Evacuated to the Countryside

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Editor's Note: When the war intensified, the Nazi regime sent school kids into the countryside, and Eugene began to live away from his family. Eugene lived with a group of boys near the Polish border. 

“We were housed in a youth hostel in the village of Grossboschpol, located at the edge of a swamp separating Germany from Poland. The local people were very nice to us boys; I remember some of the families would invite us for a Sunday dinner in their homes.”

Editor's Note: Eugene and his fellow boys were insulated from the military conflicts of the war, enjoying instead a naughty and carefree existence with little awareness of the emotional effect of their presence on the Polish people right across the border.

“After several weeks we had learned to cross the swamp into Poland… On one of those trips a farmer who had seen me came at me with a scythe and I ran. I gathered some of my friends and we ran at the farmer with our DJ daggers drawn, which caused the farmer to turn and run."