A few years ago, I wrote down the memories of my grandparents (my mother’s parents) from World War II. Some of them were published in the Zamość Cultural Quarterly No. 4/2016. I also spoke about them on Catholic Radio Zamość: https://www.radiozamosc.pl/wiadomosci/1949,agnieszka-olech
Below, I present the entire memoirs of my grandparents – Franciszka Łojko – née Kozłowska (April 24, 1919 – July 22, 1995) and Michał Łojko (September 12, 1910 – March 6, 1984) – as many as I have been able to preserve. They are based primarily on oral history.
PART 1
End of January 1943. Franciszka Łojko, fleeing another German “air raid” on the village of Hutków (then Suchowola Commune, now Krasnobród Commune, Zamość County, Lublin Voivodeship), went to visit her sister, Feliksa Borek, who lived in the village of Borki, near Hutków. Franciszka was already nine months pregnant. She likely stayed with Feliksa for one day.
On the evening of February 1, 1943, when it was already dark, she and her other sister, Marynka, were returning to Hutków (both lived in Hutków). They were walking along a dirt road between Borki and Hutków. As they approached the village, they saw Germans illuminating the village with lanterns. When the Germans turned the lanterns in their direction, Franciszka and Marynka quickly dropped to the ground to prevent the occupiers from seeing them. It was very difficult for the pregnant Franciszka to drop to the ground. They searched for shelter, but it was too dark. Franciszka was carrying a can of honey, a gift from Feliksa from Borek, who had an apiary. However, she left the can somewhere in the field, because if the Germans saw her carrying honey, they would likely kill them, thinking they were carrying it to partisans (especially since the Battle of Zaboreczno, which lies just a few kilometers from Hutkowo, took place on February 1st). When the lamps were turned in a different direction and it became dark, the sisters rose and fled. A moment later, they fell to the ground again. And so they did repeatedly. Fortunately, they found shelter behind a hill called “patuczek” (a name still used among the Hutkowo community). Nearby, a tree grew, and they both hid under its roots. Then they heard wagons driving along the road past the chapel toward the village of Zaboreczno. After a while, Marynka decided to return home after all, because her son and husband were still there. Franciszka, on the other hand, due to her blessed state – nine months pregnant – sat under the aforementioned root until morning. Only in the early morning, when it was light and the shots and screams had subsided, did she return home. It was February 2, 1943. Two days later – on February 4, she gave birth to her daughter, Weronika, at home.
PART 2
The following part is the recollection of my grandparents, who, after being deported, were sent to forced labor in the Third Reich and remained there until the end of the war.
The deportation of the village of Hutków took place in early July 1943. This took place as part of the second wave of pacification and displacement operations in the Zamość region, codenamed “Wehrwolf.”
German troops, as mentioned earlier, had been conducting periodic “raids” on the village since the beginning of the war, either to search for Jews or to intimidate the residents. However, the day of the deportation of Hutków was different. German troops, heavily armed, surrounded the town at dawn to prevent anyone from escaping into the forest. They brutally entered from house to house, first ordering all men to leave their homes. They gathered them near the local church. Anyone who resisted was to be shot immediately, so fearing for their lives, people did as the Nazis commanded. They were then transported to a transit camp in Zamość. Later that same day, women and children joined the men. Forcing people from their homes, they kicked, beat, and pushed them, disregarding the sick, women, and small children. Most people didn’t have time to take even the most essential things with them, as they were given only a few minutes to pack. When Michał Łojko was already in the Zamość resettlement camp, his wife Franciszka and their five-month-old daughter, Weronika, only managed to take some milk in a container placed in a cloth tied around her neck. She was holding the baby in her arms. People were transported to the transit camp in Zamość in horse-drawn wagons. Each wagon carried several armed Germans who guarded the displaced. Franciszka barely escaped with her life after a cloth filled with milk tightened around her neck, and she was already so weak that she could not speak. A woman she knew, sitting next to her in the wagon, noticed this and helped her. They went, dressed as they were. The day was extremely hot. In the transit camp in Zamość, they were racially segregated, in accordance with Himmler’s decree, and classified in group III, meaning as people fit for work who had been found to have characteristics of Eastern or Eastern Baltic race (H. Kajtel, Hitlerowski camp przesiedleńczy w Zamościu, Biłgoraj 2003). Here, too, connecting Families were taken together. On the transport list of people displaced by the German occupiers, deported in July 1943 from the Nazi transit camp in Zamość via the Zamość Labor Office for forced labor in the Reich, Franciszka and Michał Łojko, along with their daughter Weronika, are listed as numbers 42, 43, and 44 (list number 1, sheet 2) – based on certificate no. 842-1577/89 dated November 20, 1989, from the State Archives in Lublin, issued upon request.
Healthy individuals capable of work were placed in so-called cattle wagons and transported to forced labor in the Third Reich. All wagons were locked from the outside to prevent escape. The Łojko couple and their daughter ended up in one such wagon. It was dirty, smelly, and overcrowded. Everyone was terrified. They didn’t know where they were going or what awaited them. The parents’ fear for their own children was the worst, and they prayed that at least they would survive. The milk Franciszek had taken with her a few days earlier had curdled. A woman had a basket of eggs with her and gave some to a mother and child. She fed her nearly six-month-old daughter, Weronika, only raw eggs the entire journey because there was nothing to eat. Along the way, the train stopped at Majdanek. They thought they were going to their deaths, but after a few days, they set off again in cattle cars. The journey was exceptionally difficult, mainly due to hunger, the heat in the train, the crowds, and fear. The terror culminated in the train passing Auschwitz. Everyone on the train sang the song “Serdeczna Matko…” (Sweet Mother…😉, convinced they were going to their deaths. However, someone knew the area and reassured them that they were passing Auschwitz and probably heading straight to Germany. And so it was. After more than two weeks of grueling, exhausting travel from Zamość in conditions that were outrageous, they reached their destination. Many did not survive this transport.
The town was called Mehryngen (documents list it as Mehryngen, but today it’s called Mehringen, according to the private documents of Franciszka and Michał Łojko). It was located in east-central Germany. Many people from Hutków and the surrounding area also found their way to that region. Michał and Franciszka, with their small, several-month-old daughter, were taken to a farmer named Albert Schneidwin (private documents of F. and M. Łojko – certificate at the request of Franciszka Łojko from the Landesversicherungsanstalt Sachsen-Anhalt). He and his wife ran a farm staffed by forced laborers displaced not only from Poland but also from other countries. It’s worth noting that these owners had two sons who died in the war. The Łojek couple were sent to one of the many barracks prepared for workers. They lived there with a Serbian woman and her two-year-old son – five people in total. Living conditions were abysmal: freezing in winter and scorching hot in summer, as the barracks had no protection against changing weather conditions. From their very first day, they were given strict instructions regarding living and working on a large German farm. They were assigned numbers, and the letter “P” was a distinguishing mark for Poles. Lights were forbidden in the barracks under penalty of severe punishment, so all activities (eating, changing the baby’s diaper) were performed in the dark. Food was rationed by ration cards, but it was so meager that it was barely enough to survive. They mostly ate leftovers from the farmers after dinner. Immediately after their arrival, Franciszka was assigned to heavy field work, while Michał was assigned to work in the stables amidst a terrible stench. They worked from dawn to dusk, regardless of the weather. They had one break for lunch. Meanwhile, the father, working in the yard, would check on his daughter Weronika, who was left in a cot in the barracks for days without care, food, or water. However, the work in the stables didn’t last long, as Michał fell ill due to the harsh conditions. He and his wife begged the owner to transfer him to the fields, where Franciszek’s wife worked with other workers. Besides Poles, there were Belarusians, Ukrainians, and people of many other nationalities. The farmers treated the workers very badly, especially his wife. She hated the Poles, for whom she had an unusual contempt, and she showed it at every turn. Vengeance and punishment for even the smallest offenses, according to her, were commonplace. Another German supervised the work of the newly arrived workers. They were not allowed to talk to each other while on the job. They performed various field chores, including beetroot harvesting, as well as gardening – planting and weeding. Franciszka and other women also worked at home – ironing, cleaning, cooking, peeling potatoes for Sunday dinner. The housekeeper liked to humiliate the workers. For example, when she ate a jelly and motioned for Franciszka to lick her plate, saying, “Franceska schmecken.” The work and the stay there were very difficult, both physically and mentally.nym.
On January 7, 1945, the Łojeks’ second child was born in captivity – a son, Stanisław (died February 27, 2020). His baptism took place on February 18 in the neighboring town of Sandersleben, where there was a church, and his coworkers were his godparents.
Left unattended day after day, Weronika and Stanisław cried and squealed because their parents, working in the fields, couldn’t care for them. Sometimes, when their parents returned for dinner, the small children were so frightened that they gasped for air. The barracks were infested with bedbugs. They also often fell ill from the lack of proper food and living conditions. Their daughter, Weronika, once became so ill that her mother asked her boss for permission to see a doctor, but the only response she received was, “Grown men die in war, so what’s a little child?” However, the desperate mother persisted, and finally the German farmer agreed to take her child to a doctor. Franciszka, not knowing the language, asked a German woman she met along the way, pointing to a sick child and knowing only the word “krank.” She showed her the way. It was a similar situation with her son, Stanisław. Only after crying and pleading did the Germans agree to take the child to a doctor. On the way back, Franciszka, carrying the infant, found herself in a train car full of German soldiers. One of them stared at the mother with the sick child in her arms for a long time, until he finally gave up his seat, saying, “Please, setzen.”
They spent exactly two years in German captivity under such harsh conditions. On July 6, 1945, American troops liberated all the forced laborers there. The Łojek couple and others were working in the fields that day as usual. Suddenly, they heard airplanes and, looking up, saw what appeared to be American flags. Someone shouted that this was liberation and that the joy was endless. Shortly after, American soldiers visited the Bauer family’s farm. The German bosses were very angry that the war was over and that they would no longer have free labor. All the forced laborers from the entire area were gathered in one place. They were then sorted by nationality. Franciszka and Michał Łojko, along with their children, were placed in a Polish camp, where they were given temporary registration cards. Located in Arbing (Altenmarkt commune, Vilschofen district), it was under American control. Poles liberated from forced labor were brought there daily. They stayed in the camp for several days. Each was asked if they wanted to return to Poland or go to America. Michał Łojko would have chosen the USA, but his wife preferred Poland, explaining that her parents were still there. Many people chose the United States that day. These were mostly single people without families. They were then transported to the Reception Center in Dziedzice. There, every Polish citizen received a certificate (pass) and had to report to the Citizens’ Militia in Zamość within 14 days of receiving it.
Returning to their home in Hutkowo, they found only bare walls. The Nazis had looted everything on the farm. They didn’t even have a spoon. They received a modest allowance from the commune mayor, which they used to first buy a cow so their children would have something to eat. Then they bought some grain and potatoes, and that’s how they built a new fortune in their war-ravaged village.
After the war, Michał and Franciszka Łojko always said that they wouldn’t wish what they had endured in a German labor camp on even their worst enemy.
* Wedding photograph of Franciszka and Michał Łojko, probably 1942, private collection