23 June 1946
Henryk Romanowicz
Class 6
Wisznice, Włodawa district, Lublin voivodeship
Memories of the German occupation
In September of 1939, Poland fought Germany, and the Polish nation lost the war. The Polish army ran away in all directions. Sometimes a Polish regiment would pop up here and there, but they were chased by the Soviet army. For a moment there were no troops, only women sitting under trees and praying in great fear. All we could hear was the whirring of plane engines and the ground shaking from all the bombs.
On the next day, German cavalry arrived. In a few days the gendarmerie came and forbade us to learn history, geography and [banned] many other things. A group of gendarmes walked around the villages and towns, [looking for the things they had banned], and everyone trembled with fear. When they found these things, they shot the owners on the spot or imprisoned them. The Polish nation could not do without what they had forbidden. The corpses were buried anywhere, people were murdered in the most heinous ways, there were bodies lying on the city streets. And now we find out about [those] murders.
In the spring of 1944, a battle broke out. Soviet troops took part in this battle and a small handful of Poles [also attacked] he Germans. Then the German bondage got worse, because at night bandits would roam the villages and steal the things the [farmers] earned with their hard work. When night was coming, it got scary [because] the bandits were killing people. In the evening, the stars of Soviet planes were clearly visible in the sky, and the beams of searchlights were trailing across the sky. The ground was shaking and one could hear the cannon fire. Later on, actual partisan units were formed and helped the Soviets. This is how the Polish nation suffered in German captivity.
Then the gendarmes left Wisznice and for the next few days, everything was quiet. Everyone was glad that the time of liberation from German bondage was coming. When the front came, I saw an enormous Hungarian unit. Their camp was huge, but the soldiers were dirty and defenseless. They set up the camp for only three days, then they left, and the Germans arrived. The German camp was clean; soldiers were well-dressed and armed, but hungry. They set up their cannons next to our homes, covered them with branches and set aim to the Soviets, who were to the east of us. When I heard the bang of cannons, the windows shook and the ground trembled – I went to the forest, where only the ground was trembling and clouds of smoke were seen. The evening was coming, and the cannons did not cease to fire. At night, you could see the flames of burning buildings, like rays of sunshine. At night the Germans ran away from our village.
On the next day I got up, it was quiet, and then I saw the droves of Soviet infantry. We could still hear some cannon fire from afar, but German troops withdrew to their country. This is how the Polish nation was liberated from German bondage, and now the German nation should suffer persecution. And then the German nation will behave as it should and will not bother Poles. God punished the Germans with such a terrible punishment for their murders [on] Poles.