European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

Then the Lithuanians theoretically got power over a big part of Wileńszczyzna from the Soviet Union.

We were quite near Vilnius.

And the Lithuanians were very bad to the Poles,

they were oppressing us, we worked without wages.

Before the outbreak of war, I was an employee of the National Agricutural Bank.

If I had agreed to become Lithuanian then I would have worked longer,

but because I did not agree to do so, I was fired in October and came back to Orwidów,

then I took up working at the farmstead.

On the whole, it was a male job. There were no men. And I was the main worker then.

Those were very, very hard times.

In spring 1940 the Lithuanians asked, quote unquote,

to include this part of Wileńszczyzna into the Soviet Union as a further republic.

So the Soviet power came.

The Soviet power wanted to show off that they were better,

better for us than the Lithuanians were.

And the Soviet power came.

Somebody informed me that I can make money in forests as a cart man.

There were one, two horses.

As winter came, there was plenty of snow, so one of our workers drove one sleigh, I drove the next one.

During the whole winter I worked as a cart man.