European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)
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because if one of the 22,300 people was missing during the evening role-call, he had to be found.
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We had to stay standing until this person was found. Sometimes we spent whole nights outside.
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Some people hid, some escaped and then we had to stand until the following morning, in summer, and winter.
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The winters in Upper Silesia are very cold, terrible. We lost many men there.
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Our days began at 4h00 or 5h00 with a first role-call.
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They handed out a brew that they called herbata in our mugs,
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which we should absolutely not lose, and which we could never wash. Then we left for work.
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Yes, we thought of it. There were three or four of us. We tried to find ways of fighting, but it was practically impossible.
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There was a room leader who was to keep control. There also were leaders for each building.
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And there were also team leaders, themselves being deported prisoners.
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Often they were Germans, Poles.
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It was very difficult, very hard. We got lots of beatings.
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In the beginning we thought we shouldn’t take that, but we soon saw that there was no way out, as life there was so terrible.
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It was difficult to form a group.
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Those of us that had been arrested as French resistance fighters were scattered.
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They knew exactly who we were.
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It was very different from the camp in Compiègne. There we were still active, we resisted, discussed, talked.
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But here we were seperated and with all the block leaders, the Vorarbeiter, the team chiefs, the Kapos
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it was extremely difficult, as they were very loose with their batons.
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We were not necessarily amongst French people at all. Sometimes there were 2 or 3 French people in a group of 150 or 200 men.
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