Wiesława Kosior
Class 6b
Public Elementary School in Sienna
The most memorable moment from the occupation
In 1939, the Germans conquered all of Poland. They attacked with all their force; they were like locusts. They wanted to erase Poland from the maps. They used a wide array of cruel tricks, but Poland did not perish, even though a lot of our countrymen did. I saw a lot of murders and torture, but one of them I remember very clearly, because the victim was my father. He was a baker. At the time there was a decree saying that baking bread was forbidden and would be punished with death. But my father gave in to people’s requests and baked bread for them in secret. A traitor reported this to the Germans. They came at night and found the bread in the oven. They beat my father very cruelly. Finally, they led him, bloodied and barely walking, to the market square, near the firehouse, to execute him. We (me, my three siblings and my mom) were all kissing the boots of the German soldiers in despair, begging them to spare daddy’s life. God granted us our wish; they did not kill our father, but took him into custody and wanted to deport him to Germany. Our lives were terrible, but we managed to survive until the Germans fled, and the Polish and Soviet armies came.