European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

and he must have had some hopes that this acquaintance would develop into something serious.

Well, unfortunately, my aunt was a great patriot. She detested the Germans.

She was little diplomatic and her feelings showed.

She paid with her life for that. Because they sent her to Fordon [near Bydgoszcz/Bromberg],

first they sentenced her to death for inciting a kid to burn a barn.

We wrote to Hitler pleading for pardon and Hitler gave her a commuted life sentence,

but she was immediately deported from Fordon to Oświęcim [Auschwitz], where she stayed for three days at most.

Introduction, family, Germans begin the war

My name is Tadeusz Sułowski. I was born on the 4th Feb 1929 in Warsaw.

I came from a landowning family.

My father, despite being a mechanical engineer and having studied in Germany, decided to stay and to live off the land.

The country was always his top interest.

I was on holiday at my grandma Wanda Rozwadowska’s landed estate in the Płock county. The name of the estate was Kobylniki.

And this is where the outbreak of war found me.

And it was still the first day when the German aircraft came dropping bombs on the neighbouring villages.

They aimed one of the bombs at the most beautiful farm which existed there.

Right after the outbreak of the war some German motorcycles appeared, which probably were supposed to look for any Polish troops staying there.

Soon, a passenger car followed with some officers.

One of the officers got out, he climbed the porch stairs and my aunt came to talk to him, because she spoke some German and French.

The German wanted to shake hands, but she withdrew her hand.