The Ukrainians murdered Tadeusz Grochowski.

source: Żurek Stanisław, „75th anniversary of the genocide – March 1943”; in: portal: Volhynia — web page: wolyn.org [accessible: 2021.02.04]

The Ukrainians murdered the 9–person Szczurowski family. Helena Bielecka (nee Szczurowska) lived with her parents and three siblings in Mały Siedliszcze, in 1943 she was 14 years old: „The first days of May 1943 were a series of fear and a desire to run away. There were shifts, and when there was the slightest suspicion of movement, everyone was on their feet, ready to escape into the crops and into the forest. Julek said: «Mom, just wake me up, I have such a shelter that no one will find me». In 1943 our cousin Maria Żukowska with her little daughter, Adela Sewrukowa with two children and old woman Sewrukowa came to us for the night. They were afraid that their village would be murdered that night. There was nowhere to sleep, so my father took me and Zosia to the cowshed to the attic We were awakened in the night by some voices. The night before Brysio the dog was howling all night. Now we could hear some crackling. They are taking the cattle out of the barn? What's going on? Zosia says: «I'll go down and see, you stay». I agreed. I held s I clung to her and asked her to stay. And so we lay still. We heard someone climbing the ladder. We held our breath. After a while he said in Ukrainian: «There is nothing here» and he climbed off the ladder. A door slammed again somewhere, and it was completely silent. Then we quietly went downstairs with Zosia. All I remembered were rabbits in the wild, an umbrella tossed at the front door wide open, and the silence, the awful silence. We entered the house and saw my mother covered in blood on the doorstep. She raised her head and says: «Are you the ones living?» Silence ringing in the ears, terror, despair. What happened here? and mom says: «Check, maybe someone is alive?» Unconscious and shaky, I put my mother on the bed with my sister. I clung to my sister and I was only able to whisper: «Sophie, let's run». but she, the haughty, fucked–up 4‑year‑old Marysia, went to the living room, and I looked at the second bed – it was already daylight, the darkness was slowly brightening – and I saw Jas, my 2.5‑year‑old brother. He was lying cute in a white T–shirt, only strangely his head was thrown to the side. I leaned over and saw a broken neck, head hanging from my skin. I just screamed, «my Johnny is dead» and put my hand on his thigh. I still felt a living, throbbing body. I grabbed my head and ran out of the room, looking for Zosia. I clung to her, unconscious at the sight of the corpses lying in a row. Marysia Żukowska had a daughter under her. Both are screwed up, all the peace is in blood. Fourteen‑year‑old Julek was lying next to him without a part of his skull, with a spilled brain. Zosia turned the bodies over to check if anyone else was still alive. There was an old woman, Sewrukov, with a broken jaw. We moved her to mom's bedroom. She put Zosia and Jasia next to the dead bodies. and I, unconscious, still clinging to Zosia, I whispered «Let's run away!» Then my mother says: «Hide, some carts are going on the road». I slipped under my mother's bed with Marysia's blood under it. Zosia hid in the wardrobe in the large room. They entered. I was afraid to breathe. The bandit's leg was right on my face. He stood there for a moment and left. After a while, mum says: «Helka, go, put out». I quietly whisper: «Maybe they still are». At that moment, Zosia bursts in and says quietly: «The whole roof is on fire, we have to lead mum and the old woman out of the house to the grain, behind the barn». Zosia is bustling, what she can do and makes her message work. Shaking, I just whisper: «Let's run away». We lead my mother out of the burning house. Zosia says: «Lead, I'll jump, I'll take something else from home». It was already daytime. I looked at my mom and saw a severed arm and a hanging body. The pale woman whispered: «Go, save something else, I will go alone». When I got back my mother was lying in the same place where I had left me. Zosia ran out of the house with a pot of curdled milk and a spoon. We dragged my mother to the rye behind the barn and it was already light when we ran through the meadows to Kostopol, where my grandmother and the rest of the family were. There was frost at night. We are barefoot, in cretonne shirts, scared to the point of unconsciousness. There was frost on the grass, and my legs were so cold that I thought, «Why didn't they kill me?» Then we saw someone chasing us. The bandits rushed out of the forest and caught up with us. Zosia pulled me into the water and dragged me to the other side by my hand. Its water was shoulder–length, and my eyes were flooded, bitterly cold. We looked around, the bandits were gone. They only murdered at night, and during the day they pretended to be friends and like regret. Returning from the expedition, they burned the houses where the dead bodies were. They were in a hurry because it was already dawn. When our house was on fire, they didn't even notice that the kids were gone, only mom and the old lady were lying in the bedroom. It saved us. Half alive with terror, shivering from cold, barefoot, in cretonne shirts, frosted meadows, bypassing Ukrainian villages, at 6 in the morning we reached Kostopol. I don't remember how my father's grandmother, brother and sisters survived this. I was 14 and saw electric light for the first time. Father's brother, Wacek, lived with his distant cousin, and grandmother and aunt Zosia – with Aunt Bronia, who lived permanently in Kostopol. Right in the morning, my father's brother Wacek and my aunt Zosia's husband Józef Reszczyński went to take mum and Mrs. Sewruk to the hospital. At noon, we flew to the hospital. Neighbors from nearby villages brought my mother. Cecylówki and Grud, who saw the fire, came to the estate in Mały Siedliszcze, found a fire and found mother and Mrs. Sewruk behind the barn. They brought her to the hospital in Kostopol on May 26, 1943. I saw my mother being carried off the wagon covered in blood and shredded linen. Shock, horror, hunger and a half–alive mom.
List of Poles murdered and wounded by Ukrainians on the night of May 25–26, 1943 in Mały Siedliszcze:
Mieczysław Szczurowski, b. in 1903, my father from Mały Siedliszcze
Julian Szczurowski, b. in 1929, s/o Mieczysław
Maria Szczurowska, b. in 1939, the d/o Mieczysław
Jan Szczurowski, b. in 1941, s/o Mieczysław
Maria Żukowska, about 29–30 years old, cousin from Grudy
NN. Żukowska, about 3 years old, d/o a cousin
adela Sewruk, about 40 years old, acquaintance
NN. Sewruk, about 6 years old, s/o Adela
NN.Sewruk, about 4 years old, d/o Adela
NN.Sewruk, about 60, mother–in–law of Adela, from Grudy, chopped with an ax – survived
Aleksandra Szczurowska, born in 1905, Mieczysław's wife, my mother from Mały Siedliszcze, chopped with an ax – she survived.
The people listed under the order numbers 1 to 9 were hacked with axes and burned at home. Old woman Sewrukov was cured, but her face was distorted after cutting her jaw with an ax. She lived somewhere in Poland, I had no contact with her. A new stage in our life has begun in Kostopol. After my mother was transported to the hospital, the doctors said: «It's a dead man, get the coffin ready». In the evening there was a family meeting about what to do with these girls. At Ciocia Bronia «Kostopolanka», there was already a grandmother with her daughter Kazia and Zosia Reszczyńska, her husband and a little one–week–old child. Uncle Wacek with his wife Weronka and daughter Zosia lived with their distant cousin. It is not known what they will do and who will eat 14 and 15‑year‑old girls. Finally, her distant cousin, who married a gentleman who buried his German ancestors, and was already a Volksderess, agreed to the roof over her head for Helena to feed her cow, but she would not eat. A great lady, a mistress of a German officer, whose cow I also pastured in the forests near to Poland, gave me an old coat. I cried out of despair and hunger, and when I got a female ailment, I tore a piece of the lining out of that old coat – and it was a sanitary napkin. Sometimes she gave me a piece of moldy cheese and a dry piece of bread. Kazia, who was herding her grandmother's cows, often shared her breakfast with me. Mom was still alive. After all, for grazing cows, apart from staying overnight, I was given one liter of milk to the hospital for my mother. During the war, the Germans fed the Polish sick like in a camp. Still, after whole days and nights, I cried and thought about this cruel world, where a man pressing his foot against another man lying on the ground, kills him with an ax. And only because he is Polish. Sometimes I felt like I lost my mind and would never come to terms with what happened. After three months, my mother left the hospital. With a swollen left hand, composed, calm, as if she had slept through everything she had gone through. Was she just looking at a bit of the ceiling for a few weeks, was she reborn to life, reconciled with the loss of her husband and three children, her home and everything that is needed for life?”..

source: Żurek Stanisław, „75th anniversary of the genocide – May 1943, Spring 1943”; in: portal: Volhynia — web page: wolyn.org [accessible: 2021.02.04]

source: Bielecka Helena nee Szczurowska, „I was a witness”; in: „In the Outlands”, in: No. 48/2000

The Ukrainians murdered the 9–person Polish Szczurowski family with axes and burned the bodies with the house. See „On the night of May 25/26, 1943,”.

source: Żurek Stanisław, „75th anniversary of the genocide – May 1943, Spring 1943”; in: portal: Volhynia — web page: wolyn.org [accessible: 2021.02.04]