The video was recorded by the Pilecki Institute as part of the “Witnesses to the Age project.”
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Our today’s interviewee:
Zofia Piec (born in 1925 in the village of Skłoby) as a teenager aided the partisans from the Separated Unit of the Polish Army [Oddział Wydzielony Wojska Polskiego] commanded by Major Henryk Dobrzański "Hubal", and later joined the Home Army (nom de guerre "Kwiatek").
On 11 April 1940 she witnessed the pacification of her village carried out by the Germans in retaliation for the actions of the units led by "Hubal." Her father was killed and her brother survived thanks to the help of a compassionate German. More than 200 men from the Skłoby village were buried in pits in the nearby forest. In the spring, their remains were pulled out of the ground by dogs - this is how the inhabitants of Skłoby found the mass graves. After obtaining a permit, they exhumed the bodies. Zofia Piec was a witness to these events. She carried water used for washing the corpses of her acquaintances and neighbors. As it turned out, her father was buried alive, as no bullet had struck him during the execution.
Near the end of the occupation, the Germans sent auxiliary units, the so-called "Mongols", to eliminate the Home Army partisans hiding in the Niekłań Forest. Alone at her house in Skłoby, Zofia Piec had no time to hide, so she began to pray for salvation. A soldier who then entered her house turned out to be a decent man: he ordered her to hide in a closet and then told his fellow soldiers that the house was empty. Many women in Skłoby were brutally raped that day and were in need of medical help.
When the Red Army was entering this territory, the Germans hastily withdrew. German civilians from a village near Radom who were fleeing from their homes were shot dead by the Russians. Zofia Piec went to the site, hoping to find something useful among their belongings. She grabbed a landmine, mistaking it for a bar of soap, but was fortunately stopped by a Red Army soldier, who took the mine away (sadly, along with a blanket she had found), saving her life.
Copyright by Instytut Solidarności i Męstwa im. Witolda Pileckiego.
7 дек 2020
