The Marian Martyrs of Rosica

CHAPTER TWELVE EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT OF A SCHOOLMATE WLADYSLAWA KRZYZEWSKA, DRUJA I knew George Kaszyra from my school days. In 1924, I began my education in the King Stephen Batory Marian High School in Druja beginning in the second grade. I attended school together with George Kaszyra until graduation. I watched his conduct and attitude toward his male and female schoolmates. He was always a diligent student. He was a good mathematician. He did his homework well, and others took advantage of that fact. He had trouble with German, especially with reading. He always spoke slowly. Whenever he had to read some long German word, he had trouble. He was always smiling, helpful, and polite to his schoolmates. He was never mean to anyone. Rather, he was helpful. Nobody ever developed a grudge against him for anything. He was a man of integrity and beyond reproach. He would be elected to judge disputes as part of the school’s self-govern- ment — a fact that testifies to his character. After graduation, he left Druja to continue his studies as a seminarian and returned as a priest. He was respected and liked by the young people. I have only heard from others what hap- pened to Fr. Kaszyra later. I knew that during the war he was in Rosica. In 1964 at a funeral in Boldugi, I met someone who lived in Dziedzina in the Miorski region, whose name was Bobicz. He told me what he had heard from some peasants who had been forced to drive their carts for the punitive expedition to Rosica in 1943. At that time, they saw Fr. Kaszyra approaching a guard at the church in Rosica, where the inhabitants of the area were held captive. He asked the German to release a woman who