DANUTA ZIEŃCZUK

Class 5b
Wisznice, Włodawa District
19 June 1946

My wartime experiences

On 21 July 1944, on a Saturday afternoon, people were running to the forests away from the advancing front. Very frightened, I fled to the forest with some lady. She was very scared. She kept crying and saying that she was going to get killed in the forest. Zaleszczyk’s barn was on fire on Sunday.

One woman walked past with her husband, berating him for not taking all of their clothes from the house – the Germans would burn down the house along with the clothes.

The Germans took the horses away as they were fleeing from Wisznice. When they took one woman’s horse, she cried and ran after him.

I was having supper on Sunday evening when I saw something that looked like a string of fiery beads shooting up in the air.

Mommy came to Wisznice on Monday morning to see what was going on. Then we went home. Now the Soviets were here instead of the Germans.