European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

If somebody reveals them living here, he is a bastard,

maybe it will be a credit for the Germans but we will all have to suffer.

If somebody reports about it, betrays, then we – all citizens of Orwidów, will be responsible for that.

So they stayed.

There were some incidents, moments where we got some signals and they had to leave Orwidów for a few days, that there was some danger.

We shared everything, ate together, all that we managed to collect, all money was shared.

During the German times, I used to go to the villages and sell.

The house was furnished, so I sold duvets, linen, place settings, covers.

I sold that as we had to live somehow.

The Zambrowicz family was there but they lived by themselves.

Well, I had known Natka for a long time, since our childhood.

Stefan worked a little bit, but he had no idea how to work in the countryside.

He was a city person, a journalist,

so he had no clue, but obviously he was trying to do something, tried to help.

The wages were not as good as during the Soviets times,

we had to do anything, load the wood for the Germans, offer help by lending the horse, carriage and a worker.

So we did not make any money.

We had to steal wood from our own forest,

some dry trees we used to cut down and take to Vilnius where we sold it to make some money.

Beginning of the German-Soviet war, hiding refugees