Urszula Sosna: “When war broke out here in 1945…”

Abstract

The text contains a transcription and commentary on the account of Urszula Sosna recorded within the framework of the 9th “Oral History Grant”. The narrator talks about the Silesian Uprisings, the plebiscite, the incorporation of Tarnowskie Góry into Poland and the creation of the Polish–German border. In terms of her personal memories, she talks about school, work on the family farm in the inter-war period. She presents 1945 as the start of the war in Silesia which is associated with traumatic contact with the Soviets and recalls the deportation of the male population to the USSR, the necessity to hide in cellars, the repression of local civilians by soldiers and her own time in a labour camp in Kędzierzyn.

Keywords

• bytom
• labour camp
• world war ii
• germany