Vladislav Rejsa

“When we were still in Potsdam, in the camp, in forty-two, the massive air raids started from the West. They flew over Potsdam, over our camp, to Berlin. They bombed Berlin. We always watched. And then at the end, about a month before the Ruskies were to come, they bombed Potsdam. They blew the camp to smithereens, there were bombs everywhere, unexploded ones - many did explode, but many didn’t. But we survived. They chucked them all around, mostly into the woods because the camp was by the forest. Their mission was to destroy the industry, the train station in Potsdam. Well, the whole place was in ruins.”

“In the meantime I kept applying for them to let me move. They refused twice, the military didn’t want to let me go. I even married there, I wedded my wife, she was half Czech. Her mother was Czech and her father was Ukrainian. In fifty-five, with my application, when I applied again to be allowed to go here, they only gave me a three-month leave. We came to have a look what it’s like here. We wanted to stay, but they didn’t allow it, the Russian embassy, so we had to go back again, in fifty-six. It wasn’t until four years later that they processed our request and we could move here for good. In 1960.”