A horrific tragedy through the eyes of an 8-year-old girl. Bloody September of 1939 in Poland and Ukraine

     On September 1, 1939, the Germans were also bombing Lviv, Lutsk, Sarny and other Ukrainian cities in a planned manner.

     Why did I ask about her grandmother? I didn't have to do that...

     -She died literally in the first minutes of the war. From a German bomb.      For us, the war began on the very September 1, when the city was being bombed. I remember that school learning was suspended and I stayed at home with my other. Heavy aircrafts with crosses on their wings began flying over Warsaw. People on the streets stopped and looked anxiously at the sky.      Suddenly, bombs started dropping from these horrible flying machines. It was so scary that I wanted to shelter, crawl underground, into some kind of basement and never come out. I was 8 years old then, we lived in Warsaw, and my grandmother (my mother's mother) and her younger sister stayed in their house in Velun (Łódź Voivodeship).     In Warsaw, the Germans bombed the railway tracks and the station from the very beginning, followed by the airport, hospital, factory and factory settlements. After everything calmed down, the adults and I were going to help the wounded(father and mother were doctors, and there was no one at home to look after me). It was weird to see dead people with frozen eyes open, covered with concrete rubble(however, it seems, that by the end of the war people got used to it).      The next day, my mothers younger sister, Kasia, appeared on the doorstep. In dirty clothes, with a scratched and swollen face. We learned from her that a bomb had their family home in Velun (Łódź Voivodeship). On that first day of the war, the entire family of our aunt Ruza died in Frampol, and in Lutsk - aunt Zosia and uncle Franek (on September 1, the Germans were also bombing Lviv, Lutsk, Sarny and other Ukrainian cities in a planned manner).     A few days before the start of the war, mobilization for the army was announced on the radio. My father used to say that the war was inevitable (however, everyone was counting then on allies). And residents were called on to dig trenches and shelters for random passers-by. And the grandmother with her youngest daughter sheltered in such a dugout near the house. There they were covered with soil and bricks from the destroyed house. Kasia was the first to regain consciousness and began digging up her mother with her arms. But when she dug it up, she saw that the mother was no longer breathing.      Do you know what started the attack on Poland? They supposedly protected the Polish Germans. That was a good reason. At the end of August, someone hid explosives in German schools and set fire to German properties. Just before the war, a bomb exploded in some storerooms of the Tarn railway station, killing 18 people there.      And do you know what triggered the attack on Poland? They supposedly defended the Polish Germans. That was a good reason. At the end of August, someone hid explosives in German schools and set German properties on fire. Just before the war, a bomb exploded in a storeroom of the Tarn railway station, killing 18 people there.      But the Russians brought down Poland the most (not looking at me). In mid-September (1939), they attached us from the side of Russia. Poland was divided with the Germans. A part of the Polish Army was arrested and disarmed. We had relatives in Stanislav, after that nothing was heard about them. People reflected that it was horrible there. The Poles were detained on the streets just for speaking Polish...     Such was life...      We fell silent, mentally reflecting on those horrific times and our dead relatives. On September 17, 1939, Soviet troops began the occupation of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus. Lutsk and Stanislav (now Ivano-Frankivsk) were already occupied on September 18, Lviv on September 22, Drohobych on September 24, Yavoriv on September 26, and Staryi Sambir on September 27.      Stalin motivated the invasion by the fact that the Soviet Union was forced "to take the lives and property of the Ukrainian and Belarusian population of the eastern regions of Poland under protection". In fact, the USSR acted in accordance with the Soviet-German pact on mutual non-aggression and the secret protocols to it ("Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact"), which specifically raised the division of the territory of Poland. The lands, inhabited mainly by ethnic Ukrainians and Belarusians, came under the control of the USSR and were included in the Ukrainian SSR and BRSR, while Polish lands were recognized as belonging to Germany.      On September 28, after the suppression of the resistance of the Polish Army across the entire territory of this country, in Warsaw, in particular, the German–Soviet Boundary and Friendship Treaty  was signed, which was defined along the Western Bug and Narew. Thus, again in its history, Poland was erased from the map of Europe. According to this treaty, most of the present-day Western Ukraine, except for Kholm, Podlasie, Posyan, and Lemko regions, went to the USSR.      On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland, marking the actual start of World War II (Operation Weiss).     On September 17, the USSR actually became a participant in World War II as an ally of the Third Reich. WHAT DID SHE SAY THERE ABOUT THE PROTECTION OF THEGERMAN POPULATION IN POLAND AND PROVOCATION?...By Olha Ruda, journalist from ChicagoPhoto: World War II. Archive photo