Martin Koby - April 20, 1999
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You went to where in the village?
In our, in our village...
Yeah, but what--what is...
To a Mr. Szczasny, a Czech.
How do you spell his name?
S-z-c-z-a-s-n-y. That was his name?
Yeah. Okay.
And uh, well, they were--we stayed in the--we moved--we got into the barn on our own, okay. You know, where they keep the, the, the, the straw and hay you know, non~ perishable items.
Yeah.
A big barn.
And he, he knew you were there?
No.
Oh.
In the morning, he--they waited 'til he came into the barn and my father revealed himself to him. Oh boy, you--whatever they spoke over there on the thresh floor--on the threshing floor. I don't know what, what transpired, because we didn't go down. And he said you know uh, my father came up and he said, "We'll have to wait a week before the hiding place is ready for us." Okay? I thought this it, we'll stay in the barn, right? Mr. Szczasny had a different idea. His house was you know, was facing south and north, okay? So you imagine it's south and north. And there was--it--and it made an "L," you know, the--half of the house was the--where they lived. The other part that touched the house was the--where the horses and the cows were. Then next to it on a, on a, on a...
Perpendicular?
...an "L," you know, the shape...
Perpendicular.
Perpendicular to the barn--to the stable...
Uh-huh.
...there were pigs. You know, it had a, a barn for pigs only.
Yeah.
Usually they're low, narrow little place you know, little--like chicken coop, like a chicken coop you see in Maryland. When I was in Maryland it reminded me. From far, it looks like a pigsty to me. I found out that they're not that small, they're bigger. But this must have been about I don't know, no more than six feet tall, maybe seven feet. Czechs--the Czech people handled animals differently than the Ukrainians. A pig is a valuable animal. They kept the pigs on floors.
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