World War II Woman

War Begins in Poland

How can I shorten Helen’s story about her young years in Poland? I can’t, but I’ll give you a glimpse.

In my book, We Knew We Were at War: Women Remember World War II, Helen begins her story, “World War II began in 1939 when Germany invaded Poland, but for us in the deep parts of Poland, very little changed. Life was peaceful and calm, except for incidents of violence we heard about occasionally when German troops went through villages en route to the big cities. We lived in Dobra, in the center of Poland, about 125 miles southwest of Warsaw. My father was a school principal and my mother a part-time teacher.”

Helen goes on to tell about the day three Gestapo officers came into her grandparent’s village while her family was visiting them. The men of the village had plans to kill the officers, but her father explained to the others that someone would check on the officers and the village could suffer dire consequences. They released the officers. A couple of years later, Helen’s father was lined up with other men from their town to be shot by a German patrol. At the last moment, in strode one of the three officers who had been saved by her father. The Gestapo officer pulled her father from the line, thus saving his life. However, shortly thereafter her father was on his way to a forced work camp when the train was bombed. He managed to escape but his whereabouts was not known.

In early January of 1944, the Germans came banging at Helen’s family’s door telling them their house was needed to serve as the headquarters and they must leave. A neighbor provided them with a wagon and a driver, thus ending life in Dobra. They joined a wagon train en route to Germany in the midst of a snowstorm.

After being on the road for over a week, they came into farm country where the wagon commandant divided the wagon train into two sections. One section would spend the night in a school while the other group went to a farm. At the schools, the refugees ate at desks and slept on straw mattresses. At the farms, they slept in stables with the animals. Helen like being with the animals because it was warmer.

As they approached the suburbs of Potsdam, the highways were bombed out and the wagon train was delayed. For a little over a week, they stayed at a home with some German women who shared food with them and gave them a room. It was the first time they had been alone together for awhile. That night, Helen’s mother said, “Halina, tonight we can talk to the Lord in private.”

More about Helen tomorrow.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites