Marianna Szumska
Pachole, Włodawa district
My memories from the German occupation
The Germans drove their cars to the village of Zaliszcze in the morning, when people were still asleep. They surrounded the village, went around the houses, and took the men to their car. Some people had fled to other villages, to the field, and others to the forest. People thought they would arrest the whole village. A lament and screams began in the village.
Half of the Germans went to Kalinka to round people up. Those people who got caught in Kalinka were chased through the mud and tortured on the way. And women and children followed them and cried. The people from Kalinka were put into cars. Then [the Germans] killed two Jews in Zaliszcze. Many arrestees thought: “What will happen to my family, my children will cry so much.”
Those people from Zaliszcze and Kalinka were transported by cars to Wisznice, and from Wisznice to Biała, to prison. Many daughters fainted because of their fathers, and mothers because of their sons, and so did wives who followed their husbands with their children, fainting.
Several days later, they brought the prisoners back to Wisznice. They called people from three communes to watch the torment that they were inflicting. They led the prisoners out of the car with their hands tied behind their backs and with their mouths plastered over, put them against the wall of the house, and shot them. Parents, relatives and neighbors watched their friends’ brains splash against the wall. A lament and screaming began. Many mothers and wives fainted while watching their loved ones die tragically by that wall. The last hour of these innocent prisoners was mournful.