Tag #157495 - Interview #100414 (Michal Warzager)

We lived peacefully in the village – our relations with the Poles and Germans were fine. Everyone was amicable. They brought sewing work to my father; sometimes they’d get together in the evenings for a smoke and a chat. At harvest time they’d ask us to help out – they’d ask us, not make us! When they were mowing, they needed someone to make twine and to tie and stack the sheaves. And if there were two or three very dry days, they’d ride up with the horses and I’d help load the sheaves onto the wagon. After that I’d help with the threshing; I walked behind one of the horses. Four horses were harnessed to a treadmill, and I’d be behind one horse and another boy behind another. That was when someone had a thresher. If they didn’t have one, they’d use flails for threshing, like one poor German I used to help. We helped because there was no way to refuse – people would have talked otherwise. There was only one German who harassed us – a forester. We’d go to the forest for brushwood, because peat was a big problem – we started digging peat later, and anyway then you had to wait for it to dry, carry it home and pay for it too. So we went to the forest for wood. We had to sneak in by a roundabout route, because that forester saw everything from his window.