for aircraft and to alert the people. At approximately 4 p.m. on the Saturday
of 2 September we heard the sound of aircraft while we were walking near the
railway station. A flight of about a dozen steel machines appeared in the sky.
They shone and sparkled brilliantly in the sky. We were admiring the potency
of those Polish machines when suddenly we heard a crack of about a dozen
exploding bombs. It turned out that it was an air raid of German aircraft,
which bombed an evacuation train transporting refugees from Krotoszyn,
a town located near the German border in the [2] Poznań region. 15 minutes
later the cry of an air raid siren alerted the population. In the meantime,
shocking scenes were taking place at the railway station. The air raid
destroyed the train and the roof of the railway station. It also left one hundred
travelling civilians dead and a few hundred wounded. We saw mutilated
bodies of women and children. We could hear the horrible moans of the wounded.
That incident had a profound impact on the people, who were not used
to such sights. A four-year-old girl was standing helplessly by her mother’s
corpse. A little further a wounded wife was mourning her husband who had
been killed. Dr Pfeffer, a Jewish physician who arrived at the scene, provided
first aid to the victims of the air raid. Carts, trolleys, and droshkies transported
the wounded to the hospital non-stop. The older children who were on
the spot actively helped to carry the wounded and the dead. During the next
two days there were several German air raids on Koło. Several buildings were
destroyed (the wooden house on Berka Joselewicza Street and the brick, two-
-storey building on Nowowiejska Street) and there were about a dozen casualties.
Those events deeply shocked and surprised the Polish population, who
had been convinced that they were in an entirely safe place. Many families
immediately decided to leave that endangered area and to march further, usually
towards Warsaw. For the people believed that the capital would have better
defence and that they would find the safest refuge there.
In the meantime the number of soldiers in Koło was decreasing. The public
institutions were closed, the police left, even the fire brigade left the town in
its fire truck. The citizens’ militia wielded all the power in the town. There were
rumours that the enemy was advancing deeper into the country and nearing the
town, so the two new bridges on the River Warta made of reinforced concrete
were blown up and provisional bridges were erected. The destruction of the
bridges was to stop the advance of the [3] enemy. Around 15 September, the situation became entirely clear. There were no Polish troops anywhere in the area.
