Sławatycze, 13 June 1946
Adam Parczewski
Class 7
My wartime experiences
In early September 1939, the war broke out, with the Germans entering Poland and taking away our homeland. Children from the older grades of elementary schools turned adult during the war. In the time of captivity, when the Germans rules over Polish lands, there were arrests and deportations of Polish people to Majdanek. Poles suffered terribly and Polish children had many different war experiences.
In 1939, when the war started, I started attending the first grade of elementary school in Liszna. We could not have Polish, history or geography books at school. We learned from Ster magazine. The wartime Ster that we read was not a magazine about the spirit of Polishness and love [for] our Homeland. I had some books by Polish poets and novelists that I kept in secret. When I read them, I was careful so that the border guards would not see them, because not only would they take them away, but also my parents would be held responsible for me having them.
There were many rumors circulating, that the Germans would fall one day. We were all waiting impatiently... Until 1941, when the Germans started getting ready for a war with Russia. We felt fear, it was somewhat strange. We all had this desire to break out of the German bondage.
On Saturday, 21 June 1942, there were a lot of troops and cars everywhere, they were getting ready for war. My dad dug a trench, a bunker of sorts – I was helping dad as much as I could. We cut the logs together, I helped carry the planks to make this bunker – I helped as much as I could. In the evening we had everything packed, and some things were already buried.
The next morning we were woken up by the whirring of a German plane, which was flying over our Liszna, along the Bug River, which served as the border. Mum and dad talked about the war starting while lying in bed. Then suddenly the cannons fired, and everybody jumped out of their beds – the war came! I didn’t know what to do, what to put on, and whether I should be getting dressed or help with getting things out. And the cannons were firing, the machine guns were rattling and bombs were going off. It didn’t last long – only until noon. And then the gunfire died down.
The entire road was packed with cars, mostly Red Cross ones. The air was full of dust and the smell of gasoline. The news came to our ears that the Germans were successfully conquering eastern lands. Again, in my heart and in all Polish hearts, the hope that Poland will regain its freedom nearly died. The Polish suffering continued.
I never stopped dreaming of freedom. Suddenly, in 1944, the third front came in July. Germany could not stand against the power of Russia. It was different with our family at home, because in the meantime I lost my parents, my sister got married, had a little son, and she was sick. Everyone in the village packed up and ran away to the colony near the forest in anticipation of the front line. There, the Kalmyks from the bunkers, from Wydumka, waited for their wagons and took them to the German camp. My brother-in-law, when he took his last things to the colony of the village of Liszna, fell into their hands when he was coming home… I felt terror in my heart, my sister was sick with a child, and I was still young… What was I supposed to do… Without thinking much, I went crying to the Germans I knew, I asked them to let my brother- in-law go, and they eventually listened to my pleas. My brother-in-law came and took us to the colony. We lived in the forest with a farmer. During the raids, we hid in a bunker, and we did not fear there. The Germans were running away. On Sunday morning we saw the first Russian soldiers. Now we are free, taken from the claws of the black eagle.