Aniela Potapczuk
Wisznice, 19 June 1946
My most important wartime experience
In 1944, the front was approaching. People were hiding everything in the trenches. My dad and I hid our things there, too. The next day, when I got up, I heard the roar of planes and the clatter of carts. There were Hungarian troops all over our yard, frighteningly ragged and dirty. When they started unpacking in our yard, my father, my brother and I ran with our livestock to the forest.
The forest was full of troops, there was nowhere to go. The angry soldiers threw us out to a meadow. There were a lot of people there, and dad got lost. My brother and I went to a ditch with water. I was shivering from cold and fear.
In a few hours the Germans started to shoot at the Soviets, and I ran to another ditch. It was even worse there. I was sitting in that ditch, crying, too scared to continue my escape. When the shooting died down, I got out of that nightmarish ditch and went straight home.
My sister and my mother were at home. It was getting dark. Mom, crying, went with us to a trench that would collapse after one hit, but we had to stay there, even in such conditions.
A horrible battle took place at midnight. We grabbed our rosaries and started praying to survive the night. We did, thank God. The Soviets were already there in the morning. Only one thing was saddening, my brother took some soldiers away in a cart and did not return. But in a few weeks, he too returned.
Those days are terrible to recall, but God was watching over us and we all survived.