Reinhold Wornowski
* 1939
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"Rich people from Olsztyn brought us some boxes for safekeeping. We do not know what was in those boxes. The Russians smashed them. Perhaps there was an SS uniform in there. Immediately, they took father to the pigsty with a gun and started counting down, so that the father gives them some clocks. He begged them and said that he had nothing. Then we laid in beds because we were cold. Mother was just waiting for the shot. The others were with us at that time and they have driven her into the corner. Finally, one Russian came back from the pigsty, poked the other and immediatelythey became better people. It turned out that the father had met them before. Since there were no cars, my father had a very elegant britschka with lamps and a decorative harness. He realised that they had taken it from him before. Then they left us and went on, to a neighbor. My father had just gone to a neighbor to ask if he had some kind of a pump, but he saw that they were just there, so he turned back, these three hundred meters, and quickly came back to the house".
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"He reached Frankfurt on the Oder in the GDR by this train. Mr Piwek from Bartąg and Mr Houman from Uniszew were with him. The three of them decided to come back home together. They got here by freight trains. They got off in Uniszew. They crawled to the house where Mr Houman's sister lived. The next day dad came back home. There is five kilometres from our place to Uniszew but the journey took him several hours. Along the road, apart from the trees there were lots of the stones. During this trip he just changed moved from one stone to another. Our house was five hundred meters off the road. As my dad was getting closer to home, we look, and there was a boy waving to us and screaming. Nobody knew what was going on. As he was closer we could hear that he called his wife, mother and his mother. We all ran and saw our father. He was full of lice and weighed only forty-something kilograms. Luckily he was short, because the big men were dying like flies. At home, there was nothing to eat. Soon he began to swell. Thankfully, there was no food because that would probably poison him. The body was not used to such things. Widows came to us and asked him if he knew what had happened to their husbands. There had been so many people that he did not remember. There were a lot of friends but he didn't know who's coming back. Only Mr Piwek and he came back. Other neighbors perished".
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"How come you don't know? - wondered the teachers. During the breaks we spoke in German. In a class there were maybe two Poles who came from Vilnius. The teacher was saying something, but no one knew what she meant. The first teachers were some women from the railway. Everyone said that they are the wives of railwaymen, so they do not know much. Russians burned down the school in Szobruk. Then Kordalski came and tried to rebuild the school. They have started to build it, and soon we moved there. All the time everyone spoke German there. Only lessons were given in Polish. Many times Kordalski said to my father to speak Polish at home. And he was wsaying: - How? With whom? As no one can ...
Once I was scolded for not writing. I'm saying that I do not have tynty. Tynty, that means ink. The teacher shouted: - At home your father does not want to accept the identity card! At home, you're talking only in German! When I came back home, I told about it. My father jumped up, got dressed and went to the director. The director was his equal. I do not know what happened, but he spoke with him".
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Full recordings
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Bartąg, 09.08.2012
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During the breaks we spoke in German. In a class there were maybe two Poles who came from Vilnius The teacher was saying something, but no one knew what she meant
He was born on 24th November 1939 in Szobruk. His parents ran a 20-hectares farm there. He had seven brothers, the only sister lived for just nine days. After the Russian invasion, the family tried to escape but it ended up encountering Soviet soldiers in the neighboring village. Wornowscy returned home. In March 1945, Mr. Reinhold’s father was deported by the Russians to the Ural mountains, but he was able to return home soon. Shortly after the war, there were only two hens and burnt down barn burnt at the farm, but the family decided to rebuild the buildings, purchase more land and farm machines. His father was subjected to harassment by the new government (interrogation before the referendum in 1947, the penalty for lack of Polish identity card). Many years of effort to go to Germany ended in success only in 1978. Mr. Reinhold’s father decided to go to Germany which meant the loss of property. Mr. Reinhold remained in Poland, worked in building branch at the University of Warmia - Mazury. He lives in Bartąg.
