Simon Goldman - June 6, 2003
Life on Polish Farm
With the workers.
No, I was the only one. It's a small farm, it's a small farm. It's not like a farm that you say, a co-op, you know. It's just a farmer that's self-supporting, you know. He's the only one on the farm, his wife, and, and, and his mother, you know, and...
Did he have any other children?
Yeah, he had two, a little girl, I guess.
Did he pay you?
No, no, no pay.
Just room and board.
Just for the food. It was okay with me. Uh, so that's, that's how I went through that?
So how did they treat you? Did they treat you like a member of the family?
Like a, like a, well, not really. They treat me just like a worker, you know, somebody helping out. And then we still, we still all kind of horse around with the other kids my age on the farm there. You know, kids are kids, you know. I was always on my guard. They used to tell us, go swimming, you know. How can I go swimming? So I told 'em, I don't know how to swim. And so they went in the little river swimming and I told 'em I don't know how to swim, so. Somehow they let me go with it. And then the one day too that uh, kids horsing around, they try to, they take each other's pants off to see what's what. So when it came my turn it was about eight, nine guys and they tried to take my pants off. And I fought them all off, wouldn't let them. It was either my life or...if they did take off my pants that would be the end of me, that would be the end of my life. You know, they'd probably turn me into the Germans.
No one got suspicious that you wouldn't take your pants off?
No, I just told 'em that uh, "I told you you can't do it, that I'm stronger than you are." It worked, it worked for me.
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