Bogna Bartoszewiczówna [Bartoszewicz]
Class 6
Łuków, 24 June 1946
My wartime experiences
Poland was under German occupation for six years. The Germans took my dad and murdered him in a camp in 1941. Many people died like that. They didn’t let us learn history or geography so that we wouldn’t know where Poland’s borders were, so that we wouldn’t know that Poland was once powerful and would be again.
Until 23 July 1944. The German strength failed. German cars and tanks drove along the streets. They were running away. And the Soviet army was taking Łuków. It wasn’t so terrible for me in 1939 because I was small. It was worse now because I didn’t have my mom. A whooshing could be heard all around. The Soviet army was firing on Łuków. The Germans set fire to the houses before they left.
The first air-raid began in the morning the next day. The Germans were bombing almost non-stop. Łuków looked terrible, but the worst was yet to come. On Monday evening, we ran into the field and then to Świdry. I saw Łuków burning as we ran to Świdry. It was late already. The planes were bombing horribly. Houses went up in flames one by one. Only a red ribbon of fire could be seen, and black smoke went up above the fire. The Soviets started firing from their planes and the projectiles bursting in the air looked like red sweets. When we reached the Kropiński house we fled straight into the forest. The German planes dropped [missing].