Here is the testimony of Witalij Surmacz (Polish nationality), an inhabitant of the village of Ladyń in the Lubomelskie region, about how the Ukrainians saved him: „I was 13 when our family was attacked. Four bandits came to us. Me, my mother and my sister were chased into a hut and my father was bludgeoned in the orchard. The attackers killed my mother with a blow on the doorstep, and my sister Lida (18) in a hut. I hid on the stove in the pots. One of the strikers came and said: «There should be another somewhere here». But then they started beating my sister and they didn't look for me anymore. I sat there for an hour before I left. I saw my sister with a broken head, holding her bed, and my dead mother, and I went to Stawki, to my mother's brother. On the way, Tryfon Markovych Vlasiuk took me on a cart and on the way, we met my family's killers. They were armed with axes and rifles. They talked to Tryfon Markovych and let us go. When we came to my uncle, Tryfon Vlasiuk told him: «Take the boy and don't let him out of the house. Let stay with you for a while». And so I stayed in Stawki”.

source: Żurek Stanisław, „75th anniversary of the genocide – April 1943”; in: portal: Volhynia — web page: btx.home.pl [accessible: 2021.02.04]

source: Roch Sławomir Tomasz, „Recollections of Eugeniusz Świstowski from the Teresin colony in the Włodzimierz Wołyński county in Volhynia”; in: portal: Volhynia, in: Zamosc 2003 — web page: www.wolyn.org [accessible: 2022.04.06]

About May 1943, The Ukrainians came to our colony again and this time they took a Soviet officer with them by force. I remember that he lived with a Pole with Maria Świstowska for about 35 years, their wedding was in 1941 in the church in Swojczów. When they took him to the forest, of course, all hearing of him was lost. The last Ukrainian action initiated a slow escape of our community to the city of Włodzimierz Wołyński, where it seemed to be safe. Since entire Polish families were fleeing, our village administrator, a Ukrainian, Wednesday, called general meetings of the inhabitants of our village at least several times. During these meetings, he reassured everyone that they would not run away to the city, because they would be safe in Teresin. He explained that the Ukrainians take only certain people to the forest, those that they need for military training of their formation. On the other hand, the fate of the taken Polish women is not worse, because in the forest they are cooks in Ukrainian cuisine. One of such meetings, which I attended in person, was organized in Stanisław Krochmal's barn. When many Poles came to them, our mayor spoke: „Do not run away to the city, because the Germans will murder you there, just like the Jews! Do not worry! Do not be afraid, because those who were recently taken to the forest will return to the colony for the harvest. For now, they can't come back because they are needed in the forest to train Ukrainian guerrillas and your women cook” meals for them. Our people sat quietly during this speech and did not say anything, but in their hearts they did not believe the reassurances of the mayor  […] . I got a new assignment, this time to go to Dominopol, to the Świnarzyński Forest itself, where Franciszek Bednarski, a Pole, lived. Mr. Franciszek said very important words: „THESE PEOPLE, WHO THE GUERRIES WILL BRING TO THE FOREST, murder cruelly and it is not true that they are all alive and will return to their homes for the harvest”.

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

source: Roch Sławomir Tomasz, „Recollections of Eugeniusz Świstowski from the Teresin colony in the Włodzimierz Wołyński county in Volhynia”; in: portal: Volhynia, in: Zamosc 2003 — web page: www.wolyn.org [accessible: 2022.04.06]

„At the end of June 1943, the sisters Sabinka and Helenka Nowaczyński came to our house, they were very scared. They immediately began to tell how the Ukrainians came to their house on the last Saturday night and under duress they took their daddy from the house, who was then brutally murdered and his body abandoned in the forest. They found the body of a massacred father, he was beaten, his tongue cut off and his eyes gouged out, and finally they killed him with a shot to the back of the head. There were signs that he was crawling a little more, then he gave up the ghost. Immediately his brother Jan Nowaczyński, around 26, went to the indicated place and brought the body home. But me and my brother Leonarko, we washed them carefully and put them on for the last journey, and on Monday Fr Francis blessed the coffin in front of the Church. The funeral itself took place in the cemetery, but even there, Poles did not feel at ease anymore  […] I also suppose that the Ukrainians murdered Wila and his family on the same night as Władek Nowaczyński. It was a very rich Polish family who lived just outside the forest in the Ukrainian village of Beheta. I learned about their tragedy from our family in Teresin”…

source: Żurek Stanisław, „Calendar of the genocide – year 1943 June and the first half of the year”; in: portal: Volhynia — web page: wolyn.org [accessible: 2021.02.04]

source: Roch Sławomir Tomasz, „Recollections of Janina Topolanek née Rusiecka from the Teresin colony in Włodzimierz Wołyński county”; in: portal: Volhynia, in: Glasgow, Scotland, March 25, 2011 — web page: btx.home.pl [accessible: 2022.04.06]

Witness Maria B.–Cz (born 1923) dates the attack to July 11, 1943: „We have lived in Volhynia for generations  […] I was already married and had a one‑year‑old daughter, Reginka. My husband and I lived in my parents' house. There was also Tamarka with us, an eight‑year‑old girl who had been abandoned by the Russians in 1941, fleeing the Germans. She didn't know her last name. We took her in. at the beginning of 1943 gloomy news began to infiltrate Teresin. They did not want to believe it, but when the Ukrainians sacrificed scythes, axes, shovels, pitchforks in the church in Swojczów, the inhabitants of the Swojczów parish were in fear. During the day we worked in the fields and farmyard, we spent the nights in crops, in haystacks, barns or gathering for several families and posting guards so as not to be surprised by the bandits  […] On July 11, they came at the end of the night. around three o'clock I heard the sharp barking of dogs. I ran out with my husband and father to the yard. From the side of the Ukrainian villages of Gnojno and Mohylno, it was walking in a wide field towards our settlement, like a cloud of people. There was a thud of footsteps. We went back home. I grabbed my daughter and hid with her in the basement, under the kitchen floor, behind a row of barrels. at that time, Reginka was sick with whooping cough and coughed very loudly; I was afraid the cough would reveal the hiding place, but the child sensed the danger and kept quiet. I heard the crying and despairing screams of my relatives who were dragged out of the house and killed in the yard. I also heard the screams of the torturers. Not a single shot was fired – they killed with axes, pitchforks. She was terrified, waiting for my turn. When the crying and the pleas of my loved ones ceased, I saw the hatch to the basement open and [heard] a male voice: «Ne maje nykogo» [I have nobody left]. After some time, when the voices of the Ukrainian bandits were completely silent, I looked out the kitchen window. a monstrous sight appeared to my eyes. Mother, father, sister, husband, children: Krysia and Tamarka – lay in the yard with their heads severed in a sea of blood. I moved back to the hideout. I sat there all day. When at dusk I looked out the yard for the second time, the bodies of my relatives were gone, they were buried in the yard. all our belongings have been plundered. at night I sneaked out with my daughter in my arms as I was standing, in one dress, without a slice of bread for the journey. In an instant, I lost everything – my family home, my loved ones. Crawling, I walked away towards the fields. at night, I walked through the swamps called ore, during the day I sat in my beds. I knew that to live, I had to travel 17 kilometers to Włodzimierz Wołyński”. .

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

source: Odonus Barbara, „Summer 1943”; in: „Card”, in: No. 43 /2004/

The attack on the Teresin area took place on August 29, 1943.

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

Orthodox feast of the assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary: the UPA and Ukrainian peasants from Kohylno and Gnojno murdered at least 207 Poles with axes, bayonets and other tools and by burning them alive; three children, 1.5, 5 and 8 years old, buried alive in the ground. „Mr. Eugeniusz Świstowski, a former inhabitant of the Teresin colony, recollects: «The first to tell me about an attack on our colony was Kazimierz Umański, a Pole who miraculously survived the slaughter and managed to get to the city. When he met me shortly after on Włodzimierz Street, he recalled this: ‹On this bloody morning, which I will not forget for the rest of my life, I was still sleeping in my room, when suddenly I heard a terrible squeak and cry from my mother and siblings coming from our kitchen. My younger brother Tadeusz, who slept next to me, he also woke up. Not much thought, I jumped out the window to the court and quickly ran to the forest, which was only 200 meters away. It was the forest of the Pole, Mikołaj Bojko, which further connected with the Kohylean Forest. Then, as soon as I could, I reached the city of Vladimir. The whole time I did not know what those desperate screams were, what really happened in my house and the most important question that was bothering me: what happened to my family?! I ran away from home because at that moment I was almost sure that it was the Ukrainians who attacked our house and were murdering my relatives. Only later did I find out from other people that there was a really terrible pogrom in our colony. Then my mother, my brother Tadeusz and my sister Zofia› died from my family. I would like to add that Kazik's mother was probably anna, around 50, his brother Tadeusz could have been around 20, while his sister Zosia might have been around 18 at the time. after some time, Kazimierz Umański became a soldier of Polish self–defense at one of the posts and I do not know his fate of». Maria Bojko: «For some time, my family and I had been visiting Maria, the wife of a Soviet officer née Świstowska, for the night. We spent the night there, hoping that there would be no robbery on this house, since Marysia is the wife of a Russian. Therefore, also on the day when the pogrom in our colony took place, we were in this house. Together with us there were two other brothers of Marysia: Tadeusz, about 17 and Zbigniew, about 10. I remember that the attack took place at dawn, Ukrainian bandits violently broke into this house and immediately began murdering all of them one by one. First those who were in the kitchen died. at that moment, I was in the next room, just behind one door, when I heard inhuman screams and screams of brutally killed people coming from the kitchen. My daughter Regina, who was only 9 months old, was with me then. Instinctively I grabbed the baby in my arms and hid with him in a small cellar under the floor, the entrance to which was in this room. as soon as I managed to hide there, the Ukrainians burst into our room, I clearly heard their steps. after a while, they also began murdering those people who were literally in the room above us with me. This experience is untold, it happened right above our heads. I heard the screams and moans of the dying people, who were so close to me. I will not forget it for the rest of my life, it cannot be directly erased from my memory. after a while everything went quiet, and I heard them taking the bodies of murdered people out of the house into the yard. During this massacre, my daddy Jan, my mother Kamila and my full sister Kazimiera, her son and daughter were murdered. Tadeusz Świstowski and Zbigniew Świstowski were also killed. I remember looking a few times to see if it was already dark outside, waiting prudently for the night. Finally, as it was getting dark, I cautiously left my happy hideout into the yard. Here I saw a macabre sight, on the ground lay the bodies of brutally murdered people, including my relatives. Once again my heart skipped a beat. On the threshold of the house, I also met Marysia, our benefactor, and her only six–month–old baby, for some reason the torturers left them alive. Marysia cried very bitterly and lamented what had happened today. I was more conscious at that moment, I suggested that she should run away to town with me. Unfortunately, she did not want to run anywhere, insisted and stayed in Teresin. Meanwhile, I took my child and through the woods I reached the village of Włodzimierzówka, where it was close to Włodzimierz»”.

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

source: Roch Sławomir Tomasz, „Recollections of Eugeniusz Świstowski from the Teresin colony in the Włodzimierz Wołyński county in Volhynia”; in: portal: Volhynia, in: Zamosc 2003, p. 10—13 — web page: www.wolyn.org [accessible: 2022.04.06]

August 29, 1943 On that very early morning our whole family was alerted by some terror hanging in the air. Our neighbor woke us up. We ran into the yard. Our family consisted of 6 people. They were my parents, me, my 12‑year‑old brother, my sister – 1.5 years old, and my grandmother, who came to visit us from Włodzimierz. We saw a lot of figures, like a cloud, walking towards us, about 1 km from the north. We all hurried back to the room, Dad closed the door from the inside. We knelt down and began to pray. Our neighbor Kasperski was with us. Dad's name was Bojko Stefan, mother of Stanisław nee Jankowska, born in Skała near Ojców, brother Edward, sister Janina, grandmother Jankowska Anna. Dad took an ax and wanted to run away through the window, but the house was soon surrounded by Banderites armed with scythes, axes, shovels and other murder tools. Grandma was called by name. She replied: „I am a woman and I am afraid to quit” but she finally went. I followed my neighbor to the attic. We tried to hide under the barrel, but it fell apart. I went back downstairs and hid with my brother in the basement, which was under the chamber. Mom with a little sister at her breast stayed on the ladder standing in the chamber and asked the Ukrainian: „What do I owe you, spare our lives”, but „had” hit her. I heard her deathly snoring. The child still called me „Lula” and was probably thrown into the pit alive. How dad, neighbor, grandma died – I don't know. In the basement, I was lying on a wooden beam, and my brother was covering me with himself. After a short time, „had” entered the basement stairs, holding the head of the „sewing machine, Singer” and with his back to us shouted: „Get out”. The brother obeyed, went out and was killed. There were no shots in this massacre. The Ukrainians dug a hole under the window and threw my parents into it. Dad was 43 years old (former legionnaire), mother was 33. I sat in the basement for a long time. After leaving it, I saw everything thrown out of the wardrobe in my house, blood on the floor and walls, broken windows. I jumped out of the window and went to my neighbor, Soviet, where I met our horses. This man with his family was getting ready to leave, and he sent me to the head of a Ukrainian who lived about 3 km in the direction of Wólka Swojczowska [commune Werba, area Włodzimierz]. After stopping in the backyard grove, I approached the village administrator under the name Środa. On horseback, the Banderites saw me and circled this grove, and I managed to run to the house of Środa, from the opposite side of the yard. In the courtyard of the village administrator, I found a few Bandera followers. I was introduced to be a Polish child. They asked me who I was, what were my parents' names and they said: „If she stayed, let it be”. I became a servant of the Ukrainian family. I was herding cows. I was woken up there very early. I was given knitting. When I couldn't do something, I was beaten with a whip on the legs. I was driven out barefoot in early spring and late autumn, without clothes, for the pasture. I was climbing a tree to curl up my frozen legs. I had ulcers on my feet, which hurt a lot and kept me awake, and I groaned with pain at night. For the day I was given a slice of bread. My head was covered with scabs from poverty, my hair was cut with a razor. I became a feral child. I ran away to Polish words. I did not know, out of fear after the slaughter who I am. I could only sing in Polish „Serdeczna Matko”. While shepherding the cows, I sang, cried and fell asleep, and the cows fell [somewhere] and then great fear, what will happen? I spoke Ukrainian and received Holy Communion in the church. I remember the big smoke I saw during the undermining of the church in Swojczów – east of Teresin. I witnessed the murder of two children, one of whom slept in a cradle. It happened during the approaching Christmas 1943. The father of the children was Ukrainian and the mother was Polish, what was done to the mother I don't remember, I think they killed it. I stayed with these The Ukrainians for a year, because the expedition of my cousins from my father's family to find me did not bring any results. They could never find me, because the Ukrainian woman would go to another village for the night and take me [with her]. My aunt Romuald Puzio, who was a blessed young married woman (lives in Hrubieszów) and the late uncle of the late Stanisław Bojko. Thanks to my aunt and uncle's dedication, I was saved from the constant ill–treatment of the Ukrainian family  […] Teresin does not exist on the map. The Ukrainians planted a forest. Among these trees there are garden bushes and fruit trees.

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

source: Wielosz Rozalia nee Bojko, recollections; in: Siemaszko Władysław, Siemaszko Ewa, „The genocide perpetrated by Ukrainian nationalists on the Polish population of Volhynia 1939 - 1945”, in: Warsaw 2000, p. 1241—1242

[On the other occasion the same] Rozalia Wielosz is crying as she talks about the events [in Teresin, Werba commune] 75 years ago  […]
„My mother held my sister woken from sleep to her breast. Janinka was crying terribly. She probably sensed that her parents were afraid that something terrible was about to happen. Children — even tiny ones — know such things.
We didn't wait long. Soon they came to our windows. They started screaming, knocking on the door. To chop it with axes. Horror, panic, terror. What to do!? Where to hide!?”.
Together with her little brother Ed Rozalia fled to the basement  […]
„We heard the sounds of scuffling and blows from above. Then there was my mother's piercing, piercing scream. To this day, this scream rings in my ears.
My little sister Janinka started to cry even more. I guessed that the Ukrainians must have torn her out of her mother's embrace. And they started murdering my mother. She just screamed:
— I am a mother, a woman, spare me my life!  […]
It would seem that a mother with a small child in her arms is inviolable. That every Christian associates Mary with the baby Jesus in her arms.
Ukrainian nationalists, however, were in a murderous frenzy. There was no sanctity for them. They had no brakes and no qualms.
Wooop.
Wooop.
Wooop.
A few hits with an ax. The sound is as if someone was chopping wood. And that was my mother being cut down.
Then there was the low rattle of the dying woman.
[Barely one and a half years old] Janinka screamed excruciatingly:
— Lula! Lula! Lula!
In the last moments of her life, she called me, her sister.
And I was sitting in a dark basement. Huddled, paralyzed with fear. Jesus Maria… How difficult it is to express all this in words…”
Only Rozalia survived the pogrom. When the Ukrainians murdered her little sister and parents, one of them appeared in the entrance to the basement and started shouting and urging those hiding in it to come upstairs. Brother got up and walked towards the light. When he stood next to the UPA man, immediately received an ax blow to the head.
 […] Then the UPA man went away. Apparently he thought there was only one child hiding in the basement.
„I climbed carefully upstairs. I did not recognize the house. In a few hours it was completely devastated. Broken windows, blood splatters on the whitewashed walls. There were clothes thrown from cupboards on the floor, family heirlooms, photos. Everything trampled and destroyed. Dirty. And in the center my mother's black rosary. I picked it up off the floor and carefully hung it around my neck. And I jumped out the window”.
 […] She wandered around the village for a long time. Eventually, the Ukrainians noticed her.And a miracle happened. They did not kill her  […] She was taken in by the mayor's wife. Ukrainian girl. She treated her terribly, but little Rozalia was grateful anyway. She lived  […]
When after the war her uncle came for her, Rozalia did not want to go with him. She did not want to leave the Ukrainian home. She had forgotten how to speak Polish and kept repeating in Ukrainian:
— „Auntie, I will not go!” (Ukr. „ Cyotko, ja ne puidu!”)
 […] She returned to Volhynia in 1996  […] A year later, she erected an eight–meter cross in her home village of Teresin  […] Where there used to be houses, today there is a forest. A fruit orchard grew in the place where Rozalia's family farm used to stand.
„It's all that is left of us. Trees and a lonely cross”.

source: Herbich Anna, „«He kicked me hard, I did not move» – recollection of Volhynia survivors”, Rozalia Wielosz testimony; in: portal: Rzeczpospolita.pl — web page: www.rp.pl [accessible: 2018.07.15]

A few days after I met Wesołowska, my brother–in–law Stanisław Rokicki, aged around 25, came to our house. He immediately began to tell us what had happened in our Teresin in the last days, he said with excitement: „Those who did not run away to the city, it was the Ukrainians who encouraged them to collect the grain that was in the fields and to collect everything from the fields. And on this very Saturday they gave everyone a piece of meat so that they could eat, and at night they came from the side of Włodzimierz Wołyński and whom they met, he never escaped alive. Fortunately, we have all been afraid for our lives for some time and have not stayed overnight in our homes. Me and my friends (probably Sobolewski) usually slept in our barn on a dry clover. My wife Maria with our son Kazimierz, only 6 months old, Irena with her daughter Celinka and Leokadia spent the night together, usually in our house. And on that tragic night, when the Bandera followers slaughtered us all over Teresin, it was the same. It was still night when we were awakened by the violent clink of broken windows and the terrible, shrill scream of my wife Maria and the other two sisters. After a while, there was another violent silence. At that time, we tried to dig deeper into the clover, taking pictures with fear. We were afraid that now they would also start looking in the barn. Until dawn, however, it was quiet and peaceful. In the morning, as soon as it got light, we left our hiding place and carefully searched our house and yard, but nowhere did we find the bodies of the murdered, or even traces of blood. Only the broken windows testified to the tragedy that happened here today and which we witnessed”.

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

source: Roch Sławomir Tomasz, „Recollections of Helena Wójtowicz née Karbowiak from the Budki Kohyleńskie settlement in the district of Vladimir”; in: portal: Volhynia, in: Glasgow, Scotland, June 12, 2011 — web page: wolyn.org [accessible: 2021.04.11]

Ms Leokadia Baumgard née Sobolewska from Teresina remembers: „In the morning we heard the clink of glass in the window. Me and the rest of the Buczkowski family jumped up, looking at them, and there are pitchforks and axes in the window. There was a ladder to the attic in the hall, we put the ladder and run upstairs, one with the other asks: «What's up?!» Nobody says anything!  […] and the Buczkowski's mother, daughter, Ola and Genowefa, left the attic alone, using another ladder and another exit, and killed them there. Gienia ran away from the nursery to the forest, but they caught her, dragged her to the yard and killed her too. We were told by our parents who were in the barn and watched through the gaps as they murdered their children and grandma. Me and Lodzia were both hidden in the chaff, I don't know, maybe an hour. at one point, a Ukrainian entered the attic and walked with an ax, you could hear him tapping on the floor. God gave him that he did not see us, because the bandits were drunk. He said: «Chto, let them go out !!». I remember that much! God let him not see us, he went downstairs and went on to murder, to Krochmal. There were moans, chopping, I don't know how many of them died, so they went from house to house. It grew quiet  […] I don't know what came to my mind but I said to Lodz: «Let's say a prayer !!» and after praying, I say to her: «We're going down». The ladder was placed from the manor, and it was the bandit who climbed into the attic to look for the others. I said to her: «We're going to my house to see what about my parents and» siblings. We go down this ladder, and under the rungs there was dirt mixed with blood. The ground must have been shallow because you could hear People were still dying under the ladder, and we had to step on them to go downstairs and run away. We walked past Krakowiak, because I wanted to see who was alive, the more so because my brother Mieczysław and Jan Topolanek were hiding there. But there was a lot of blood in the yard, you could hear the wheezing, so I was afraid, so we ran away next to my aunt Teresa Klimczak, my father's sister. My older sister used to go to bed with her, but everything was open, the door and the window were open, blood was under the door, and there was also a sound of wheezing. I knew that they were dead, the thugs could see us and kill us, so we run further to my house to see what was happening. We enter the yard full of blood, the door is open, I cry: «Mom! Mom !!» at that time, my brother Witold heard my call and he crawled out from under the bed, he was covered in blood all over the place. I ask him: «Where are the parents?!» and he told me that there was no one left, he himself came out with a headache. He was hit with an ax how many times no one knows. I took him out into the yard and washed his head, tore the sheet to pieces and tied his head, I also took the rolls in the basket”.

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

source: Roch Sławomir Tomasz, „Recollections of Wiktoria Baumgart from the Teresin colony in the Włodzimierz Wołyński county in Volhynia”; in: portal: Volhynia, in: Glasgow, Scotland, April 15, 2012, p. 2—3 — web page: btx.home.pl [accessible: 2022.04.06]

Witness Maria B.–Cz (born 1923) dates the attack to July 11, 1943: „We have lived in Volhynia for generations  […] I was already married and had a one‑year‑old daughter, Reginka. My husband and I lived in my parents' house. There was also Tamarka with us, an eight‑year‑old girl who had been abandoned by the Russians in 1941, fleeing the Germans. She didn't know her last name. We took her in. at the beginning of 1943 gloomy news began to infiltrate Teresin. They did not want to believe it, but when the Ukrainians sacrificed scythes, axes, shovels, pitchforks in the church in Swojczów, the inhabitants of the Swojczów parish were in fear. During the day we worked in the fields and farmyard, we spent the nights in crops, in haystacks, barns or gathering for several families and posting guards so as not to be surprised by the bandits  […] On July 11, they came at the end of the night. around three o'clock I heard the sharp barking of dogs. I ran out with my husband and father to the yard. From the side of the Ukrainian villages of Gnojno and Mohylno, it was walking in a wide field towards our settlement, like a cloud of people. There was a thud of footsteps. We went back home. I grabbed my daughter and hid with her in the basement, under the kitchen floor, behind a row of barrels. at that time, Reginka was sick with whooping cough and coughed very loudly; I was afraid the cough would reveal the hiding place, but the child sensed the danger and kept quiet. I heard the crying and despairing screams of my relatives who were dragged out of the house and killed in the yard. I also heard the screams of the torturers. Not a single shot was fired – they killed with axes, pitchforks. She was terrified, waiting for my turn. When the crying and the pleas of my loved ones ceased, I saw the hatch to the basement open and [heard] a male voice: «Ne maje nykogo» [I have nobody left]. After some time, when the voices of the Ukrainian bandits were completely silent, I looked out the kitchen window. a monstrous sight appeared to my eyes. Mother, father, sister, husband, children: Krysia and Tamarka – lay in the yard with their heads severed in a sea of blood. I moved back to the hideout. I sat there all day. When at dusk I looked out the yard for the second time, the bodies of my relatives were gone, they were buried in the yard. all our belongings have been plundered. at night I sneaked out with my daughter in my arms as I was standing, in one dress, without a slice of bread for the journey. In an instant, I lost everything – my family home, my loved ones. Crawling, I walked away towards the fields. at night, I walked through the swamps called ore, during the day I sat in my beds. I knew that to live, I had to travel 17 kilometers to Włodzimierz Wołyński”. (Summer 1943 – „Chart” – 43/2004 /, selected and edited by Barbara Odonus).
Witold Sobolewski relates: „That night we all slept in our house, when it was already dawn, very early, my mum got up to clean up and then she saw strangers running above the window. She immediately guessed that this was a bandit attack on their family and immediately shouted loudly to us: «Run away because bandits! They will murder us !!» Me and my siblings were awake at this point and as soon as we heard our mummy scream, we immediately got up from our beds. Mommy also rushed to run through the door, but as soon as she opened it, the band was already standing there and he immediately hit her with the ax so hard that mum fell outside after the blow. I was running after my mommy when she fell down The thug immediately hit me on the head with an ax, I also fell to the floor, he corrected me a second time, I do not remember the third time. Over my corpse, he thought, he ran to our cottage and immediately began chopping an ax in the room. my older sister Feliksa, around 16, and then my grandmother Klimaszewska, around 68, but I haven't seen that anymore. Meanwhile, although my head hurt a lot and the blood was shedding, I did not lose consciousness completely, but almost instinctively slipped in, as I was lying on the ground, under the bed next to it. at the same time, when the thug was chopping Felixa in the room, our father and brother Tadeusz, barely two years old, jumped out of the door to the court. She followed her father into the yard, my younger sister Czesława, about 4 years old, and for a short while they were gone. at this point, I didn't see what was happening to them next, I was hoping that they managed to escape. Only that I hid under the bed, my little sister Czesława flew into the kitchen from the yard, she was all bloody, blood was pouring violently from her tiny head. apparently Banderowiec wanted her head to be chopped with an ax, screeching terribly, she jumped on her bed in the room. The bandit, however, did not give up, just after her he flew home with a small military spade, took her by one hand and carried the child outside, at the same time, on the way, he hit her hard on the head with this spade. He must have stunned her at least, because her sister stopped screaming and he carried her outside. It was only when the Banderites had left our house with my sister that it got so peaceful and quiet, then as if I had lost consciousness for a short time, or maybe I fell asleep still scared and tired, I don't know. anyway I woke up when I heard footsteps on the floor again, I looked and saw my older sister Wiktoria, around 14. I shouted at her to help me because I felt that I was badly injured. I immediately crawled out from under the bed, and she found a white duvet cover in the chest and tied my head, because the blood was still flowing. We immediately left the house and ran to our aunt Józefa Topolanek, who lived next door, just across the border. There, in the yard, we called aunt, and after a while she came out of our hiding place, in the basement, she was scared no less than we were, but she was an adult, we trusted that she knew what to do now. Looking around, she talked to us for a while, asked her sister: «How did you hide that you aren't even hurt?!» and she answered shortly: «I was at Mrs. Buczkowska's, I was hiding there, and now just got home, got ours all beaten under the pile». Then we escaped to the city together, and on our way we were helped by Poles from Włodzimierzówka”.
Ms Buczkowska reports: „We all slept restlessly that night, my husband went to the barn in the evening, but I don't know if he was there. I slept at home with my children: Eugenia, aleksandra and Leokadia. In the morning I got up and went to milk the cow in the barn, suddenly I heard some noises in the village, something was going on. I went out to the yard and looked at our colony, I saw that a lot of people were walking towards us with weapons, I realized that they were Ukrainians. I immediately knew that they were going to murder us, I suddenly jumped to our house and just shouted: «Run away because they are beating !!» Immediately after these words, I hid in the barn, where, just in case, I had a hiding place prepared in advance. Now, through the crack in the barn, I carefully watched our yard, I watched what would happen next. I saw how the Ukrainians brutally drag my old mummy and my daughter aleksandra out of the house. They only took them out, they started chopping them right away, mummy died from the first cut, and Olesia suffered a special victim. When the bandit hit her with the ax for the first time, she fell right away, but then jumped up again, the sadist hit her with the ax a second time. He cursed in Ukrainian and blasphemed saying: «Twiordy Lachi!» [Hard Pole!]after the second blow, he cursed again, because the child survived it and jumped up from the ground. It was he who had hit her head for the third time, at that moment I thought that I would go crazy with the pain on the spot, because my second daughter, Eugenia, ran out of the house unexpectedly. She started begging for her sister's life, she was kneeling and pleading: «Gentlemen, don't hit !!», but she barely uttered the words, and the thug hit her on the head with an ax so hard that there was no need to correct it this time. This is how my two daughters and mum were dying. Olesia was dying before my eyes, I saw and carried her fatal convulsions with her. Eugenia, on the other hand, was still so young, and yet she could afford such a noble deed, I was utterly devastated by her death, I am surprised myself that I was not crazy. It was terrible, it is impossible to describe what I felt, if I felt anything else at all. If a man can go mad at once, this moment is perhaps the most opportune moment. at that moment, I did not know where my third daughter was and whether she had survived the pogrom at all. I sat there for a long time and looked stunned through the gaps in the barn at the bodies of my loved ones, and I was flooding with heartfelt tears, and maybe they saved my mental life. after some time I realized that nobody would come here anymore, I dared and went out into the backyard to my TREaSURES, THE CLEaN BLOOD OF THE DISHED. I counted the bodies, there were three, and while I was still wondering where there might still be others. My daughter Leokadia and Wiktoria Sobolewska came out of the house and came to me crying as well. Despite such a great tragedy, this time I was almost mad with joy that at least this one was left for me. Wiktoria, seeing what happened with us, terrified of the also uncertain fate of her family, quickly said goodbye and ran to her home. / / In 1966, I had a heavy operation, and luckily I was healthy. a year later, for the first time since the end of World War II, I went to the USSR, to Nowowołyńsk. When together with my grandma we remembered the best, she remembered the following: «about Michalinki, the children stayed with us, I harmed them so much, I carried them food, I helped them as much as I could. I advised the biggest girl to dig potatoes for her siblings and for herself, but ours, when they were to be murdered, took them from home and led them to Buczek's basement». and at that moment she slightly pointed her hand for me and said significantly: «O Matryfan beat Them!» and she added quietly: «He put these small ones on the rail, the bigger ones he carried in the air with one hand, and in the other he had an ax, which he hit the child in the head several times». She did not mention the oldest, because after these words I trembled with pain and anger and I said, interrupting her: «You won't get over it easily, because we Poles, scattered all over the world in america and abroad, and we will not forget it!» Meanwhile, she said loudly to her neighbor, who had just left his hut for water: «Matryfan, do you know who it is?! This is the head of the village administrator Rusiecocho!» But he just muttered something under his breath and walked across the highway with the water, his hand shaking like jelly. It was obvious that this unexpected visit surprised him rather unpleasantly”..

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

source: Roch Sławomir Tomasz, „Recollections of Janina Topolanek née Rusiecka from the Teresin colony in Włodzimierz Wołyński county”; in: portal: Volhynia, in: Glasgow, Scotland, March 25, 2011 — web page: btx.home.pl [accessible: 2022.04.06]

It was Saturday, August 28, 1943. Leokadia with Wiktoria Sobolewska, a friend from the neighborhood, her paternal grandmother, and the sisters Olesia, who was then 17 years old and slightly younger Genia, decided to sleep in normal conditions at home (for safety reasons, very often whole families they hid outside the house at night – author's note). The sleeping people were awakened on August 29 by the barking of the dogs. As it turned out later, Ukrainian peasants from Kohylno and Gnojno, divided into groups, armed with scythes, axes, pitchforks and other murderous instruments, surrounded the colony with the UPA and broke into individual houses. Leokadia's father, Jan Buczkowski, with his neighbors, Sebastian, stayed in the shelter. Mother Elżbieta née Marcówna had a hiding place in the barn. Unfortunately, the rest of the family found themselves in a trap, hiding instinctively in the attic of the house. Leosia and her friend miraculously escaped death. They covered themselves with hay and were overlooked. Two older sisters and my grandmother were thrown from the attic, brutally murdered and buried in the yard, lightly covered with earth. The terrified father of Leokadia ran away through the fields and reached Włodzimierz, less than 15 km away, where he found shelter with friends. He was convinced that none of his family survived. The mother, in turn, saw what was happening with her children, but the fear paralyzed her so much that she could not utter a word, although it seemed to her that she was shouting for them to spare their lives. She hid in her hiding place for a week, but did not dare to dig out the bodies covered with earth to check how many people were murdered. In the end, she went to a trusted Ukrainian mayor of Środa, who smuggled her to Włodzimierz in a cart. There, Fr Stanisław Kobyłecki, parish priest of the parish, organized care for the victims of the slaughter. Unexpectedly, she found her husband there. She was even more fortunate when it turned out that Leosia's youngest daughter was also alive.

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

source: „Demolished idyll in Teresin”, found and inserted: Bogusław Szarwiło; in: portal: Volhynia — web page: wolyn.org [accessible: 2021.04.11]

source: „Massacre in Ukraina police station”; in: „Voice of Wągrowiec”, in: 4th of August, 2011 — web page: www.gloswagrowiecki.pl [accessible: 2011.08.04]

I became a servant of the Ukrainian family. I was herding cows. I was woken up there very early. I was given knitting. When I couldn't do something, I was beaten with a whip on the legs. I was driven out barefoot in early spring and late autumn, without clothes, for the pasture. I was climbing a tree to curl up my frozen legs. I had ulcers on my feet, which hurt a lot and kept me awake, and at night I groaned with pain. For the day I was given a slice of bread. My head was covered with scabs from poverty, my hair was cut with a razor. I became a feral child. I ran away to Polish words. I did not know who I was, out of fear after the slaughter. I could only sing in Polish „Serdeczna Matko”. While shepherding the cows, I sang, cried and fell asleep, and the cows fell [somewhere] and then great fear, what will happen? I spoke Ukrainian and received Holy Communion in the church. I remember the big smoke I saw during the undermining of the church in Swojczów – east of Teresin. I witnessed the murder of two children, one of whom slept in a cradle. It happened during the approaching Christmas 1943. The father of the children was Ukrainian and the mother was Polish, I don't remember what was done to the mother, I think they killed it. I stayed with these The Ukrainians for a year, because the expedition of my cousins from my father's family to find me did not bring any results. They could never find me, because the Ukrainian woman would go to another village for the night and take me [with her]. My aunt Romuald Puzio, who was a blessed young married woman (lives in Hrubieszów) and the late uncle of the late Stanisław Bojko. Thanks to my aunt and uncle's dedication, I was saved from the constant ill–treatment of the Ukrainian family  […] Teresin does not exist on the map. The Ukrainians planted a forest. Among these trees there are garden bushes and fruit trees.

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

source: Wielosz Rozalia nee Bojko, recollections; in: Siemaszko Władysław, Siemaszko Ewa, „The genocide perpetrated by Ukrainian nationalists on the Polish population of Volhynia 1939 - 1945”, in: Warsaw 2000, p. 1241—1242