Brygida Wornowska

* 1946

  • "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".

  • "The worst slime entered here. They got a bag of dry bread, a club and told them to go ahead. They entered to this wooden house and drank moonshine until passing out. At the end they set the house on fire. Father begged them not to do that and they said: - You stupid? There are so many empty houses - go there and you will live in a nicer house. Finally he somehow obtained it by entreaty and extinguished the fire. They raped horribly. My 17 years old sister had to sit in the basement constantly. She was hiding in the some holes and the mother was covering her with old carpets. It was horrible. It was riff-raff, the ones who came here".

  • "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".

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    Bartąg, 08.08.2012

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    délka: 02:03:41
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu German Minority in Czechoslovakia and Poland after 1945
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My father said he would not take his ID, as he would never be a citizen of Poland

She was born on April 13th, 1946 in Bartąg, where she has lived untill today and where she went to school. Ms. Brygida had five siblings - one child died as an infant, one brother was killed on the Eastern Front during World War II. Her parents had a farm. Father was a butcher and ran a shop in the market in Bartąg, mother was a housewife. Just before the war, father of Ms Brygida was sent to prison for saying unfavorable things about Hitler. After entering Bartąg, Russians wanted to burn down the home of Ms Brygida.The father of Ms Brygida managed to save it with difficulty. After the war, the whole family stayed in Poland. Ms. Brygida quickly learned Polish and graduated from High School. Only occasionally she experienced reluctance on the part of the Polish environment. Her father, however, was a frequent subject of harassment. He had never accepted the Polish ID card. She still lives in Bartąg.