Felix Döhner

"They brought manure to the fields in trailers. They'd always dump it in one place, and when it was all there, the blasters came. They put fuses and nitre in the heap of manure and poured diesel on it. The fuse blew and the manure was scattered on the field. The explosion left craters in the ground, though. A tracked tractor with a plough had to come and fill the holes. The field was all holes." - "Why did they do that?" - "They didn't have manure spreaders to do it. The spreaders would break down and there was nothing to do it with. They decided to blow it up. But they only did it for one year and saw it was bad." - "How come they didn't have spreaders?" - "Because the machines would break down a lot. They weren't of good quality. It's different today. Today, a spreader can get manure over twenty or thirty hectares a day." - "Did you see the manure flying in the air?" - "We went to watch it. It was funny, the way they were blasting it. Blow by blow."

"They would come to the windows to listen to what language we spoke at home. We always spoke German at home. I still speak German because I learned it as a child. We all spoke German at home. They would come and listen and report to the national committee we were speaking German at home. That was forbidden. You were not allowed to speak German at home." - "Now tell me in German, what you just told me, them listening outside your windows..." - "Sie sind unter die Fenster gegangen und gehört, wie wir zu Hause sprechen."