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Your Story: The Kaleidoscope of Youth |
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Then the Russians invaded. Some doctors and nurses stayed with the wounded who could not be shifted. Anybody who could move or be moved crossed the bridge into Rumania. My mother and I followed. It seemed as if there were hundreds of people pouring over the border, columns making their way slowly eastward. There was little food and water. Polish currency lost its value and was no longer accepted. We bartered what we could but at times we lived off maize. There were acres and acres of it. Cobs were now ripening and could be eaten uncooked; some of the farmers let us pick the corn.
The problem for the Rumanian officials was what to do with all of us. Their government too had a treaty. It was with the Germans. It seemed that under the terms of the treaty we were to be locked up in some sort of prison camps. The trouble was that there did not seem to be any available. Our first place of incarceration was an asylum for the insane. Women and children were accommodated with the inmates who wore what looked like nightgowns and appeared to be very, very mad. The ones that were particularly violent were put into straight-jackets. We all shared the wards and it was a noisy place. Nurses carried huge keys and locked all doors.
"I am wearing Plish National dress (from the area of Krakow). Polish Soldiers gave a 'concert' for people in the small town of Newburgh, and I had a part. The dress is an attempt to make something (like an original dress would have looked), from bits of materials that we could find."
© Danusia Trotman-Dickenson |
After a time we were moved to a makeshift prison camp. The commanding officer at the camp was a kind man and appeared to interpret his orders liberally. His wife asked my mother and I to their house for tea. Their daughter and I got on well together. Coca began to teach me Rumanian and I taught her Polish. To simplify communication we invented a language that contained elements of both, plus some Russian she knew and words of French that I had learnt. We then added ‘ula’ to the words. Spoken quickly it was incomprehensible to anyone else but us. This was a great advantage. I spent my afternoons with Coca. In the corner of the sitting room there was a blazing stove and a samovar simmered on the table. It was nice to be warm for a time.
Hard winter set. The room where seven of us lived had no curtains or floor covering to give insulation and there was little heat from the small iron stove. We collected bits of wood to burn in it but as everybody else was looking for the sticks too, there were few to be found. We cooked on the stove when we had fuel. As children were allowed to go outside the camp I would sometimes go to the slaughterhouse outside a village to get scraps of meat. It was a horrible place and I thought of becoming a vegetarian, but as the only vegetables we had were potatoes I decided against the idea, until such time as we got out of the camp.
Words: Lady Danusia Trotman-Dickenson
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