Categories: First childhood memory, Helena Bilinska

Story-teller: “You see, we were young country people. We worked in the country. How much did we have? Only some twenty hectares. And, and we had to work from the early childhood, we were used to it, not as it is now. I had, when I was small, I was herding, I had to go herding already at the age of six or seven. And, when we grew a bit, then we had to go to the fields to sow and reap, to reap with scythes, to thresh with flails, there were no machines at that time. That was after the World War.”

Interviewer: “After the first war? After the first, right?

Story-teller: “Yes.”

Interviewer: “Did you experience all the wars?”

Story-teller: “I lived through all the wars!”

Interviewer: “Will you tell us about the times of the war?”

Story-teller: “What should I tell you. The war began, my father was called-up to the war on 20 July of the year fourteen. I stayed with my mother, my mother and my grandmother. The father left in Octob… in July, I was born in August. I had my grandmother then, and my mum, and we, we needed. The dad, the father served four years. We had to do by ourselves those four years. We, and, we were small, the mum had small children. She had to, oh, I can’t tell you, she had to do, to thresh and mill, everything.

Interviewer: “But, on which side did your father fight, Russian or German?”

Story-teller: “That was the Russian war then.”

Interviewer: “Russian, wasn’t it?”

Story-teller: “That was the Russian war, World War, that was that great one. And then, whom the Russians were fighting then, I cannot say. During World War II Russians fought against Germans, but at that time, you see. When my father returned, he had left in the year fourteen, but came back from the war in the year eighteen.”

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Researcher: Dr. philol. Gatis Ozoliņš, Daugavpils Universitāte