Posts Tagged ‘germans’

The year was 1943 and the winter, as is usual in the Bialystok region, was harsh.  The trees looked like glassy, motionless objects.  Houses in the entire town stood shrouded in melancholy  and dread.  As night fell, the lights went dark in the windows, leaving only the moon casting its glow among distant cold stars.  Sometimes passing airplanes could be  heard,  followed by  the sounds of bombs exploding far away  and then a glow of fires burning somewhere over the horizon reflected in the night sky. (more…)

As part of the European Union program, „Europe for Citizens”, the Museum of the City of Warsaw has published an anthology of writings in Polish, English, and German. Below is an abbreviated version of the story of an eleven-year-old girl.
Our family was intact at the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising (my parents must have known when it was about to begin). The first of August, at 5 pm. The sirens began, and the city began to come to life. Through the open window of our apartment on the first floor of 5 Grzybowska Street, the sounds of war came bursting in, growing louder. The residents began building a barricade at the beginning of the street, near the gate of the building. In several hours the barricade had grown high and wide and the soldiers of the Home Army felt safe behind it. Finally, Warsaw, tortured by the occupation, was attacking its enemy. (more…)