Class V
Piekoszów, Kielce district
My memories of the German crimes
The Germans persecuted us during the occupation. The prisons were filled with Poles. Thousands of men who were good Poles [were sent by the Nazis] to concentration camps in Germany and to Auschwitz. They organized roundups for the youth and took them to their country for forced labor. That is why the men fled to the forests and formed partisan groups. The Germans took revenge and hostages. They kept them in prison and then shot them. They also took people from prisons to a room, turned on the power and burned them. Only a handful of ash remained from those masses of people. They organized round-ups and took people. Whoever ran away was shot. They made gallows and hanged people. Polish partisans often fought with the Germans because of this. When they killed a German, the Germans killed the whole village as revenge. Many innocent villages [were liquidated] and [many] people died because of the German crimes.