Kazimierz Jaworski
Class 6b
Elementary School no. 9 in Kielce
My most memorable moment from the occupation
My most memorable moment from the German occupation was the execution of 20 Poles in the suburb of Kielce – Pakosz. It was on 28 June 1944. The sun was shining brightly. I was walking back from school with a friend. When we were already on the sands [?], we suddenly heard the roar of a motor. After a while, we saw a tarpaulin-covered truck driven by German gendarmes. We knew what that meant, so we hid behind an unfinished house. After a while, the truck stopped, and the gendarmes led out 20 men. They took them to a pit, and soon we heard a round of machine-gun fire. The bodies of the Poles fell to the ground. The Germans got into the truck and drove away.
A lot of people came and started to identify the murdered. Shovels were brought and, under the supervision of the “blue police”, pits were dug, and the victims were buried. After the liberation of Poland by the Russians [illegible] placed a tall birch cross at the site of the German crime. The birch cross has been standing where the best sons of Poland were murdered ever since.