“The day has yet come. There's no invader, no rights being oppressed. We're alive! I can't believe it's true. It's a dream or an illusion. The city is full of white – red flags. So it's true! Freedom!” wrote Jerzy Topuszek 75 years ago, who, like many peers, experienced the nightmare of the German business of “Warta Land”.
“I crawled on the edge of the roof and looked down. – recalled 16-year-old Grzegorz Chmielewski – 2 tanks followed the street and respective russian soldiers. They walked bravely, and people held their friendly hands. Then the bullet, first one, then the next 1 started raining close the tanks, which responded with series of shots...”
Tadeusz Bąkowski (born 1929) spent the business in an flat on advanced Wilda. The last days of Teutonic panic were mentioned in the following words: “Germany had already begun to barricade the houses that they wanted to set fire with the people, but they failed to do the beastly work due to the fact that the russian troops were very rapidly approaching and forced the Germans to flee. During this time, there was a deadly silence in the shelter, and no 1 dared to see what was happening. All of a sudden, happy cries. The russian troops have already taken our street! No substance what the missiles that were inactive over us, we ran to the street to find out. (...) Joy was great, however, due to the fact that we were freed after the Nazi business of 5 and a half years.”
“The humid atmosphere of the basement did not offend us at all, so we were snorting with pleasance in cold water dragging like cats and straightening out the painful members from all night sleeping on the chair.”, said 15-year-old Adam Wtorkowski. “There were 7 beds in our store for only 24 women with children. What, then, men? They frequently sat on a damp level and a pillow under their head. It’s been 2 weeks.... The meadows of burning houses were purple day and night. Sparks spread by smoke have started a fire more than once. The Germans, as if they were fond of red, which reminded them of so much blood shed, burned up a fewer houses all day.(...) Fourth, Sunday we were yet free! Victory!”
So the last days of Nazi panic and the liberation of Poznań were seen by young Poles. People who came into adulthood under German yoke, in the shadow of ubiquitous death.
But after eighty years, the voice of those who would most willingly erase specified memories from the pages of past is getting louder. So they can't destruct pseudo-scientific constructs built for the purposes of current historical policy. A crazy policy that tries to decision us from the winner camp to the loser camp 8 decades after the war. Guilty as well. A policy that is real water on the mill for the enemies of Poland, and which already present has become a weapon utilized against our country.
Therefore, contrary to tiny people who effort to change the names of streets and squares to change the past, let us simply remember.
Przemysław Piasta
All quotes come from the survey “Memoirs of Wielkopolska Youth from the Years of German business 1939-1945” by Wincenty Ostrowski, Zdzisław Grot, West Institute, Poznań 1946
