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:
Józef Stępień (born 1932), witness to the bombing of Wieluń. During the German occupation, his family lived in the same building as German gendarmes. His mother cleaned their apartments and thanks to that they received some food products from time to time. His father was sent to Erfurt for forced labor. He managed to escape and return to Wieluń, but the wives of other deportees from Wieluń started writing letters to their husbands, asking why Stępień came back and they didn’t. The Germans read the letters and discovered his whereabouts. Władysław Stępień was arrested and sentenced to death by hanging at the factory from which he had escaped. The family made great efforts to save him. Władysław Stępień started feigning an illness to buy more time. His wife gave him a special brew which caused a faint and irregular pulse. As a result, the physician who examined him claimed that Stępień would not survive the journey to Erfurt. The gendarmes asked for this diagnosis to be written down and drove away. Józef Stępień’s father was deemed unfit for work and was allowed to stay in Wieluń. He had to report regularly to the German employment office, but the threat of execution was no longer there.
Copyright by Instytut Solidarności i Męstwa im. Witolda Pileckiego.
7 мар 2023