Poland at that time was in a desperate position, sandwiched between Germany and Russia; both so powerful in their own right; modern industrial nations with mighty war machines.
The Russians came in from the east, and took many of the Polish soldiers away; the German Blitzkrieg came in from the west flattening everything in its wake, a fatal pincer that in the space of a month removed my country from the map of Europe.
The Germans sent three hundred bombers to Poland, dropped chain bombs on us and blasted our cities.
Over the borders they poured.
We Poles tried to resist for a short while, but what was the Polish cavalry against tanks and field guns?
What could they do on a horse? Go chase a fox or something?
Poland never prepared for war, despite being surrounded by enemies. To the west the Germans, to the east the Russians. To the south the Czechs. To the north the sea!
Only God was with us, but at the time we wondered whether even He wanted us. Many people said,
"Oh Poland should fight!"
But with whom, with what? What do you with cavalry against one hundred tanks? We were soon overwhelmed.
When the Germans reached the banks of the river Prozna, my bridge, the first thing we knew was when placards were put up in the streets saying,
“All soldiers are to lay down their arms and report to the railway station at Kalisz.”
We had no real option; Poland had surrendered to the overwhelming force of the Wermacht.
In Kalisz over a thousand of us were loaded on to trains and taken west. The remaining able bodied men, rounded up and taken prisoners of war, to make space for the German expansion east.
We were told very little other than we were now part of the Reich, of Greater Germany and that we were being “resettled”; sent to work.
My train rattled westwards.
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