Kamila Kwiecień
Class 6
Public Elementary School in Majków
Skarżysko Kościelne commune, Iłża district
30 October 1946
Memories of German crimes
[There is no] family, village or town in Poland that the German criminals would leave in peace. Every thought about Poland was persecuted, every word [illegible] was the hope that Poland did not perish, but lives in our [hearts?] and minds eternally and will not perish so long as we still live. [People?] constantly felt like hunted animals. The nearest monument to the German atrocities is the village of Michniów, [illegible] unburned. And what about our villages? Many people who were caught [illegible] and imprisoned at Auschwitz, Majdanek, etc. were [illegible] hungry and cold. Many never returned home because they perished at German hands. Those who did return are incapable of work; they were beaten with rifle butts, they shudder at their terrible memories from the camp.
But this was not enough [for the invaders]. They took books to Germany, such as [textbooks on] history and geography, maps; they wanted to destroy our culture. But Poles didn’t [allow it?], they organized clandestine teaching. The Germans also destroyed villages, stealing cows and other property and imposing large quotas on the poor people. They wanted to [destroy?] Poland and wipe it off the map of Europe, but God was watching over poor, defenseless Poles and prevented this from happening. Now their time has come, they languish [as the Poles did?]. The perpetrators of so many atrocities were hanged from the gallows in [illegible].