Jan Semeniuk
Class 5b
Wisznice, Włodawa district
19 June 1946
My wartime experiences
My life from 1939 to 1945
I was seven years old when the Polish army marched in groups, asked for food, took horses from people, and took everything away. People fled to the forest with their horses. I was in the forest, too. Enemy planes bombed forests and villages. I heard the bang of cannons when the Soviets and the Germans were fighting on the Bug River. Missiles flew overhead.
One time, a plane that was on fire came down on the houses. People screamed, lamented, took out their clothes, and let out livestock so that it would not burn. Another time, the Germans came to the village and saw a Soviet prisoner of war. Immediately one German shot at him and hit him in the stomach. The Soviet man moaned and died in a few minutes.
I saw with my own eyes how the Germans shot [another] Soviet prisoner of war. The man asked for his life and said, “What did I do, let me go.” At that moment, the German took out a revolver and shot him. I also saw how the Germans were coming for one partisan, and he was shooting back at them.
The fight began among the houses. People were running away from their homes. During the last front, planes flew non-stop.
The Germans went through the village for the last time on a Sunday in July 1944.