大象传媒

The following story appears courtesy of and with thanks to Marushka (Maria) and Zygmunt Skarbek-Kruszewski and George (Jurek) Zygmunt Skarbek.

Once again the winter has come - 1942/43. In our house on the hill the white shutters were again rattling in the cold wind. On the cold, misty mornings I took my saw and we went into the forest to cut wood, half for us and half for export to the Reich.
In the evenings, as before, I used to sit on the old couch in front of the fire which illuminated the room with a red glow, but my little Jurek did not play in front of me on the carpet. I was alone. The family were in Kaunas where I delivered them milk and food. The highway was not empty. I did not meet my transports; nor Soviet prisoners driven in long columns. The Front was far away. The fight near Stalingrad seemed to come to an end. Now the Russians were taking German war prisoners.
Jurek always met me at the front door. While I was unpacking my milk can he climbed on the pushbike and, furiously dinging the bike bell, announced my arrival. After tea, making sure all the doors were locked, I sat by the radio. Listening to the voice from London was punishable by death.
But Jurek was always with me. "Wait, wait daddy, I will switch on the radio." Climbing on my knees and manipulating the nob with his tiny fingers he would say "Look, see? There is light behind the glass" and, in a few seconds, came the voice from London: "This is the Polish Radio Warsaw, Krakow, Poznan ... broadcast from London. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Firstly the latest news. The three hundred thousand strong army of Field Marshal Paulus is trapped. The pincers of the Soviet counter-offensive have closed. The Soviet headquarters had issued an ULTIMATUM. After 97 days of bloody fighting, Hitler lost the battle of Stalingrad.
Next morning dawn again found me cutting wood in the forest.
The German administration demanded more and more. The amount of the requisitioned goods always increased. We had to deliver wheat, potatoes and milk to the Germans. The eggs I carried in a basket to the collection centre. I also had to deliver vegetables, hay and straw, hens and meat. Our herd was decreasing rapidly. There were only five cows left; the rest went to be converted into tinned food for the 'Wehrmacht'. About fifty percent of our products had to be given to the occupation forces. This winter they took horses and carts as well. As it was getting harder to make ends meet, my relatives who had arrived more then a year ago from Wilno, left Karmelowo looking for jobs somewhere else. My cousin became a waitress in a Wilno restaurant and her husband got work in a mill to be nearer the flour. I was left only with my Simon. He was a farm labourer and had a wife and two children. We three had to do all the work between us. Life became even harder.
Spring was coming. When the March sun melted the remaining dirty snow and the furrows were dried by the wind, we went to work in the fields. Simon walked behind the harrow and I, with measured steps, sowed the seed, thinking about our Krystyna. She was not born yet but we had already given her this name, the name of Lavrans daughter, because Marushka and I liked the author Sigrid Undset.
At the end of March, 1943, Marushka bore me a son. Thus our long-awaited Krystyna became Roman. He came into our family as the second war child, another male offspring. Both grandmothers took him under their wings. Jurek was thrilled. When his new brother arrived from hospital, he grabbed a vase of flowers and, before anyone could stop him, he was bending over Roman's head, tilting the vase and saying "Smell them, my little brother, they are smelling lovely". Of course all the water from the vase went over Roman. Thus the two brothers met for the first time.
Summer progressed quickly. The wheat sown with my own hands grew and Simon and I were already sharpening our scythes to be ready for the reaping. Sitting in the shade of a willow tree, our hammering on the scythes made the melodious sounds so familiar to all harvesters. Jurek was dragging a long chain and making puffing sounds, pretending to drag a train behind him. A small puppy, Miki, barking loudly, was trying to grab the chain. The same chain which represented a train to George was probably to Miki a hunted animal. Fantasy on both ends of a chain.
Mr. Alfred Rosenberg also had his own fantasies. In the chain of war events he was adding new links. He changed the face of the Ostland. The countries along the Baltic Sea became 鈥楩orefront Fatherland'. The general commissar received instructions in the utmost secrecy. The ruler of Lithuania, Freiherr won Renteln, ordered all Poles to be deported from Lithuania. No placards or proclamations were issued. He had learned his lesson with the arranging of the Polish ghetto. Instead he sent lorries into the country with his Gestapo men. They took the people from farms, from private homes in cities and small towns. The people were ordered to leave behind all their immovable possessions as well as most of the moveable ones. The Polish owners were rounded up and transported as a labour force to the Reich. In the Reich, Germans were ready to come and occupy the empty farms. Into Lithuania arrived new colonists. Export and import of humans was flourishing. Rosenberg shuffled people, building his house of cards. From the east the thunder was approaching and an ill wind was blowing, shaking the foundations of his house of cards. Not many colonists had arrived in the newly-formed 'Forefront Fatherland' when the first evacuees began to arrive into Germany. They were the 'Wolgagermans', the old German colonists from the fertile Ukraine.
The Red Army was pushing forwards. The Fuehrer took over as the Chief Commander of German armies. A new phase began 鈥淭he brilliant strategy of the 鈥榤obile war'鈥� as it was called by the new agency. Each Tuesday there was a broadcast by General Diettmar "With tremendous material losses for the enemy, the German Army have occupied new and better positions, withdrawing according to plan".

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'This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by 大象传媒 Radio Merseyside鈥檚 People鈥檚 War team on behalf of the author and has been added to the site with his / her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.'

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