Regina Czech
Class 4
Wisznice, Włodawa district
19 June 1946
My wartime experience
When the Germans were running away from the Soviet army, I was very afraid of the war. I started helping my grandmother pack the clothes and the dishes. After a few hours, we started running away with our aunt and mother Marysia to the colony.
When we got there, the front line started almost right away. We went into the trenches, bullets started flying over us. There was an old woman, she brought me a big picture of Our Lady and we started to pray and ask for survival. At night it started to rain, the water started to leak through the top, and we ran away to the barn. We saw that Wisznice was on fire – I was sure that our house and all of our buildings were on fire. But God had mercy and our buildings did not burn down – only three barracks and a bell tower, which stood near the church that was being built at the time.
In the morning, when I came to Wisznice, there were Soviet troops and there was such a [big] stink [that] you couldn’t walk on the street. There was a lot of feathers and straw in our house, and many different kinds of nasty things.