Roman Koniecki

“At first [the Russian] took all the Polish people, the qualified ones, the educated ones and soldiers that were all the people that the Russians locked up and shot. At first, it was all quiet about the Katyn Forest (Massacre), nobody knew about it, we got to know about the fact they did it secretly, by a secret post. They murdered more than twenty thousand officers and scholars, they shot them as partridges, as the professional gamekeepers do it. And they still blamed it on the Germans, they still blamed it on them after the war saying that the Germans did it and they did not. But everyone could understand that the Germans were not in Russia yet that year. So how they could have done it. Well, when did they acknowledge Katyn? Not long ago.”

“The Germans were staying next to us and so they had a dugout shelter next to us and they stored food there. So, the neighbours who went in, hid in the dugout shelter when the Russians were approaching. The Germans escaped and the Russians were approaching, so they hid there. And the Russian did not look inside to see if someone was in. He stuck the machine gun, the PPSh in and shouted: ‘German, are you there?‘ And they were afraid, so nobody spoke and just to make sure, he fired the machine gun and my grandmother was shot in the arm and close to her back and my aunt was shot in her back.”