19 June 1946
Halina Osypiukówna
Class 5b
Wisznice, Włodawa district
Wartime experience
A couple of weeks before the front line approached, I heard gunfire from afar. People were worried that their buildings would burn down and that many of them would die, and I was really scared. On Sunday morning, there was great commotion and people quickly ran to the forest [with] their livestock. I was very scared. I didn’t know what was going on. We ran away with mum and my older sister into thick bushes, where we spent all day. The gunfire was so strong that the ground started shaking. We were hungry, because we did not eat anything from early morning until lunch time, not even a piece of bread. In the evening it started to rain, we took shelter under a haystack and we sat there, but it got wet too. We did not return home until the night.
On Monday morning, we saw cars burning, some people thought that the buildings were on fire. My sister and I started throwing clothes away. After lunch, we found out that the Bolsheviks were already marching along the road. I was very happy and I ran to tell mum.