MARIAN MITCZUK

Class 2
Parczew, 17 June 1946

My experience from the war

It all happened on the afternoon of 12 October 1939. I was running around in the courtyard when my friend, Wacek, started shouting that a cannon was being driven up. We both started running after the cannon. Because he was older, he soon overtook me and continued to run ahead, while I started crying, all the time running behind him and the cannon. And the soldiers ordered us not to run behind the cannon. I stopped for a moment, but my friend continued running. So I ran after him.

Then, all of a sudden and completely out of nowhere, German aircraft appeared in the sky. Terrified, I started running along the street. A pilot in one of the planes noticed me and the others, and gave chase, shooting his machine guns. I ran across the road and turned right. The bullets were now falling closer to me. I took one more leap forward, a bigger one this time. Suddenly, the bullets hit some stones next to me, breaking them; a few of the splinters wounded me in the leg and I fell to the ground. Seeing this, a soldier ran out from one of the houses and carried me to a brick building. Inside, I propped myself up against the wall. The plane returned and searched for us near the street, but it did not find us.