JANINA ZAORSKA

Class 5b
Parczew

My experiences during the war

The war with Germany started in 1939. I was still small then and I don’t remember how it began except for some sensations that I remembered better.

In the very first year of the war, there was a lot of activity at my parents’ manor in the village of Glinny Stok, where I lived, because of the constant passage of refugees who were running away from Warsaw and the Poznań area, many of which brushed by our home.

I remember how we ran to the basements and trenches during the air raids while the men took turns on duty at the door, looking to see if a plane was coming. I also remember how later, when we had become accustomed to the raids, my grandma, my little brother and I went into some thick bushes to hide from the planes. I remember how the cook, who rarely went outside, brought food to us children in the bushes or the in the basements we didn’t dare to leave during an air raid. Later on, everything calmed down at our manor because the refugees dispersed and the air raids broke off.

Of the later experiences of that terrible war, I remember that dad had to give away various quotas at the order of the Germans.

One bandit raid made a terrible impression on me. One of the bandits shot at my mum three times but luckily he didn’t even hurt her. We came to Parczew soon after that attack, where we live now and where I go to school.