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The town on the other side was called Krasnosvoboda [correctly: Krasnoslobodsk]. And where to go now? Neither do I know anyone here, nor do I have anything with me. Nothing to eat, nothing to drink, and I'm sleepy. I went straight ahead, there was some bulrush, a meter taller than myself, I hid there and fell asleep.
I wake up in the morning, some soldier calls me, 'Pan! Z Polshchy?' [Sir! You from Poland?]. 'Da!' I say. 'To davay!' [Come on then!]. We got together. 'What do you have in the rucksack? 'A bit of whole meal flour. But I have no spichky, matches.' 'I have some.' We filled a 'kotielok,' a pot, with water from a creek. It smelled badly, but we were hungry.
He says, 'We'll make fire, only God forbid us from setting the bushes on fire.' We walked for half a day to leave the bushes behind us, lest we set them on fire, it was a steppe. We finally found a place, some Russian passed, a Kyrgyz woman came up. 'Parinyok, chto vy dyelayetye? [What are you doing here, boys?]. I say, 'Kushat dyelayem' [Cooking a meal]. 'Podozhditye!' [Wait!]. She gave us a piece of bread, dug it out of a piece of cloth.
We're walking through the shrubs, day and night. We finally reached a road. No vehicle, no train, no railroad, what to do? They caught us again and conscripted us into a unit. They didn't ask who, what, just caught us. Gathered fifty runaways whose units had been broken up.
I wake up in the morning, some soldier calls me, 'Pan! Z Polshchy?' [Sir! You from Poland?]. 'Da!' I say. 'To davay!' [Come on then!]. We got together. 'What do you have in the rucksack? 'A bit of whole meal flour. But I have no spichky, matches.' 'I have some.' We filled a 'kotielok,' a pot, with water from a creek. It smelled badly, but we were hungry.
He says, 'We'll make fire, only God forbid us from setting the bushes on fire.' We walked for half a day to leave the bushes behind us, lest we set them on fire, it was a steppe. We finally found a place, some Russian passed, a Kyrgyz woman came up. 'Parinyok, chto vy dyelayetye? [What are you doing here, boys?]. I say, 'Kushat dyelayem' [Cooking a meal]. 'Podozhditye!' [Wait!]. She gave us a piece of bread, dug it out of a piece of cloth.
We're walking through the shrubs, day and night. We finally reached a road. No vehicle, no train, no railroad, what to do? They caught us again and conscripted us into a unit. They didn't ask who, what, just caught us. Gathered fifty runaways whose units had been broken up.
Period
Location
Krasnosvoboda
Russia
Interview
Mieczyslaw Najman