Adolf Wojciechowski
Class 6
Elementary School in Zemborzyce
Zemborzyce, 6 June 1946
My wartime experiences
I was only seven when the war broke out. I did not understand much when it came to war. But when the Germans started arresting Poles, I understood what misery befell us.
I heard about various incidents. The arrests were frequent in our area, but one of them was especially painful for me. On 11 August 1943 the Germans arrested a dozen or so men, including my dad and my relatives. They suffered greatly in the camps, and only six of them returned years later, but fortunately my dad was among those few.
Many other such incidents made me concerned for my poor countrymen, who loved our Homeland so much that they joined the partisans to disturb the enemy and risked unheard- of torture and often their lives. I heard about camps far away, but there also was a camp Majdanek, near Lublin. A month after my dad’s arrest there was a sad but just incident. A partisan unit killed a whole family, which was “selling” our people to Germans. There was also another incident; the partisans destroyed a local German railroad company. Those incidents were only a sliver of freedom.
But just like there comes joy after sorrow, freedom came after our captivity. The Russians were dropping bombs on Lublin and the surrounding lands. It happened on 11 May 1944 at night. Everybody was terrified because some people died in our village. But hope came into our hearts because everyone knew what was going to happen. Two months later the long- awaited joy and freedom came. The Germans were fleeing, chased by the Soviet troops and newly formed Polish army, leaving everything behind. There were a few deaths in our village, because some brave men stood up to the fleeing Germans; they died before the long- awaited freedom came.
I am happy and I thank God for my dad’s return and for my survival.