Zoja Warzanger

This is my wife Zoja Warzager, nee Titowa. This picture was taken in Legnica after we arrived there in the 1940s.

A treaty was signed to evacuate Poles who wanted to return to Poland. I signed up for that - they gave us papers. That was in 1946. We spent a whole month in the train, until finally we arrived in Legnica. First they took us to Gubin - that's right on the German border, on the Oder. But when we got to the town, a whole group from the town council met us and said we could stay if we wanted to, but they warned us that there were still gangs roaming around there who might hunt for us, maybe kill us. That scared us. The engine driver - who was an old German who'd been left on the job - said he'd take us someplace else, unless we wanted to stay here. And he brought us to Legnica. He yelled: 'Aussteigen!' - 'Everybody off!' And we got out, near a little river that runs here. It was nice and warm. It must have been May, around the 9th; it was the anniversary of the liberation when we arrived in Legnica. I was with my wife by that time - we'd met in Russia - and her four-year-old daughter.

We were there [in Russia] by that time already a while together - we even went and registered in the register office there as a married couple. And then we had another wedding here in Legnica. It never bothered her, my being Jewish. We never even talked about it; it just wasn't an issue for us. She often used to go down to the social club with me, and sometimes to community meetings as well.