Alicja Pękala
Class 6
Marianów, 21 November 1946.
My most memorable moment from the occupation
When the Germans invaded Poland, they took power. They took everything away: grain, cattle, pigs, eggs, hens, milk and everything they found on the farms. They didn’t care that the farmer had one last piece of bread, maybe not for himself but for his children. So the Germans were walking from house to house and searching everywhere, even looking into the pots standing on the stove. They took everything they had found. They appointed a meat, grain and potato contingent. They ordered such large amounts that if one gave them the products as ordered, there would be nothing to sow the land on small farms, and stocking out on food would be out of the question. My daddy had a small farm, so during the war he had to give a very big contingent. He couldn’t comply – he gave them something, but not everything. So the Germans came to take the rest of it, they ordered the village administrator to dig a huge hole and they were about to kill those people who didn’t provide the contingent and bury them in this hole. The sadness I felt because of the Germans back then was indescribable, because my mommy was seriously ill and my daddy was about to be killed for the undelivered contingent. So my brother and I would be without livelihood. The Germans came to our school, took our daddy and many other farmers to a camp. The Germans got on horses and rushed those farmers whom they had taken away for undelivered contingent on foot in front of them and beat them with whips. This was how they rushed them all to the commune and my daddy with this group too. They deported them for forced labor, beat them and didn’t give them anything to eat. [These men] had to work by the Vistula, in the water, almost naked and barefoot, because no one from the whole area could afford to buy shoes.