The Pink building on the right is where my mother and I lived from 1945 to 1946.
We lived on the top floor until we moved to Stettin in 1946.
Straight down the middle, in front of the church, stood a three storey house with a Jewellers shop on the ground floor,
My parents rented the first floor. In March 1945 the Russian army came to "liberate" the town and a Russian Sherman tank Shelled the house and the church bell tower. Mother and I and the shop owner's family were hiding in the basement.
Luckily it did not burn and the next day we were released from our tomb by some drunken soldiers on a looting spree.
The tank reached the town square where its engine seized. There it stayed abandoned like a memorial for the next twelve years. Two weeks later the Church was deliberately torched by Russian soldiers who were anti Religion
The pink painted building was a hotel owned by a German Jewish family that were "missing" from the town.
The whole building was requisitioned and most of my mother's family moved in on various floors and subdivided the rooms into flats.
My mother and I and her youngest brother moved to the top floor. The German owners were never heard of again.
Konitz local Coucil requisitioned every empty house or building or block of flats and allocated a minimum space to everyone who lost their home due to warfare.
My earliest memories of my life in Poland started here. The Catholic Basilica in the background is where my parents were married and where I was baptised
In the middle of this old postcard, is a house in front of the Basilica where we lived on the first floor above a Jewellers shop until 1945! The house was destroyed by a Russian Sherman tank when they arrived to "LIBERATE" our town.
The Painted postcard drawing from well before the First World War while Konitz was a part of the Prussian Empire.
Note the Hotel on the right. That old Hotel became requisitioned and allocated to my mother's extended family
from 1945. My mother and I and her youngest brother lived on the top floor!
Below...The all-important Konitz Market Square where everyone meets
and all major events are staged.
In 1989 my wife and I visited my Home town. I went to the Town Hall to find out if by any chance I could get a copy of my birth certificate and to my astonishment I learned that the staff had the foresight to save all records in the basement when it was imminent that the Russians were coming. In ten minutes I had my copy.
