Alexander Raab - June 28, 2002
End of War
How did you feel when the war was over? How did you feel when the war was over ???
Well, we, we knew the war was over. Everybody was happy of course and we thought that uh, we're gonna go back to Poland now, which we did. But uh, we also thought we're going to go back and probably going find uh, whatever. In the meantime we didn't find nobody. We, we came, we got reunited with the family, with my uncle and aunt before we came back to Poland. They brought 'em nearby and we kinda contacted each other together. And as a fact, we were on the same train going back to Poland. This is already--that was ??? the Polish government took us back as citizens. So the train uh, uh, came in and stopped in Jarosław, the train station. So my uncle went down and he met one of the railroad workers that he knew him from before. So this guy--so my uncle of course he asked, "Is there anybody that you, is there anybody alive, anybody left?" He told him, "Mr. Raab," he said to him, "don't bother going to, to the city, there's nobody there." Told him. He said, "There's nobody there, don't bother going."
So that's the first you heard that.
That was the first bad news. Then we figured perhaps somebody left. Well, we knew that grandma and grandfather didn't survive in Grudek.
You knew that already.
We knew that already. I think uncle got in touch with one of the--of the peasants you know, one of the Ukrainians and uh, he said that uh, there was nobody left there.
They were shot.
They were shot, exactly. They were taken out from the house and shot in front of the house. This, my grandfather and grand...grandmother from my father's side. Then we continued and they, they took us, they took us to uh, Nieder Schlesien ??? what they called it.
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