Zofia Szostak - 1985
Harassment
Okay, I went, I went for a few days to, to the village, to visit my girlfriend, and uh, since I was supposed to pick up those papers; let's say this was just like Wednesday or, or Thursday; one of, one of the days in the middle of the week. And uh, I was going, you know, by...on a, on a wagon, with some friend who was going to Kraków, he was going to Bochnia, to, to, to the railway, you know, to the railway station, and he took me with him. When we came close to Bochnia, we had to go under the viaduct, and we noticed, even coming closer, there were lots of wagons coming with Jewish people, uh, with all their belongings, the whole families, and with uh, gendarmes, or, or, uh, you know, soldiers...
Were these train wagons?
Pardon?
Train? Horse drawn?
No, no, no, no, not on trains. I'm, I'm saying now--I went back, I'm sorry, I'm not saying very clearly, you know. So I am coming now back to- back to Bochnia, from the village, to pick up my, my identification paper that day. And uh, as I was coming, I noticed, you know, that there were other wagons, and many of them, the closer to Bochnia, there were more, more of them, you know, coming with Jewish, Jewish people. And with their belongings, children, and whatever they had was piled up on the wagons, and each wagon had at least two uh, two armed soldiers or, or policemen, you know, but they were bringing them to Bochnia. And then we're going just, just very close to the, to the town, we're going under the viaduct, and this is when we all had to stop. Now the Jewish, Jewish wagons were past, and then uh, I was asked to identify myself, and I says "Oh well," you know, I told them my name, and this other man, you know, he had identification 'cause he used to live in the village and he was given his ??? they called it, his, his papers few days before. And I told him I can't, I cannot give him any papers, you know, I cannot prove, but he can ask people, they know me, it's such a small community, you know, everybody know everybody. He says, "I don't care, you're going to identify yourself in koszary. So few uh, blocks away, from that viaduct there were ??? koszary you know, barracks, old Polish Army ba...barracks, so all those people, Jewish people, were shipped over there. And when he told me that I have to, I have to go get off of this, you know, I grabbed a rosary out of my pocket, and I says, "Listen, you know, I am not Jewish, now, you, you know, I, I, I am Polish," and he says, "I don't care," you know, "I don't believe you," you know, so he grabbed me from over there, and just like by the, by this, you know, by my collar. And he pushed me against, you know, and was taking me to all those blocks, and, you know, I was screaming, "No, I don't want to go there! No, I don't want to go there!" He says, "No, you have to go." And this man, you know uh, he got on the wagon and was slowly going, you know, wanted to know, what is going to happen, 'cause he was okay, I was the only one who was questioned. And finally we got to the, to the gate of those koszary you know uh, those barracks, and I grabbed poles of, of the fence, you know, I wouldn't go. I says, "No, I'm not going." "You have to go, you have to go." Now uh, and uh, he really start...started pushing me around, you know, and really getting very rough. Now he was not a German, he was this uh, he was Polish, from those Blue, Blue Police...
The Blue Police.
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