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I remember, in 1941, we didn’t know anything about the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact [11] we [only] knew the Germans were approaching Lwow, and my father went with other men from the neighborhood to raise barricades near our home, on Listopada Street. We realized what was happening to Jews [in German-occupied Poland] but not fully. Because we believed the [Germans] were, after all, a civilized, intelligent, music-loving nation. We didn’t know.
In the first days [of German occupation] my father was terribly beaten up, he was unconscious. There was a prison on Lackiego Street, near where we lived, and when the Soviets were leaving [June 1941], they murdered the prisoners there. When the Germans came, they caught people in the street, not only Jews, and made them remove those corpses. And when they saw a Jew (and they told men to strip so they knew who was a Jew), they beat him terribly. And my father was utterly unconscious.
Some strangers, Poles, brought him home. He stank so hard of dead bodies it took several days [to get rid of the smell]. We burned his clothes. He lay completely out of his senses, for a very long time, he was so horribly beaten. And as soon as he came to, they [Ms. Wyszynska’s father, the stepmother and her daughter] moved to the ghetto. Me, I stayed on Sapiehy with Staszek until the last moment, because I was afraid. He protected me a bit.
In the first days [of German occupation] my father was terribly beaten up, he was unconscious. There was a prison on Lackiego Street, near where we lived, and when the Soviets were leaving [June 1941], they murdered the prisoners there. When the Germans came, they caught people in the street, not only Jews, and made them remove those corpses. And when they saw a Jew (and they told men to strip so they knew who was a Jew), they beat him terribly. And my father was utterly unconscious.
Some strangers, Poles, brought him home. He stank so hard of dead bodies it took several days [to get rid of the smell]. We burned his clothes. He lay completely out of his senses, for a very long time, he was so horribly beaten. And as soon as he came to, they [Ms. Wyszynska’s father, the stepmother and her daughter] moved to the ghetto. Me, I stayed on Sapiehy with Staszek until the last moment, because I was afraid. He protected me a bit.
Period
Year
1941
Interview
Matylda Wyszynska