One day, I was in the market and a woman approached me to say she had gold but was afraid to bring it to the market herself. She didn't trust the older gold dealers not to trick her, which is why she picked me. Would I go with her to her village outside Bytom to look at her gold?

I didn't see why not, so she picked me up on her bicycle and rode out to her house with me on the handlebars. I was still a skinny little rat even though I was now a wheeler-dealer. 

So I made a series of buys from the frau, each time giving her a fair price and making a little profit for myself. She began to get more comfortable with me. We became almost friends.

I asked about her husband and she told me he had been served in the Wehrmacht, the regular Army, not in any kind of Nazi unit. She said she was horrified by the treatment given to my people in the recent past, but that her people had suffered terribly, too.