A14 A Polishman saved my life

Narrator: Anton Groiss sen.
Reporter: Christoph Groiss

When in 1945 on Corpus Christi Day all the villagers of Plessberg gathered on the village hill to start the procession the first Russian soldiers came to Plessberg. They had arrived in Kautzen, a neighbouring village, the day before. The villagers wore their nicest clothes and the men and women were waiting for the holy mass to start when they suddenly could hear the noise of engines coming from Kautzen.

When the army trucks arrived, the Russian soldiers jumped off the trucks and started to ripp off the people. Men had to hand over their watches and rings, women their bracelets and earrings. When they had collected all the precious things they dissappeared, as fast as they had arrived.

Some days later they were in Plessberg again and by chance they came into my grandparents` house. At that time my father was a member of the village fire brigade and so he had a uniform which hung in the cupboard. After they had had a nice meal in the kitchen they started to rummage around in the house and besides other things they found my father`s uniform. They got very angry because they believed it was the uniform of the SS (= a cruel Nazi elite troop). The uniform jacket in the cupboard had an eagle on its sleeves like the uniform jacket of the SS.

A loud shouting and crying started in the kitchen when the soldiers pulled their guns and wanted to shoot my father in the head. His children and his wife could not understand why the soldiers reacted in such a way.

By chance a prisoner of war from Poland who had been forced to work for farmers in Austria for a long time passed by. He heard the crying and wanted to run off, but the Russian soldiers saw him and he was pulled into the kitchen. Thanks to God this Polish man could speak a few words of Russian and so he explained the soldiers that this uniform was not an army uniform but the uniform of the local fire bigade. It took some time until they believed him.

But the whole thing didn`t end without some punishment: My father got a heavy slap in his face. Never ever he has been ashamed so much in his life, he later told.

The Polish prisoner of war who had passed by had saved his life.