KAZIMIERZ DŁUGOSZ

Kazimierz Długosz
Class 5
Zagnańsk, 31 October 1946

What the mass graves tell us

Mass graves remind us Poles that we have an eternal enemy in the west, who has been lurking and is still lurking for our Polish land. He did not mince his words. [Missing] from the first moment he appeared in our lands, wherever he appeared, mass graves were created. For any reflex against him, he shot people en masse, burned entire villages, such as Szałas in 1940, Michniów in 1942.

Our eternal enemy wanted to kill the very thought of an independent Homeland. However, he did not do this, because when he defeated some, others, equally self-sacrificing, but perhaps more experienced, took their place.

Mass graves lie in forests, meadows and even among fertile fields. Who is in them? Victims of German crimes. There lie young men in their prime, fathers separated from their families, mothers from crying children, old people with gray hair on their temples, and even small, innocent children. During the occupation, we could not even pray or cry over a [Polish] grave. These mass graves cry out to God for vengeance and we must not forget that.