perverted_piglet

It was a hard life. I was at home, we were 6 children and my mother, my father was in the USSR a prisoner. When the Germans came, they made us leave our homes and go to a different village. They didn't allow us to take anything but what we could carry. The Germans were kind. They had weapons and cannons placed everywhere. They allowed us to go home once a week. We used to talk to them, they were educated people. They had a central commandment in my village. The factories were kept running despite the war. They never beat anyone and they never harmed us. Despite this, there were no villagers that enjoyed them staying there.

They weren't normal. I missed my father and my brother (one was in USSR as a prisoner and one had fled to other parts of the country). I had to work in the factory so that my family could survive. The germans used to give us food and they had a system that used points to get building materials and other rare items. The points were awarded based on how good of a worker you were.

The russians were mean. They had patrols that used to go to peoples houses and take food and valuables. We were moved by then to another village and our house was empty. Despite having boarded up the windows with plywood they still got in and stolen the valuables. My father had hidden his books. The russians used some locals to go to peoples houses and search for hidden items, they found my fathers books and burned them in the middle of the house. When we returned we only found the ashes.

When the russians came to our house in the other village, they always used to ask for the young ladies. My uncle used to sleep at our house just so we'd feel safe. Once they found us at home, my sister ran and hid in the barn. They said that I would go with them to work at a bridge, but I knew what they wanted. The russians used to rape women. They once raped a woman, placed her in a hey ballot and lit the hay on fire. They took me to another house and while they were searching for bottles of vodka I ran and hid in another house. They were angry and they started swearing and kept searching for me until they left my village. There were times where I hid in a stove just so that they couldn't find me.

It had its ups and downs (my grandmother is a nostalgic sometimes). The hardships of the communist regime were felt harder in the cities, with the shortage of food and basic utilities in the last 10-15 years. But in the country-side it was ok. We had food from our gardens, from our livestock. Everyone had a job. There weren't so many murders. You had job security and your family was taken care of. But you also had corruption, a lack of education, a lack of openness towards the west. In the later years it became harder. We weren't allowed hot water only at certain hours, the TV was running only a few hours a day and so on.

The internet. I still don't understand what it is, but my nephew is on it all the time and every time I ask him something that he doesn't know he goes to it and finds out. I saw my other nephews on the internet a few times. And their pictures all the time. When my nephew shows them to me. (every time I can - the nephew)

Yes, they were seen as liberators. We thought we would have a better life with them. They put a communist regime in our country that lasted for 50 years.