21 June 1946
Irena Żbikowska
Class 6
Wisznice, Włodawa district, Lublin voivodeship
Memories of the German occupation
For five years, we were tormented by the Germans, and everybody thanked God for surviving one more day and night, because tomorrow was not certain at all. I remember seeing a lot of Germans on the road one day – it was blue with their uniforms. We were very scared, [seeing] that everyone was walking towards our buildings. They split and started searching, but since they didn’t find anything, they moved on to the village. We later found out that they took two young boys to Wisznice, because there was a cemetery of sorts of those killed there – near the school where the local gendarmerie post [was located]. We then learned that the poor boys were killed almost immediately after being taken there. And so hundreds and thousands of people died at the hands of these hideous Krauts.
And when they saw that their reign was over and that our allies from the east were coming, they murdered people and burned villages to take revenge for the last time. It was on 22 July 1944.
In my home village, the Germans established a warehouse with various sweets and military food. When they saw that the enemy was drawing near and that they would not be able to take all the food, because there was not enough time, they did not want to leave it to the Poles, so they set fire to the whole house and burned it. They threw grenades so that nobody could extinguish [the fire] as the grenades kept exploding. And since it was at night, we were very scared, thinking that they were going to burn the whole village – and there were grenades exploding, bullets flying, and the night was bright as day due to the glow of the burning building. We took what we could from our home, and then we ran to the forest.
We spent the whole night in the forest, and in the morning we left because there were no more Germans. At around 11.00 a.m. we heard some conversation, because first there was dead silence. I ran over there and saw a Russian soldier who, surrounded by people from all over the village, asked them questions, while people kept asking him. I was glad because the fear was over, the war was over, it was peace and the Germans were no more.