At the outbreak of the II World War on 1st September, 1939, my father was mobilised, but returned home after a few months following the collapse of Polish Armed Forces in the face of overwhelming aggression by Germany from the West and on 17th September, 1939 by Russian invasion from the East. This book is a collection of individual stories written by survivors of the Polish genocide during the Second World War. Then a special camp for Polish children was built near the village of Balachadi in Jamnagar, Kathiawar, thanks to help of the Maharaja Jam Sahib of Nawanagar (see also Help of Maharaja of Nawanagar for Polish refugees). And so it was that my sister Nadzieja (NB the name means Hope) became a nurse helping to look after the sick and then wounded as she became part of the 2nd Polish Corps under General Anders. [6][7] The Soviets did not classify Polish military personnel as prisoners of war, but as rebels against the new Soviet government in today's Western Ukraine and West Belarus. People who were thus rewarded were called Osadniki which means Settlers on the new land given to them. Camp life was organized, there was a school, scouts, and religious life. Unauthorised On January 15, 1940 the Lww University was reopened; its professors started to teach in accordance with Soviet curricula. Following repeatedly impatient loud knocks and shouts to open up, my father opened the front door when a group of Russian solders, with bayonets fixed to their rifles, burst in, ordered arms up, rounded us up and stood us against a wall with rifles pointing at us and searched us for weapons. It had a clubroom, a hospital, and a gym. [18] In late 1942 and early 1943, Polish camps in Iran were located at Tehran, Isfahan, Mashhad, and Ahvaz. We were transported on board a warship, through Persian Gulf. Several camps were opened in and around Bombay, with the biggest one located at Kolhapur Valivade, where 5,000 stayed. Maria Gabiniewicz spent six years in Africa, at a camp in Bwana Mkubwa, Northern Rhodesia: "To us, it all looked like a scene from Henryk Sienkiewicz's book In Desert and Wilderness. one chamber, the ceiling collapsed on him. Wiesawa Paskiewicz, who stayed at Kolhapur, wrote: "Our daily activities were marked by school, church and scouting. The Red Army had sown confusion among the locals by claiming that they were arriving to save Poland from the Nazis. Members of the NKVD, Stalin's political police, who collaborated with the German Gestapo between the invasion of Poland in September 1939 and the German invasion of Russia on June 22, 1941. This story has been placed in the following categories. This was about one in ten of all adult males. Among some 14,471 victims were top Polish Army officers, including political leaders, government officials, and intellectuals. Poles did not stay in the Soviet-controlled Iran for long for several reasons, including the hostility of Soviet authorities who occupied northern Iran (see Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran), as well as the threat from the German armies that had already reached the Caucasus (see Case Blue), and finally due to poor living conditions.[13]. Not finding any arms, the soldiers then gave us a very short time to pack what we could, arrested the whole family, put us on their sleighs and took us to the nearest railway station. Most Poles were forced to stay in the Soviet Union. Poles in Mexico were not allowed to leave their camps. People kept their own gardens, with vegetables. But we ought not to romanticise. Snyder also recalled what made the Holocaust possible at the hands of the Nazis: "In June 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union, and Moscow reversed its alliances. About one third of the civilians were children. In an official letter from the British Authorities it was said: "It has been agreed that the welfare work in the Polish settlements must continue and the minimum staff stays to ensure this must be retained." She hoped we would return to Poland some day. The Mass Deportation of Poles to Siberia, 1863-1880 pp.151-175 Andrew A. Gentes Four thousand Poles were sentenced to the penal labor category of Siberian exile. But, the Soviet authorities started a campaign of forced collectivisation. Lww University was reorganized in accordance with the Statute Books for Soviet Higher Schools. [2] There were four waves of deportations of entire families with children, women, and elderly people aboard freight trains from 1940 until 1941. Bogdan Harbuz stayed at Koja camp: "We did not receive any money for food, we only got 5 shillings a month for our expenses. [34][35][36], The Poles and the Soviets re-established diplomatic relations in 1941, following the Sikorski-Mayski Agreement; but the Soviets broke them off again in 1943 after the Polish government demanded an independent examination of the recently discovered Katyn burial pits. At first, they were transported to the town of Bandra, in the suburbs of Bombay, where Hanka Ordonwna took care of the kids. [16] As the Soviet Union had not signed international conventions on rules of war, the Polish prisoners were denied legal status. NKVD agents issued Soviet passports to Poles in February-May 1943. It became so bad that I, owing to lack of any vitamins so essential at that time of my life, partly lost my sight and was unable to see in the dusk. Of the survivors, approximately 80% escap terrified of heights, so it was a nightmare journey for me. Russian historian Pavel Polian, now a professor at the University of Freiburg in Germany, said that Third Reich officials apparently approached Moscow in early 1940 with the idea of deporting all Jews in the German Reich to Birobidjan, a Siberian area that Stalin had designated as a Jewish autonomous region, and to western Ukraine. To understand why my family, the only one from the whole village, were arrested, I must go back to the year l918-20 when, after the First World War, Poland regained its independence after some 123 years of being partitioned between Russia, Prussia and Austria. (S 6/02/Zk)", REPRESJE 1939-41 Aresztowani na Kresach Wschodnich, "Formy, skala i konsekwencje sowieckich represji wobec Polakw w latach 1939-1941", Represje 1939-41 Aresztowani na Kresach Wschodnich, "Ivan Franko National University of L'viv", The establishment of communist regimes in Eastern Europe, 1944-1949 By Norman Naimark, "Wyzwoliciele czy okupanci? [11] On December 21, 1939, the Polish currency was withdrawn from circulation without any exchange to the newly introduced rouble; this meant that the entire population of the area lost all of their life savings overnight. They were so bad that we were continually covered in lice and bedbugs. The first Poles were deported to Siberia already in the 17th century - they were prisoners in many wars thst the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth conducted with Moscovy, and later the I do not recall why we did not get any help from anybody. The author of this blog is not responsible for the use and purposes that Feedburner gives the data provided. You must login to comment. year by Poles (wherever they are). POLES DEPORTED TO SIBERIA IN THE YEARS 1940-1945. Young as I was, and hungry as I was, I realised that he needed more than I, so I gave him my portion saying that I have already had my ration. Here you can consult our privacy policy. [30] According to Norman Davies,[31] almost half had died by the time the Sikorski-Mayski Agreement had been signed in 1941. This was due to the inhuman condition in which we lived severe frost, hunger, fear, lack of any medical attention and hard work causing all kinds of illnesses. The last camp that was built in Northern Rhodesia at Abercorn (today's Mbala, Zambia). Polish experts lower nation's WWII death toll. Polish Deportees Cut Timber in a Siberian Labour Camp, 1940 In September 1939, Germany and Russia invaded Poland and divided it between them. Cedar, MI 49621-5106. [15] The single man has not been traced; the woman, Josefa Bieronska, moved to South Africa with her children. To relieve ourselves, we had to jump out of the train whenever it stopped. Eighty years on, the emotion is still raw for Elzbieta Smulkowa when she remembers her deportation to Siberia in 1941. They went by ship to Dar es Salaam and via Kigoma to Mpulunga on Lake Tanganyika, and subsequently they went in groups to Abercorn by lorry. Houses made of clay, in the heart of Africa. The third wave of JuneJuly 1940 totaled more than 240,000. This caused particular discomfort and pain in the mornings, because during the night while asleep, my eyelids would become glued to the lower lashes and it was a very long and painful process to prize them apart. orphanages, separating boys from girls. We were mentally shaped by such organizations, as Sodality of Our Lady, and The Eucharistic Crusade. The Soviet Union took over 52.1% of the territory of Poland (circa 200,000km) with over 13,700,000 citizens at the end of the Polish Defensive War. Para todos los dems tipos de cookies necesitamos su permiso. There were sports teams, a choir and activities groups. high up through Elburz Mountains, at break-neck speed (drivers often being drunk) through hairpin bends to Teheran. In the two years between the invasion of Poland and the 1941 attack on USSR by Germany, the Soviets arrested and imprisoned about 500,000 Poles. Feature photo: German and Soviet soldiers fraternizing in Brest, where their forces met during the joint invasion of Poland (colorized photo by Mirek Szponar). This is the synopsis of the documentary: "Well-known fact: Of Polands 3.3 million Jews, only 300,000 survived the Holocaust. Las cookies de marketing se utilizan para rastrear a los visitantes a travs de las webs. Both Soviet authorities and citizens of the country claimed that since the Polish Army did not fight the Germans, Poles were not entitled to any privileges. Ornamental Plants - Biennials / Perennials, 303 Squadron: The Legendary Battle of Britain Fighter Squadron - Softcover, Code Name: Zegota Rescuing Jews in Occupied Poland, 1942-1945: The Most Dangerous Conspiracy in Wartime Europe, The Color of Courage: A Boy at War: The World War II Diary of Julian Kulski, No Greater Ally - The Untold Story Of Poland's Forces In World War II, Inside A Gestapo Prison - Letters of Krystyna Wituska 1942-1944, A Homeland Denied: In the Footsteps of a Polish POW. There, all were divided into several groups and began their education. Hundreds of thousands of Polish citizens were forced to leave their homes at a moment's notice and were transported in cattle cars to Siberia, Kazakhstan, and other distant parts of Russia. Start by marking The Mass Deportation of Poles to Siberia: A Historical Narrative Based on the Written Testimony of the Polish Siberian Survivors as Want to Read: Want to Read saving Want to Read Around 55% of the deportees to Siberia and Soviet Central Asia were Polish women. In 1940 and the first half of 1941, the Soviets deported a total of more than 1,200,000 Poles in four waves of mass deportations from the Soviet-occupied Polish territories. [60] The events of the late 1940s amounted to a full-scale civil war according to some historians, especially in the eastern and central parts of the country (see: the Cursed soldiers). According to one of the evacuees, Wanda Ellis: The hunger was terrible, we did not get a loaf of bread a day, as we had in Siberia. World War Two: The deportation of Polish refugees to Abercorn camp in Northern Rhodesia. After the Polish Army had left the Soviet Union, the attitude of the Soviets towards the remaining Poles worsened. [14] Their enthusiasm however faded with time as it became clear that the Soviet repressions were aimed at all peoples equally.[15]. Faced with those who claim that Stalin had strategic reasons for allying with Germany in 1939, Snyder added: "in moral discussions of the war, strategic justifications are not usually admitted as legitimate excuses for collaboration with the Nazis. 9539 Joseph Campau [4] Whether the number of victims could have reached or even exceeded 100,000 is only a matter of guessing,[4] considering the traditional taboos among the women incapable of finding "a voice that would have enabled them to talk openly" about their wartime experiences "while preserving their dignity. The Indian government agreed to host 10,000 Polish refugees, including 5,000 orphans. [9][10] An estimated 150,000 Polish citizens were killed by Soviet repressions. "[65], To this day, the events of those and the following years constitute stumbling blocks in Polish-Russian foreign relations. The resettlement from Abercorn was called Operation Polejump. sea and air. It was a hellhungry, sick people, children in rail cars, filled with louse. But there was a crime quantitatively greater and as unknown as that by the general public. Living in Africa was very difficult for the Poles who were unfamiliar with local customs and languages and were not used to tropical weather. If today it is very necessary to continue remembering the abominable crimes of Nazism against the Jewish people -especially in view of the resurgence of antisemitism in our society, now disguised as "antizionism"-, also it is to rescue from oblivion the crimes committed by communism against the same people, crimes that do not deserve to be presented, under any circumstances, as a "salvation", since their typology corresponds to some of the the most horrendous crimes that exist. Due to Germany attacking Russia on 22nd June, l941, a Polish-Russian treaty was signed with the exiled Polish Government in London, and a decree of amnesty was issued, allowing for the formation of Polish army on Russian territory with the recruiting point at Buzuluk, in the southern European Russia. Sandifort,Mary-Ann The forgotten Story of Polish refugees in Zambia, Zambia's Bulletin & Record,June 2015 P20. And how did Auschwitz, previously the Polish town Oswiecim, come to bear that infamous name? Reproduction of the contents of this blog is prohibited without the author's consent. "In the 1939-1941 period alone, Soviet-inflicted suffering on all citizens in Poland exceeded that of Nazi-inflicted suffering on all citizens. We, the children, were formed into groups, each group had an adult looking after it. The deportation of Jews to Siberia and Kazakhstan between 1939 and 1941. For nearly two years following the invasion, the two occupiers continued to discuss bilateral plans for dealing with the Polish resistance during Gestapo-NKVD Conferences until Germany's Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet Union, in June 1941.[8]. Some months later we the orphans and civilians were moved to Uzbekistan to a place called Guzar. It is a drama that we still remember and which remains an unhealed wound for us to this day, he added. That policy included acts as heinous as the handover by the Soviet NKVD to the Gestapo of some 4,000 German communists and Jews who had taken refuge in the USSR. Survivor accounts: Polish deportations to Russia. She wanted us to go either to India or Africa, as it was closer to Europe. Some 25,000 Polish underground fighters, including 300 top Home Army officers, were captured by NKVD units and SMERSH operational groups in the fall of 1944. versttning Context Stavningskontroll Synonymer Bjning. Google Analytics campaign and traffic source tracking cookie. After twelve days, we reached the port of Beira in Mozambique. The Mass Deportation of Poles to Siberia: A Historical Narrative based on the written testimony of the Polish Siberian survivors: 9781615848119: Amazon.com: Books. A Polish Child's WWII Journey. While the overall experiences of the survivors have commonalities, certain details of their stories are uniquely different. It must be said, that ordinary Russians were, on the whole, friendly and very sympathetic to our plight, but they had to be very discreet about it. The Jews who were deported to Siberia and other remote parts of the USSR, and especially those who lost their lives in that deportation, deserve to be remembered and honored and deserve justice just like the Jews murdered by the Nazis. Raw for Elzbieta Smulkowa when she remembers her deportation to Siberia and Kazakhstan between 1939 and.. 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