| Len's cousin
Arriving at Stettin
M: You know, when we came to the camp, there was three big barracks, and in these barracks -- it was a jail, actually. It was a jail, with inmates, and they were freeing this jail, and they put us into it. And they moved them into another place. I don’t know where. We have no way to know. There were three little houses, like bungalows, you could call it, three little wooden houses in the middle of the square where the bags were around, and there were three little houses. We had no way to know what these houses were for, why they are there, but everybody thought that these are houses we could live in, because they looked like ordinary little bungalows.
And we came in, and it was me and my sister Rachel’s husband. We went in, and we put in a few of our things in one of these houses. Fifteen minutes later, another guy comes, and says, “Hey, I was here before you. What do you mean, you took away my house? I was here, I cased it out before you. I was here before. I just went to bring my family here. What do you mean you cut it in [sic].”
I told him, “Look, is there any sign that you have been here? Have you got any witness to it? What do you mean, you have been here? When we came in, we put a few things of ours in there, so we have a physical sign that we are here. But you just come and say you’ve been here, I mean, that’s not good enough.”
And that fellow didn’t think too much, and he went and brought the security chief, the KGB man, to settle this argument. The KGB man started to laugh, of course. He told us, “Neither you nor you are not going to stay here because it’s not for you. You’ll have to go about it [sic]”
Len: What were they?
M: These were.. One was for a school house and one was for the administration of the camp. It wasn’t for us, these. And one was actually [for] the security chief, it was supposed to be his house. But it wasn’t for us. So, he started to laugh, and he said, “Hey, I’ve got news for you. None of you. You’d better go and find yourself a place in the barracks,” he says, “if you want to find a place.”
And in the barracks, there was no place at all, you see. It was just open space. And then after we came, so we made Spanish walls, you know, from some boards. We had to make our own boards, and then we went and divided. We gave each family their 2 by 4 room, and that was our living room, dining room, and kitchen, and bathroom, and plain [?] and everything was in there. And stove you know, it was all in the same little room. And we were 8 people, six kids, and father and mother. We were all in that little room, and there was room for everyone. |
