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The following story appears courtesy of and with thanks to Marushka (Maria) and Zygmunt Skarbek-Kruszewski and George (Jurek) Zygmunt Skarbek.

The Anglo-American air offensive was increasing its range causing the German Minister of Heavy Armaments, Reichsminister Speer, many sleepless nights. Many factories were in ruins, but the Fuehrer required new guns, tanks and airplanes.
More people were required for labour in the Reich. Berlin was sending new instructions to the General Commissariats in the East. The employment office, Gestapo and police were busy. People were captured in the streets, cafes, picture theatres, in market squares and on roads. Lithuania had to supply an additional 100,000 labourers. Transports were organised, on the railway station people were de-loused in specially prepared disinfection rooms and loaded into trains. Here Marushka and her friend, Alma, who both worked in the 'Abeitamt' were able to facilitate the flight for many women from the transports to Germany. Out of the disinfection room the women were conducted to the back street and to freedom. Only at the last moment was I able to rescue Simon, our farm worker. I lived on forged documents. Marushka was transferred from her job at the Red Cross where she worked as an interpreter to the employment office where she was an interpreter/ typist, and later on, to the offices of military workshops for transport vehicles. Through paying her tribute in work, she was allowed to stay with her children.
Another winter came, the fifth in Lithuania. Much could be said about those years. They were the years of 'Drang nach Osten' (Expansion to the East). But now came a special year, the year 1944 - two scores and four. Bewitched by the prophetic words of the old Polish bard, we expected great historical changes in this coming year. The might of the Fuehrer started to crack. On all fronts blows were falling on the invincible Wehrmacht. The Fatherland was being crushed by allied bombs.
This year was the beginning of total retreat.
The European underground started to rise again.
In Lithuanian forests, partisans appeared. Sore of them, in colourful armbands, had long ago greeted the advancing, victorious Germans in the streets of Kaunas, but now they were throwing hand grenades under the wheels of the German vehicles. The expansive Lithuanian forests presented a good hiding place for the underground. The Germans issued an order to cut down the trees along both sides of roads and railways. Disobedience was punished by death. It was easier to fight the forest than the people hiding there. For thousands of kilometres the trees were felled, 200 metres deep. The felling was the duty of the local people who had grown up in their shade. I also had to fell the trees on our hill. Simon and I felled the silver firs, the gentle white birches and the tall pine trees smelling of resin, until the hill was bare along the highway. Many trees went but many new people came into the forests. The vast forests of Lithuania and Wilno county were sheltering an odd collection of people. History will be silent about many legends from these forests. The ideas and laws in these forests were not always pleasant to the ears of the chronicles of the Polish Government, nor to London. The slogans were different for BOR and different for ROLA (BOR-Komorowski, Chief Commander of the white partisans -AKA. ROLA-Zymierski, Commander of the Red Polish detachment - AL.)
Not only the Poles had their lairs in the forests. Hiding in these forests were also Soviet war prisoners, many German deserters from the Fuehrer's army, and the fugitives from ghettos. Soviet paratroopers jumped down into the forests too and started to organise the cadres of the Red partisans. The Lithuanian forests forces grew in strength when the men from Plechavicius battalions came to hide as their mutinous General Plechavicius was to be arrested by the Germans and his men were to be sent to the Front. The armies from the vassal countries started to rebel - they did not wish to shed their blood for the General Commissariat in Kaunas. In these hospitable forests various gangs of robbers and looters also found shelter, hiding under the name of partisans.
In the beginning of 1944, in the north-eastern part of the former Polish republic, the partisans grew to great strength. In the virgin forests of Rudnicks, Lida and Traki, they had foray bases and, from Smorgonie on, their power was complete. The peasants were paying the requisition to them only. They were given signed receipts which they handed to the village chief, hoping that this would stop the Germans demanding their share. The German administration existed here in theory only. The German civilian clerks had left this inhospitable part long ago, seeking protection in the 'Gebiets Kommisariat' where the Germans still ruled. Protected by army garrisons, there they even ventured outside - but in armoured cars.
At this time the German forces were holding the bridgeheads near the famous Berezyna, and the Soviet Army was forcing its way through the Prypec swamps.
A storm was brewing once again over the land trampled so often by various wars. The distant thunder could already be heard. People again crowded around their radios. Once more there were frightening rumours as well as hopeful predictions of early peace. Anxiety grew. Would the Front pass gently over this land? Maybe the war would finish even sooner? It was senseless for Hitler to continue fighting, the people tried to convince each other.
As before, I was bringing the milk to Kaunas but the highway was no longer empty. Towards the Front, the German soldiers were advancing and from the opposite side came the first wave of evacuees.
Jurek met me at the door as usual. But now he took my hand and we went to see his small brother who was holding a dummy in his mouth. Lying in his cane cot, Roman looked like a tiny animal in a cage. "Daddy, do you know that this, 'our puppy', can already get up?" He was saying it with a certain pride, pointing to the openings in the old cane bed.
As before, I listed to Radio London, Moscow and Swit (a secret radio station in occupied Poland). The news was good and getting even better. It was the beginning of an epilogue for the great historical drama. In a good mood I was returning, as before, to my house on the hill. The white shutters were rattling slightly in the gentle Spring wind. The last snow had melted in the valleys, and the earth became warm and streaming. It was time to go and work in the fields. But this time I was sowing half-heartedly as the future ownership of the land was rather doubtful. Who would be reaping these fields? Would the storm coming from the East destroy the crop and the house? These and similar thoughts did not encourage enthusiastic work.
The sowing was finished, the fields were soon covered with the new green grass, all the potato field was covered with new manure but the Front was still far away.
At last came the day. I was sitting with Jurek in a strawberry paddock looking for the first ripe berries when I heard the news that Minsk (now the capital city of White Russia in the Soviet Republic) had been re-taken and the German Army had surrendered. The road to Wilno was open. The last Germans were leaving the Soviet Union.
The theatre of war again touched our land. The roads were full of evacuees from the east. The highway was covered with long lines of Russian 'telegi' drawn by small, thin horses. Sitting on their dirty bundles were the evacuees from the faraway east. Under these carts dangled the empty buckets. The children dozed and the tired women stared blankly. The men, in torn shoes and shirts, were walking heavily alongside the cart followed by a thin cow on a chain. Day and night the carts dragged by, forming columns - homeless people, half-starved animals were travelling for months into an unknown and, to them, a foreign west. They were often overtaken by dusty trucks, packed with goods, driven by the 'Volksdeutsche'.
Mr. Rosenberg's house of cards tumbled. The imported German colonialists were hurriedly fleeing from the Ostland. Those, who only a short while ago had arrived as the 'Herrenvolk', had already packed, and soon after the Lithuanians started to flee from Wilno, especially Lithuanian public servants who were leaving their new Lithuanian capital city, Wilno, in fear of reprisals from the Polish inhabitants.
Once again there were bombers over Kaunas - this time Soviet ones. Again air raids, bombs, and people fleeing to shelters. Kaunas had only a few shelters. The raids were usually at night. Whenever the siren sounded people rushed out from houses and, in the outer suburbs, towards the bunkers of the old fortresses. In the streets people loaded with suitcases, prams and crying children were yelling and shouting. Great flares of light brightly illuminated everything, accompanied by the noise of the circling bombers and tracer bullets under the dark ceiling of the sky. We would put Jurek and Roman in the pram and, taking only the bare essentials for the children, rush to the bunkers. Such were the grim nights in Kaunas.
In the meantime news came from the front. We heard through London radio that Wilno was surrounded by the Soviet Army and that there was heavy fighting in the streets.
This was a signal for us; we started hiding our goods. With Simon, we dug a big hole in the barn under the hay where we hid a large barrel full of wheat and a box of personal clothing. Under cover of darkness, we dug a hole in the bushes for the bacon from our last pig. All the neighbours were doing the same. Everywhere one could see smoke coming from the chimneys as people were smoking their bacons and preparing meat for the brine. Everything was dug into the ground. We all knew that the bloody fighting in Wilno's streets had already continued for the fifth day. The Germans were now fighting for every foot of soil, being near their Fatherland. Heavy battles were expected on the line of the River Niemen and over Kaunas. We were living near this town beside the highway and near the extremely busy airfield. Nothing good could be expected in our countryside.
When the companies from the Front started arriving in our village the peasants started to leave the neighbourhood, taking all their possessions with them. They went to the hilly forest on the other side of the river. Things started to get hot for us too. On the highways were the remaining evacuees from the Soviets. They were mainly policemen who had worked for the Germans. In Russia, during the German occupation, they were employed mostly in prisoner-of-war camps and in helping to catch the partisans. The road of return was closed to them. They were the ones who were doing a lot of harm. They looted and plundered the houses near the roads; they took horses and cattle. We were helpless as they were armed. We had already received a few of these visits and decided to go to the other side of the river to try and save some of our goods. Simon and I harnessed the horses to the cart, packed the remaining goods, roped our remaining cows and crossed to the other side of the river. At the ferry we had waited in a long queue of carts. The cows were mooing, the dogs chained under the carts were barking and the peasant women, surrounded by their children, were lamenting and wailing. On the other side of the river, using winding country lanes, we went uphill. In one of the deep gorges I spotted farm buildings, quite well hidden.
There we found shelter. I left Simon there with all our possessions and, taking a boat, went back home. At home I found military police had been billeted in our house. On the highway stood a guard. Some officers sat on the veranda. Jurek, touching some shining buttons on the uniform, asked questions and could not understand why the German did not speak Polish. Marushka was packing rucksacks with our personal belongings. We were not certain what to do. My in-laws wanted to stay in Kaunas with little Roman. My mother wanted to take Jurek and go to the forest on the other side of the river. I brought Jurek and mother by boat to the other side of the river. I decided to stay with Marushka in our house and await further developments from the Front.

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'This story was submitted to the People’s War site by ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Merseyside’s People’s War team on behalf of the author and has been added to the site with his / her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.'

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