Wiesława Lipiec
Class 6a
Public Elementary School in Iłża
21 November 1946
My most memorable moment from the occupation was when the Germans took away my father on 11 January 1945. In the morning, when I got up, the whole town was surrounded by cruel German gendarmes. They started arresting the men. I was standing in the window and I saw the mean Germans pushing the men to the cars that stood in the market square, accompanied by the aching groans of wives, mothers and children. Shortly afterwards they came for my father. Crying and begging, we all asked them to let him go, but the Nazi hearts were as hard as stone and [the Germans] did not heed our pain, crying and begging. [They took] our father. They marched him to the market square. It presented a terrible sight.
The men, with bundles on their backs and axes in their hands, surrounded by a gang of mean Germans, were waiting for the cars to take them for labor. The crying of wives, mothers, and children trying to get closer to their loved ones resonated in the air. [They] were pushed away with rifle butts by the German soldiers. To silence the pain of the Polish people, the Germans used loudspeakers, but instead of calming us down, they caused more grief and despair. The men were loaded on the cars and taken towards Starachowice. Groans of pain and despair from wives, mothers and children followed the departing cars. It was the last period of round-ups, as the poor Polish nation, tormented by a long war, [finally] witnessed the destruction of the vile enemy. The longed-for and beloved freedom has finally come.