That the war had been going on since 1939 everyone knew, most of all those who had their fathers and brothers in it. For our village it began around 20 January 1945, when we heard the thunder of guns from afar and aircraft flying over. These aircraft had visited us earlier, in 1944, when the Allies bombed the chemical works at Kędzierzyn, not far from us. But that was far away for us. Now, as the thunder of the guns drew closer and the first refugees appeared, the mood became gloomier. On 21 January the first artillery shells were already flying over us, and on 22 January hell began. Folwark began to burn in the night of 21 to 22 January 1945.
I was almost 8 years old then, so some of it stayed in my memory from that time; the rest I learned later from those born earlier. In the first days of the fighting many inhabitants did not leave their houses; they hid wherever they could. It should be added that besides the permanent inhabitants of Folwark, there were also refugees from Nowa Wieś Królewska (Opole-Bolko) in our village, hoping that it would be quiet with us – that the Soviet army would be stopped at the Oder line (so the propaganda of the time proclaimed).
I, being just 7 years old then, spent 3 days with my family in the midst of the fighting. We lay on the floor by the wall under the window, so that the bullets coming through the window from the east side of our old house would not hit us. The situation changed like a kaleidoscope. During that time the Soviets “visited” us four times – alternately – looking for “Germans”, then the German troops, looking for “Ivan”. There were situations, as the inhabitants told, where Ivan was leaving a dwelling and met in the doorway the German who was just coming in.
Necessity forced us to leave the house: an artillery shell fell into the neighbouring room (fortunately for us it did not explode); it only smashed the roof, the ceiling and the wall of the room in which we were staying. The main reason for our flight, however, was Ivan’s fourth “visit”, when he made my mother an unmistakable proposition. The change of front – the shouts of “hurrah” from the German troops – forced Ivan to flee, and that saved her. Taking advantage of the fact that the Soviet troops had been driven out to the east of our village, we took what we could and fled through deep snow towards Górki.
At first we could not open our gate to the road, because it was blocked by a fallen Ivan. On the way along ul. Lipowa I saw many dead soldiers (the remains of one – this picture stuck most in my memory – hung on the fence between the houses Buhl–Bieniek). On the way from the main road up the hill towards Górki, my aunt (Cecylia – now living in Stade) was pushing and pulling a pram with a child (my cousin Manfred – now living in Bielefeld) – a bullet pierced the pram, but he was unharmed. My aunt left the pram on the road, took him in her arms, and we fled on. The bullets stopped whistling only when we were far up on the hill.
We reached Górki with the few things we had taken. In Górki my father’s sister Gertruda joined us with three children, and we marched in the direction of Komprachcice. I do not remember how, but we reached Niemodlin, where we were loaded into goods wagons and set off west, though we did not know the destination. And so our wandering began, which for another two months was full of dramatic situations and attacks by American aircraft. Several times we had to hide in bunkers.
Separation
At Legnica station – Aunt Cilka, Aunt Gertruda and Berta Kansy, going to fetch provisions from the Red Cross point, were left on the platform because our train suddenly moved off. My mother now had six additional children to feed, and Mrs Schnapka her 2+3 from B. Kansy. The mothers found each other again only a year later.
Dresden
By chance we watched the well-known air raid on the city through the door of our goods wagon, which was standing in open country in front of the city. Our train was not let in because the station was overcrowded. In Dresden 100 000 civilians were killed in this raid, mostly people like us.
Our wandering ended at the beginning of March in Bavaria – Griesbach – near the Czech border. Here, in April, the war began again for us. This time the Allies – the Americans – attacked from the west. The front lasted 2 weeks there. There were no troops. The German ones were already scattered; the Americans took the town of Tischenreut (12 km) from Griesbach, from where, with the precision of a clock, one artillery shell arrived every half hour and hit blindly. For two whole weeks. The damage was moderate. One of the last shells hit our parsonage, where we were quartered in the catechism room. My mother then persuaded the parish priest that a delegation of inhabitants with a white flag should go towards the Allied troops and say that there were no German troops here any more. And so it happened. A few hours later American tanks rolled in, and we stood at the roadside. That was for us the end of the Second World War. But not the end of its consequences.
These troops stopped in Griesbach (at the border) and stayed with us all the time, until the end of 1945. I got to know the taste of white bread and chocolate then, and Grandfather Józef had plenty of tobacco (we collected the cigarette ends left by the Americans for him). Then I also had to eat a lot of mushrooms and pick bilberries, because we were hungry. All the inhabitants of our village went through a similar fate.
Return
We returned home only in July 1946. We travelled on an UNRRA goods train through Czechoslovakia. We crossed the border at Czechowice, from where the original border-crossing pass has been preserved. This pass also served as an identity document, and on its basis we registered in the municipality of Kupy, because we had to be quartered with Grandmother Krystyna in Brynica. Our house was occupied by neighbours (the Keslers), whose house had been burnt down, and later Grandfather Józef repaired the roof and patched the holes from artillery shells. We stayed in Brynica through the winter until the following year. In spring ’47 we finally returned to Folwark.
Now we began to feel the change of citizenship, above all we schoolchildren. One had to enrol in school, but among ourselves we could speak only German. After a time we learned the Silesian dialect from our parents. But neither the one nor the other was welcome to the Poles.
The war on the stretch Oppeln – Opole, Vorwerk – Folwark, Oderfelde – Chrzowice, Gotesdorf – Boguszyce and on further south in the direction of Ratibor – Racibórz lasted without a break for 8 weeks, as we learned already in Griesbach. Soldiers of both armies were killed. The German troops took their dead to the cemetery at Schönkirch – Chrząszczyce and Neudorf – Nowa Wieś. The bodies of the Soviet soldiers remained unburied during the whole period of the fighting. Only after the end of the fighting, that is after 16 March 1945, when the “Great Offensive” began, was a collection of the bodies organised. On ul. Wiejska, in the ditch over a stretch of 100 m, 30 corpses lay for about 56 days. In our village a cemetery was set up where about 500 Soviet soldiers were buried; after some years they were exhumed to the central cemetery at Kędzierzyn.
On the opposite side of the Soviet cemetery was the cemetery for the fallen German soldiers who had earlier not been able to be buried in the parish cemetery – they were exhumed in later years to Chrząszczyce.