Ryszard Opala
Class 6b
Public Elementary School in Wąchock
Iłża district
Memories of German crimes
Upon entering Poland, the Germans burned towns and villages, shot at the defenseless population and concentrated people in various places to later deport them for forced labor. Registering the unemployed, the German authorities paid one-time allowances of ten Polish zlotys in silver coins, only to withdraw all silver coins from circulation in a few days. The Germans, seeing that people of merit to the homeland and scholars could become dangerous to them, began to arrest them and then murdered them in camps or prisons, so that none of these people returned. Higher education institutions did not exist at all during the German occupation; there was clandestine teaching; history, geography and math textbooks were taken away from the lower schools; teachers were arrested; mass arrests and executions were carried out. The Germans transported everything they could out of Poland: grain, cattle, machinery and ancient monuments; everything that was of value to them. But it didn’t help them at all, as they had to flee from Poland chased by Polish troops and the Red Army.