Meanwhile, Stanislaus and Maria Rokicki learned that we had fled to the city in a hurry, so they came from Ludmilpol to our place, took care of the property and so far they lived in Theresin. In early August, Stach killed a pig, and Sister Marysia brought meat into town. someway she found us and began to tell us that in the country it was quiet, and that nothing is actually happening, and that the grain is falling off the head, and we are sitting here. She encouraged us all to go back to Theresin due to the fact that the hard winter will come and we will starve to death. However, parents decided to stay, with us in the city, only our eldest sister Irena in 24, together with her daughter Celinka about 1 year old, returned to our colony.
After a week of time, Mary returned again and insisted even more that we return, for the beautiful crop was born this year. This time my mommy, Ice cream, me and Stasia went out in the fields so no 1 could see us. On Teresina, we ate a meal and went to the rye field, set up quite a few snobs by evening. For the evening, the older Topolankova and Klimaszewska neighbors came to us, and we sat in the yard and started talking about what it would be and how things would go.
They said that their families were not leaving yet, that they had a shelter dug up, and in case anything came up, everyone would hide there with the Sobolewskis. I inactive had a bad feeling myself, and everyone was scared. That's erstwhile the Ukrainian chief came to our yard, and he started explaining to us: "This is tares, and this is prenyca. Prenycian kąkol treba rabra!’. However, he did not say anything else so that he did not uncover what these words were to be, nor what his communicative was to serve. Although each of us in his heart knew that tares were Poles, and wheat was Ukrainians. But no 1 asked him about it, so that minute later he moved on and went on.
That night, we slept in the field, due to the fact that we were afraid the Ukrainians would execution us at home. Our neighbors and sisters were already heavy trained and acquainted with this ubiquitous fear, so they went to sleep in their apartments, but I was very scared. I mean, it's even that wind that started rocking, it was kind of sad, so I told my mom I wouldn't go to the apartment. After that, me and Mom and Stasia went to sleep in the field, where we set the grain and the 3 of us, in 1 mound, the night we sat. Just in the morning, we came home. Stasia and I went to sleep in the barn, and Mom milked the cows erstwhile the neighbors came to talk to us again. Mommy besides went to others in the colony to ask what was going on, but she did not actually bring anything new. Everywhere people were afraid and afraid of what would happen to them.
Because for now, it was peaceful, we went back to the field and worked in the harvest. That's where she came to us before noon, our sister Irena, and she said to us, “He quits this occupation due to the fact that no 1 will request it any more, just a minute ago, there were armed Ukrainians in our home to get their daddy and insisted that he came home yesterday.” In this situation, we lost our desire to proceed our work, and we returned home soon. We barely entered the apartment, I started picking out the cherries from the oven, due to the fact that my sister put them in the drying room, the window was across the street, and I see 2 Ukrainians with guns coming. I stood there, and I couldn't move, and the others were afraid, too, but they asked politely about their father, and where is he now? I replied that he was in Włodzimierz Volynski, so they ask us further erstwhile he went there. I say on our behalf, erstwhile everyone left, and they say no, he was expected to come to Theresin yesterday. So they started looking around the house, looking in the room, and due to the fact that he was not there, they told us that they met him yesterday in Poniczów and assured us that he was on his way to Theresin. Meanwhile, we explained that he evidently didn't get here due to the fact that we haven't seen him here yet. So they asked if we were going to town sometimes, and we said we were. Then they said, “Then go into town and tell your dad to come to Theresin, due to the fact that we request him very much.” I was in a hurry to say good!
After that, they left, and we just left for town, we didn't even eat dinner, although it was cooked, just sickles in hand and on the way. Earlier, this time, we were the ones who asked our sisters to run with us while they inactive could, due to the fact that there's nothing good for them here. Of course, we didn't even think about going back to Theresin for a second. Our sisters answered: “Go now, and we will come to you in about 2 or 3 days. Together we will be besides large a group." And we went in fields, on the way we joined Rokicki, and then we got our brother Stanisław, who was just coming to us to Theresin from Włodzimierz Wołyński. We turned him around, and we were already walking in the fields to the city, where we got fortunate this time, and my brother was on his way to tell us what happened yesterday at Poniczow.
It was the last time we saw our sisters alive. They've been there forever, sanctifying this land with their martyrdom blood. From that day on, all traces of them have been lost, I'm beautiful certain they were savagely murdered, like the others, during the bander's robbery on Theresin. Meanwhile, we got to town happily. That's where we found Daddy, who told us how yesterday they tried with our uncle John Borkowski and this Ukrainian guy, who gave shelter, to get a car to Theresin. So they went to the country to bring something to eat due to the fact that there was already terrible poorness in the city. And from the countryside, you've always brought something, and it's potatoes, vegetables, fruit, and even chicken, if you could see somewhere.
For they were fortunate erstwhile they were heading toward Barbarovka, the Ukrainians seized them, but always the Optariness of God watches. 2 friends of the father in German uniforms arrived on motorcycles, it was a friend of the Volksdojcz from Dominopol. They did not stop, they went to Włodzimierz Wołyński, took 4 more Germans and immediately went to Poniczów. Thanks to the warrant of the Germans, Daddy and Uncle Jan Borkowski were released by Ukrainians to guarantee that they would now go to Theresin. Naturally, they only got to Smolarnia and then returned to the city under cover, knowing that the Ukrainians would come for them.
Victims of the “UN-UPA hero” and witnesses to the massacre
Since these events, for a short time there has been peace, but what happened on Theresin, due to the fact that we did not know from there, we had no information. Meanwhile, there was hunger in the city, food shortages and people fell ill, so Germans allowed to organize food trips to Ukrainian villages and fields. During this time, Poles besides organized a network of self-defense facilities which protected Vladimir Wołyński and the people gathered there, most frequently refugees from the nearest areas. 1 specified facility was located in the old Cegielnia, about 4 km from the city, and this facility, in fact, proved to be more useful in providing any help.
There were very many trips to get food out of town, there were 2 during the week, and sometimes this and 3 specified trips. People had to eat something just to survive. I personally went for food respective times, for example around the Marcelówka colony. erstwhile in the morning they came to catch forced labour to the 3rd Reich, fortunately Germany was with them. His father asked him not to take us, due to the fact that the remainder of the kids were left in the country, and if they were all together, we'd love to go. Then Niemic counted us, and he saw small children with us, so he asked if we had anything to eat? My father said we had adequate for ourselves, and we had adequate to survive, so he let us go.
Still, you had to hide all the time, and on the day you drove to bring something to eat for so many people. We've lived with Mrs. Korzenoska for a long time, which is why my father searched for an empty warehouse, corner of Gnojeńska and Kowelska streets. The place was convenient due to the anticipation of hiding erstwhile we immediately hid in the basement, in the attic, and even in the underwear under the bed.
After all, there was peace in the city and we felt much safer there, we frequently went to the church of the Holy Heart of Jesus. There we met our friends from Teresin and the surrounding area, for example in August I spoke to Mrs. Wesołowska, Polish from Kohyleński Tartak. I remember going to church on Sunday morning, and I was seen by Wesolovska, nodding at me, and erstwhile I left the temple, she asked me if I knew there was a pogrom on Theresin? She besides told me how her husband and respective another Poles died, she said this: “The Ukrainians murdered my husband and respective another Poles at the Kohilen Tartak. They threw them into the well, and then they tore them with grenades!’ I haven't talked to her in a long time, and she just added: “Do you know that your sisters, too, have been murdered on Theresin?” And that terrible information ended our conversation, and I rapidly ran to ours to tell them what I had just heard. erstwhile I told my parents the bad news, they were desperate, but there was nothing we could do for them, the poor.
I wasn't frightened anymore! For weeks and all day in the city I met many injured people, many refugees from various parts of Volyn, and sometimes bodies of the murdered were besides brought to the city. Once, somewhere in late August, the Germans brought 7 coffins, and in them bodies were murdered. I was just walking down the street, and I saw that there was quite a few people there, so I looked. I was terrified of what I was looking at. It was a Polish household from the Polish village of Włodzimierzówka, everyone had their eyes plucked out, so that they hung on their cheeks, their tongues were stretched out, until below their beards, their stomachs were cut open, and barbed wire was clogged inside. 4 children had twisted legs and so cruel that the skin cracked on their legs. I was standing there for a while, and I heard people say, “This dead grandpa was Ukrainian and was ordered by another Ukrainians: ‘Or you will kill your family, or we will finish you all!’ due to the fact that this grandfather, reportedly resisted, the criminals did as they predicted." erstwhile people kept telling themselves that communicative from mouth to mouth, Germans photographed massacred bodies of the Polish-Ukrainian family. I haven't stood there in a long time, and I've been devastated to come home. This event took place, after the slaughter on Teresa.
A fewer days after I met Wesołowska, my brother-in-law Stanisław Rokicki came to our home about 25 years ago. He started to tell us what happened in the last fewer days on our Teresa, and he said with the takeover: "Those who did not flee to the city, the Ukrainians encouraged them to gather grain, which was in the fields, and to bring everything from the fields to the piles. And on this Saturday they gave everyone a part of meat to eat, and at night they came from Włodzimierz Wołyński and whom they met, he did not escape alive. Fortunately, for any time now, we've all been worried about our lives and not staying in our homes. Me and my colleagues, (including most likely Sobolewski), usually slept in our barn on a dry clover. My wife Maria and our boy Casimir, only a six-month-old child, Irena and Celine's daughter, and Leokadia all stayed together, usually in our house. And that tragic night, erstwhile the banders slaughtered us all over Teresa, it was the same.
It was inactive night erstwhile we were awakened by the violent buzz of the beaten windows and the terrible, terrifying cry of my wife Mary and the another 2 sisters. After a while, there was another violent silence. At that time, we, in fear, tried to dig deeper into the end. For we were afraid that now they would besides start looking in the barn. By dawn, however, it was quiet and calm. In the morning, as shortly as it developed, we came out of hiding and carefully searched our home and our backyard, but nowhere did we find bodies murdered or even traces of blood. Only the broken windows indicated the tragedy that happened here today, which we witnessed. Since we were inactive afraid to go somewhere else, we returned to the barn and sat there until evening. erstwhile the darkness fell, we got to the town of Włodzimierz Wołyński. Many of our neighbors died in this massacre, although there were mistakes, like the Sobolewskis, that the boy got hit in the head with an axe and survived, so that 3 children survived in this family."
Staszek was desperate, and nothing else, he refused to tell us, and as shortly as he finished his testimony, he rushed out of our warehouse. It was the last time I saw him, since that day we have no news of him, he may have disappeared in the war, or he may inactive be alive in Poland. Naturally, all traces of our sisters have besides disappeared, and to this day we do not know where their bodies were laid, where their temporal remains lie. It is simply a large tragedy and a very painful Charter of our family. Besides, I don't remember gathering anyone else who would tell me my experiences from the pogrom on Theresin. I have met people from Theresin, but someway I can't remember any another stories.
Another time, we didn't live at Mrs. Korzenowska's home anymore, we went with Stasia behind the tracks due to the fact that they didn't catch it and we were coming home in the morning. We look, and on the street there are Ukrainians, a ladder car and they catch Poles for robots to Germany, they catch us. Mom was standing in the yard, and she saw them get into that car and the 2 of us, and there were any people in that car. 1 Ukrainian guarded the people on the truck, and 2 went around the houses and caught who they could. In this hard situation, who was brave, he risked and ran distant from this car, and I watched everything. So on Plain Street, I say to Stasi: "Get out of the car and run, just not consecutive but zigzag, even though he would shoot, he won't hit you. I'm older, I'll manage.” This happened in a moment, and erstwhile we were close the German gathering point, I saw a yard and any pigsty. I jumped out of the car and got in 1 of those pigstys, and it was a henhouse. I was very much covered in chicken lice, but I sat there for about 2 hours, due to the fact that I was afraid to leave so that individual wouldn't announcement me.
In the autumn of 1943, in the suburb of Włodzimierz Wołyński, on Gnojeńska Street, Ukrainians attacked Polish household and murdered 4 people in the night. The victims were a young couple and 2 of their young children, aged about 4 and 6. In the morning, as shortly as this terrible news spread among Poles, we went to see what actually happened there.. erstwhile I arrived there, I saw a tiny wooden house, there were many people there. I just walked in, saw a female crammed by the kitchen, knew she wanted to light a fire in the morning, and there the torturers got her. Her husband's body was in the room, and there were 2 small boys next to him. We looked sadly and returned to our detention site. [a fragment of the memories of Helena Wójtowicz of Karbowiak of the Kohyleńska Budka Osada in Volyn, listened, wrote down and developed STRoch on 12 June 2011]
