21 June 1946
Krystyna Piotrowska
Class 6
[Wisznice], Włodawa district, Lublin voivodeship
My memories of the German occupation
Poland was suffering under the German oppression. When the great war was coming to Poland from the west in 1939, planes started flying overhead and dropping bombs, mostly on big cities. People from the cities went to the countryside. For five years the Germans tormented Poles at Majdanek, in Treblinka and many other places. They burned Poles and killed them with electricity.
But their reign ended soon, because in 1944 – or even earlier – the people took up arms against the Germans in guerrilla units. When this war for the freedom of Poland and the nation was about to start, my parents and I went to the colony.
After lunch, when the Soviets entered Wisznice, the Germans tried to fight them off. They sent out patrols, but they soon left Wisznice, and a horrible battle followed. Shells were flying over our heads and planes were circling high above us. Leaving Wisznice, the Germans burned the barracks.
These were my experiences of the German occupation, which I will keep in my memory [for] a long time.