Zbigniew Kropnicki
Class 5b
Sławatycze
My wartime memories
On 1 September 1939, the Polish-German war broke out. My dad, like many other soldiers, was drafted. I was seven at the time. I remember driving dad to the train station – me, my mum and my younger brother, who was two years old at the time. We came home at night. Mum kept crying, and I could not hold back tears looking at her. There was great sadness and grief.
Planes were flying overhead and dropping bombs, soldiers were firing their machine guns, and we were hiding in ditches and crops, sometimes hiding in the shelter, because we thought they would shoot at us.
When the Germans annexed a part of Poland, taxis and cars full of refugees drove along the nearby road. Then, when all of Poland was captured, Polish soldiers returned home, but my dad was not among them. We felt even greater sadness and grief because we thought he was killed, but after six weeks he came. We were overjoyed.