Interview with Barbara Ciejek zd. Zaparucha

Jerzy was born in 1944 in Kamionek. We moved to a small Polish farm. The owners had to move into half of the house, and they gave us the other half. It was only two rooms. We had neither a plate nor a spoon. But my father immediately scrounged up a bicycle. Since he had an agricultural education, he tried to get a job as an overseer in Katno. He knew German well. The Germans tried to Germanize us a bit. But father remained a Pole to the end. They combined the two estates in Katno and Kamionek, so that he worked on two. He put his brother-in-law, my mother's brother, in charge of such the estate in Kamionek. He himself had an office in Katno. My mother [Floriana Zaparucha, née Cieslicka - A.K.] made jackets for the workers in Kamionek out of strings from unraveled sacks. In addition, she carried documents from the village leader from Kamionek to Katno. The two villages had one leader, and he lived next door to us in Kamionek. Father was afraid that we would be taken to Germany, because Polish children were being deported there. He hired my older brother Bernard to work as a gardener in Katno, but he did not perform his duties, he preferred horses. Therefore, father arranged for him to work on his sister's farm with horses in Procyn. The Germans fed father only cauliflower, so after the war cauliflower would gross him out for the rest of his life. Nevertheless, we survived and when the Russians liberated us, we returned to Podbielsk. It was a big house and the Russians moved the horses into it, because it was winter. The whole house was neglected, so we renovated everything.

AK: - Do you remember Renia Wrzeszczynska^[4]O prowadzonym przez nią w czasie wojny dzienniczku, losach rodziny Wrzeszczyńskich pisałam w „Przewodniku Katolickim” numer 13/2022, dostęp online: … Czytaj dalej?

BC: - Yes. My father took in a gardener Antoniewicz, who had a niece, and it was Renia. He was afraid that she would be deported to Germany. Her father had already been taken [to the Mauthausen-Gusen camp - A.K.]. She was also afraid ^[5]Children over the age of 13 were forced to work for the Germans. Renia moved in with the Zaparuchas in March 1942.He wanted to take her to live with him, because he had made some living quarters for himself in Katno, but he couldn't, so he placed her in our home. Renia lived with us for maybe a year. She slept in one bed with my mother. There were four of us children in one room and only two beds. Then this uncle took her to live with him.

AK: - According to Renia's memoirs, her family - a mother with nine children - survived the war thanks to his help.

BC: - They [Jozef Zaparucha and Hieronim Antoniewicz - A.K.] stole a little from the farm occupied by a German woman in Katno. It was a large estate, there was a bunch of cattle, so sometimes they stole cream. They seasoned their lives a bit, because there was great poverty.

AK: - Renia recalled that you and she walked to work from Kamionek to Katno. You passed the building of the former school (Photo 5), where the Germans kept Jewish women. They were used to work in Notec. Do you remember them?