I attended school, just like my siblings. My father and uncle earned money
and my mother took care of the house. And so we led a peaceful and quiet life.
2) The first change in my life
We were doing well. My father made good money, my uncle the same. I was
extremely pleased when the school holiday came and I was accepted into grade
seven with good marks. My little sister was also very happy. But, unfortunately,
her happiness did not last long. In August 1939, she fell ill. She got her guts
twisted. She was sick for only two days. When she came down with her illness,
we couldn’t have expected what lay ahead of us. And you can imagine what
our hearts felt when she died on the third day of her illness. It was the first
blow of my life. This blow hurt all our hearts. My father was so upset he got
a weak heart. We all mourned the death of that young girl. But she could not be
mourned for long. Well, in the same month, the mobilisation was announced,
and the war was [4] to break out any day. We had to get supplies and prepare
for the coming war, which, unfortunately, is still going on today.
3) Outbreak of the war and serious events
Indeed, on 1 September, the war broke out. Daddy had just stopped working,
but we had prepared our supplies. We didn’t suffer from hunger in the first
days. The only thing that bothered us were the air raids, which did considerable
damage. We spent all day in the shelters. Though the cannons roared,
we still hadn’t recovered from our pain. My father still mourned her death.
He was overcome with grief, that’s why he got sick. He got a weak heart. Seeing
my father sick, we had to forget about my sister. We barely noticed the whistling
of the bullets and the banging of the shots. Because of the terrible raids,
you couldn’t call for a doctor. My father was sick all week without any help.
On the last day of the war, on Tuesday, when all of Warsaw was on fire, when
the last victims fell at the frontline, my beloved daddy was in bed, dying.
And on Wednesday, when the army stopped, when people left the shelters, the
world closed for me. I became an orphan that day. Love for his daughter took
his life. In less than two months, two of our family disappeared. After a short
time, when put ourselves together, we started a new life. My uncle took us in.
[5] 4) What was our life like under the care of our uncle
My uncle had lived with us before the war. We loved him very much. He
was a tailor, but that was not a useful profession. We sold a valuable item
and started to trade. We traded bread, buns. Over time, our business grew
and we started earning more money. We were getting better because our uncle
