P8 My memories of the first days of World War II

Narrator: Janina Biernacka Reporter: Piotr Biernacki

My name is Janina Biernacka. I was born in 1931, when the 2nd World War broke out I was 8 years old. I was getting dressed to school when I suddenly heard the planes in the morning of September 1st, 1939. I ran out into the yard and I could see the planes flying very low, there were only a few of them. I didn’t go to school that day.

After a while I saw Polish army in the street. The soldiers were marching and singing. We had known about the beginning of the war several days before. My dad went to the forest together with our neighbours in order to build shelters for their families, and my mum baked 5 big loaves of bread. We also took some water, milk, butter and went to the forest. We spent there 3 days and nights there when the German forces entered the village.

My dad went home every day to feed our cow, the horse and the dog. The Germans asked him about the other inhabitants of the village. Dad told them that they were afraid and that they were hiding. Everyone was ordered to return to their homesteads without resisting. Only then nothing wrong would happen to anyone. Otherwise, the whole village was threatened to be burnt down, just like Klepaczka 2 days before.

The German forces quartered on the school building. There were no lessons. The students were told to throw away Polish textbooks. Children were unwilling to do so; they ran away to the fields, hiding their books in the maize. It was really hard when the Germans introduced their own rules and their own law. We lived in constant fear of loosing our lives. Food was only given for cards and we lacked almost everything. In order not to starve we grinded corn and baked bread from cheap flour. All of this we had to do secretly since it was forbidden.

The thing everyone feared most was transportation to a concentration camp, the place one could associate only with horrid tortures and death.

I’m glad these are only recollections and that the generations of young Polish people still remember about their compatriots who won the country’s freedom by suffering many times dedicating their lives. I also hope that we will never have to experience days like those in the years 1939-1945.