Violence: rape during the war

“We built her [Anna’s aunt] a house, a little brick house with two rooms. And then, again, one of the Bandera men came, when that German was dead. He came and made her pregnant; a man from her own village came and raped her.

He said, open up, she opened, what could she do, what sort of door did she have in her house? And that was it. That’s what life was like then. There was no authority. The master, the one in a position of authority, could have all the women he wanted. Of course, they raped.

But there were some good ones too.

{Anna’s husband speaks:} Yes, that German who gave Anna chocolate;

{Anna again:} he used to cuddle me and give me sweets. But I realised that he had children at home. He showed me the photos. In four years I learnt to speak German well. I heard German around me every day and I had a good memory.

There were some decent Germans who spoke to us, not all of them. All the children began speaking German. We were used to hearing German.”