Danuta Korszeń
Class 6
Wisznice, Włodawa district, Lublin voivodeship
22 June 1946
Memories of the German occupation
It was noon. The sun, lazily rolling through the sky, was obscured behind heavy leaden clouds, roiling like enormous ocean waves, driven by the wind. The day was more like one in autumn and not at all like July. Looking at the world, it seemed that all nature and the surroundings felt what was happening between people – and what was happening was unusual.
The elderly farmers who usually had no time to talk on a busy day, stood in clusters by the roads with sad expressions, looking to the eastern sky, where the blood-red glow of fires was clearly visible. From far away came the thuds of cannons and the constant rumbling of cars. Women with children cried as they walked. They took some items and clothes to bunkers and basements.
Although I knew that the Germans, by retreating, could hurt our village, I felt an inexpressible joy in my heart that those bothersome oppressors of Poland would leave the area, or maybe even the whole of Poland – that in a few days’ time, I may pass by the barracks that were located near the house where I lived and not see those disgusting figures of the German Gestapo men fattened on human wrongdoing. Even though I could see the Germans running, pale with fear, but still clinging to their stubborn humiliating of Poles, I looked more boldly at their brutal faces, knowing that the Germans were retreating and that they would surely soon be defeated by the Soviet army, which was fighting together with the Polish army, driven by the hatred for the eternal enemy of Poland, maybe even of the whole European population. So I just prayed in spirit to God to bless our fighting allies as well as Poles; to save us from the revenge threatening us from the German side.
On 22 July, we saw a shocking scene. The German gendarmes brought three Poles out in front of the barracks, and one of the Germans who spoke Polish said that they were about to