by the Germans to exchange for some flour, sugar or bread, because we had no money, so she would take some porcelain, some paintings. Whatever she could find. And then she would exchange them. There were people, traders from all over Poland, and they would take everything. They brought some butter or sugar or water or other things – foodstuffs in general, and they would exchange them. That’s what it looked like after the war, but the rubble was everywhere. Not enough. Not enough yet."

"There weren’t any conflicts there, not until the war started (...). At that point, everything changed. And what’s more, we had a Ukrainian friend - Fiodor, he was older than us. He would come to us, and he helped us a lot. He was a boy from the village, and we had good relations with these Ukrainian farmers. It wasn’t until the war started that. Only then this tragedy began. Only then they started the conflict with us."

"And I have to say (...) there were a lot of Jews in Święty Józef and Korszów. Święty Józef was a big village. There were five stores – that’s a lot for a village, there was a school, a monastery, a church, a municipal office. It was a big village. There were people of other nationalities there, too. Ukrainians, of course. And we all lived in harmony. There were no divisions or rifts between us until the war. Not only that, when we lived in Korszów, there were a lot of Jews there. They ran their businesses, restaurants, some other things, tailoring and so on. So, we used their services all the time. There was this Jew, he had a restaurant, his name was Mociek, that’s what they called him. We used to go dine at Mociek’s restaurant. (...) I remember that he made amazing, pickled herring, and dad really liked this marinated herring. And he would always say: Felek, come for a herring today. And dad would sometimes take all of us, and we’d go for that herring. And Felek, take another one because I brought a new one here. I brought it, and I made it especially for you."