Bronisława Guza, From Pokucie to the Lower Silesia

Abstract

In her narrative Bronisława Guza (born in 1929) talks about the life of her family in Obertyn – a small town in the former Stanisławów province – starting from 1930s and WW2 period, to the post-war years when she came to Lower Silesia. In her recollections she describes places that played an important role in the town’s life: Saints Peter and Paul’s church and priests serving in it, a convent belonging to the Congregation of the Servants of the Holiest Virgin Mary of the Immaculate Conception from Stara Wieś, along with an orphanage run by the nuns (which she used to attend as a child), the market square on market days, various shops, houses, a mound made to commemorate the battle of Obertyn in 1531, as well as a cross standing on its top. She tells us about relations between Obertyn’s inhabitants: Poles, Ukrainians and Jews – how they established and maintained close bonds, together celebrated holidays and weddings, participated in funerals, and so on – and about mutual respect for other denominations and customs. Bronisława Guza’s story of WW2 contains recollections of the Soviet and German occupations, circumstances of the Soviet re-entering at the end of March and at the beginning of April 1944, and of the activity of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists on these territories. The key moment for this time in history was in 1945, when a vast majority of the Polish community of Obertyn was resettled to the Western Territories. Bronisława Guza and her family ended up in Siedlce near Oława, where initially she lived together with the German, evangelical community of the village. The inhabitants settled down in the new place and tried to adapt to the new life conditions.

Keywords

• oral history
• pokucie
• world war ii
• obertyn
• soviet occupations
• german occupations
• population exchange