Well, yes, I do remember.

Next to our house, there was this ditch,

and the water in it flowed very fast.

And daddy used to put up pinwheels in it.

They span around and around, and there were peat bogs with ponds that were so clear.

Once there was a place poleses called Vowling.

It had wide, wide skies.

The fields yellow with sunflowers in summer.

The roadside pop was heavy with mistletoe.

There were a great lot of people. And so many birds.

And so many birds.

Black storks, white stalks, herons.

It also had secrets, dark ones.

In my family, it was always a taboo subject.

What I know, it was only the things that I heard from the slightly open doors when I was a child.

Stories that are definitely not for children.

I saw them setting fire to the house and children jumping out of the windows and being thrown back in again and then running.

I don't remember what happened next. I was in a state of shock. I just remember the screams, the fear and running, running with everyone else.

Boguswava Kandjewska is 91. She's remembering the year 1943 when she was 10,

the same horrors that Karolina Romanovska, granddaughter of other survivors, heard about

years later through those half-open doors.

I remember one auntie saying it was a night someone knocked to the door and shout,

...