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CHAPTER 1
Bialystok Voivodeship
DOCUMENT NO. 1
PAC/Box 49
Hanka Swiderska Born 1930
Bialowieza county Bialystok voivodeship
Before the war we lived in Bialowiela, where Daddy was an inspector of state forests.
On the first and following days of the war the Germans directed air raids against Bialowiela. On the first day the Germans wanted to bomb the military hospital, but they hit a nearby Orthodox church instead. Then they only flew over, but none of them dropped bombs. This is how it was until the Russians came. They came in very carefully, because units of the Polish Army were hiding in the forest. Their first act was to hang their flag on the president's palace and paint over the bronze statue of Marshal Pilsudski in red. They took away our new school and made a Russian school out of it. But a Polish school was found for the Polish children. On November 7th all the management employees had to parade [to celebrate the October Revolution]. There was also some election during that month. On that day they sent a militiaman for my Daddy three times. The "Soviets" behaved seemingly decently, but the jails were becoming full. A "boyetz" [soldier] bought an alarm clock from a peasant and took it to the watchmaker, asking him to change it into a wristwatch. The Russians bought up everything literally by the bagful. Bacon, shoes, and fabrics enjoyed the greatest popularity, so that Bialowiela, which did not have many stores, became empty. The new director, a Russian, sent to the management, refused to live in the clerical colony since "the Polish gang is sitting there."
On February 11, 1940, a lot of activity began. The "Soviets" lined the roads leading to the forest with soldiers, so that no "Polish master" could run away. There was a lot of snow that winter, and the temperature fell to 30 some degrees below zero.
Two "leytienants" [i.e., lieutenants] and a militiaman came to our house. The "leytienants" were dressed in uniforms, and over them they wore Polish civilian coats. Both of them carried revolvers. They gave us half an hour to pack our things and searched the whole house. They rushed us to the station and pushed us into a freight car that was already overfilled. This was the first time we rode in a cattle car. This was when they deported the whole administration of the Bialowiela Forest. During the whole month we were on our way we were let out twice. There was often a lack of water in the cars. At the stations the local people came begging for bread, with an expression on their faces that told us a lot. Although we were going "into the unknown," they already knew what fate awaited us. On the way we observed through the little windows of the train how Russia looked. Poverty peered out from people's houses and faces. The people were poorly dressed. The houses were old and dirty, sometimes they adjoined solid government buildings. We saw very few cattle. The forests were devastated.
On March 8, 1940, they brought us to the Oktiabrski "settlement" in the Novosibirskie province, county of Tisulska, 600 kilometers from the Mongolian border, 150 from the Tiazyn station. The "settlement" was situated in a taiga where there were gold mines. The adults were forced to go to work, since otherwise they had no right to buy bread. The children were hustled off to a Soviet school, where they had to listen to nonsense on the subject of Poland and the faith. No Polish child attended the lectures of the "bezbozhnik" [godless] circle, and detained by force — escaped at every opportunity. When for the first time they gathered us no one knew what for, and the teacher (Katierina Ivanovna) began to say that our parents were fooling us, because there was no God, one of the boys stood up and walked out, and behind him the whole class, so that, brochure in hand, the teacher stood there facing empty benches. The director of this school was a man of Polish descent, a certain Bu?hak, a very fervent communist. People sold their last remaining things, and this is how they lived, since Daddy working hard at the mine could not even make enough for bread. We lived in a moldering hut where water froze in the winter and hoarfrost covered the walls completely. Wood had to be carried from the taiga on one's own back. Mommy went to clear the taiga of woods for growing potatoes.
After the amnesty, October 10, 1941, we happily left the "settlement" forever. As I heard, there were sometimes cannibals in the area. To leave, we had to sell everything we could get along without.
Because they would not take Daddy in the the army, because he had been a cavalry man we traveled south. After a long period of roaming, with lice and hunger (people ate dogs) we stopped at the Uzgen kolkhoz "Pravda" (70 kilometers from the Chinese border, 60 kilometers from the Kara-Su station).
On the way to Uzgen, in the huge troop train there began to rage infectious diseases caused by hunger and cold. There was a shortage of medical help. People were covered with ulcers.
Only in the Uzgen kolkhozes typhus broke out in full force. The local hospitals became overfilled with Poles. Whole families died. Our route in Uzbekistan was marked with hundreds of graves. After a week, Mommy and I went to the hospital for typhus. The conditions there were terrible. Lice, cold, bad food, and lack of medicine sent people off into "the other world."
After a month we returned from the hospital. Papa was called into the army. (9th cavalry division, Gorchakovo). We were left alone, not quite recovered yet. When they deported us, I was attending the III class in elementary school. Now I practiced reading and writing, as much as the shortage of paper allowed, in order not to forget what I knew.
We got 40 dekagrams of flour per person per day at the kolkhoz. Later there was not even that, because from the moment work in the field began, the kolkhoz administration ordered me, since I was 10 years old [,] and Mommy to go to work.
There was nothing to heat with, so we went every day into the fields of the kolkhoz to pick "pakhta" [dried branches of cotton plant] for fuel. A real misery started for real.
After Daddy's telegram calling us to Gorchakovo, we left Uzgen with great difficulties. We did not find Daddy there, because a few days earlier the army had gone abroad. There were lots of military families in Gorchakovo. As in every large gathering of emaciated people there was hunger and sickness here, not to mention vermin. People ate dogs and weeds, since the "soviets" refused to give the people bread.
After some time, following the last unit of the 9th division we went to Guzar. This was even worse than Gorchakovo. Along with a heat wave and hunger, there was an outbreak of dysentery. Mommy found work at the Karkin-Batash orphanage. (In Uzbek-Valley of Death, 8 kilometers from Guzar). The orphanage was in a treeless and waterless vicinity, in an old, ruined kolkhoz, where snakes, tarantulas, and scorpions ran rampant. Lizards crawled on people, and in the night the mosquitos did not let people sleep. The "kibitkas" [clay huts] were ruined, without doors or windows. There were great difficulties with water. Poor nourishment caused dysentery and pellagra, of which several children died each day. On August 18, 1942, together with the orphanage, we left Russia, with the wish never to see it again!
DOCUMENT NO. 2
PGC/Box 120
Leon M.
Grodno county Bialystok voivodeship
The entry of the red armies into Poland
On the morning of September 17 1939 the red armies entered Poland. When the forces entered Poland they said that they were Poland's allies. This was all untrue, they went occupied towns, smashed up shops and stole the merchandise. We thought they were animals out of the woods, on the second day at 5 in the morning on Saturday we are asleep in our beds someone knocks at the door at our neighbor, daddy thought they were hunters. And then I heard someone shout otkroj dzviery [open the door]. Mommy got frightened they came and shout get ready in 25 minutes. And they even did not say where we were going. They put us into a railway carlike dogs into a doghouse. They closed the door. All the people were hungry, every family wanted to eat, all the Polish families were crying. There was a train to Siberia and to the Ural we thought we were going to Siberia but no[,] God directed us to the Ural: There was nothing to eat there people died and even daddy died February 10 1941. Mommy almost died from grief. Later mommy was chased to work in the forest to clear the land And we were chased to a Russian school, we didn't want to learn Russian. They called us to the club and commendant Akatziev. said that Poland was rotten and it would be no more. And three weeks later director Uvicki. came out onto the stage and said angrily that there was a Poland and there would be. And Mr. Ruzniakowski came out onto the stage and ordered the Polish people to sing Poland has not perished so long as we live [the Polish national anthem]. The Russian people nearly ate us from anger. Our people did not go to work in the forest, the Soviets did not want to give us bread, on the next day two passenger cars came for our fathers to take them to the Polish army. Later after 2 weeks a petition came from our fathers to the office that they should give horse carts for our Polish families. We went to Bobranka to the port, the port was already being closed and we still made it. The last boat was leaving for Kuibyshev, and took us. We traveled under the floor of the ship it was called Kurier we slept on benches, we fell down to the floor. We arrived at the podstiapki kolkhoz, later I joined the junaks.
DOCUMENT NO. 3
PGC/Box 122
Walenty M.
Born 1927
Grodno county Bialystok voivodeship
Bloody Autumn
While entering Poland the bolsheviks murdered Polish colonists and foresters. Well[,] after entering the Lerypol settlement in Grodno county the bolshevik NKVD men in disguise arrested the colonists and led them in the direction of the nearby forest. Suddenly we heard shots. So my older brother and his friend ran in the direction of these shots. Near the forest they saw corpses, among which was my father. The news spread throughout the entire settlement that bolsheviks murdered the colonists of that settlement. At this sight crying and lamentations of widows and orphaned children.
But this was not the end of it. On a frosty day on February ten at daybreak they deported us to syberia.
DOCUMENT NO. 4
PGC/Box 124
Walenty P.
Grodno county Bialystok voivodeship
Experiences in the soviet state during the war
The invasion of soviet troops aroused fear in the Polish nation. When the troops came all the way to my very house, I immediately found out that we were not afraid of them in vain. At the beginning they started searching for weapons, leading the family into corners "at gunpoint." Afterward they took away the best cows and pigs, for which they gave us receipts (they said that money will be given for these receipts). Finally they started taking wheat issuing receipts for it. In schools they were breaking all the portraits, broke down crosses, arrested teachers for being Polish, and sent their own. Those taught to sing songs against God and against Poland and other unheard-of things.
On 2.10.1940 towards the morning the soviets burst into the house and ordered us to pack things, watching father with a gun and not letting us walk around, only to sit. But they didn't let us pack our better things. After packing up things we left. They didn't let us eat breakfast before leaving. The trip was hard. There was no place to relieve oneself. One had to relieve oneself on the floor and then we threw it out when someone was going out to get water. There wasn't even anything to wash with, because there wasn't even enough drinking water. It was cold in the cars because they didn't give wood for fuel. Lice bit mercilessly. After arriving on the spot, we were placed in barracks in which there were many bedbugs. Father, I, and mother went to work. Everyone who could walk had to work, because they would say that "kh'to nyerobotayet ten nye kushayet" [who doesn't work, doesn't eat]. If someone got ill they went to the doctor. The doctor didn't give sick leave because he wasn't familiar with illnesses and he was afraid of superiors. The natives who remembered the Tzar's reign were not content with communism [,] and the youths, who were taught about what was going on in the country, didn't know how people in other countries live. We had to walk a few kilometers to get potatoes. At work people died or mutilated themselves, in "stolova" [dining halls] there were meals cooked with horsemeat, some potatoes, and water. For an entire month of work you could survive for 4 days on that soup and 800 grams of bread. They didn't allow praying, and if a woman said something against that, they locked her up in a cold cell. One day they ordered women to work with horses. A few women died because of horses. After the amnesty it was a little better, you didn't have to go to work under compulsion. Afterward we wanted to leave, but the commander didn't give horses, so we carried on our backs 30 kilometers to the station, from which we rode to Kujbyshev, where there was a Polish outpost. From there we left for a kolkhoz. In the kolkhoz it was worse yet so we had to steal, because we would have died. The city of Samarkand was not too far away, so I went with my brother to get bread. Lines were big, so people pushed ahead without standing in line, and because brother and I were smaller so I would steal into the store between the legs. Once they almost trampled me under their feet, but it happened that I stole something or bought something. On 1.1 shops were closed because there was no bread. At the kolkhoz younger brothers let cattle and sheep graze, because we went to pick up or steal. Afterward I and father joined the army and brought the family to Karmine.
DOCUMENT NO. 5
PGC/ Box 119
Antoni C.
Born 1928
Lomza Bialystok voivodeship
Deportation to Russia
In 1941 at three o'clock in the morning the Soviets came to the house and began to ransack things. Everybody woke up and mama wondered what they wanted and one NKVD man went up to mama and hit her with the butt of a rifle and she fell down. When they searched everything then they said get out! everybody cried and there was no time to pack up only fifteen minutes to pack the things. In a while a wagon came and we got on the wagon and it went to the station and they packed us in a hog car where they carried pigs where it was dirty. It was very stuffy there were fifty people and most of all there was no water. They took us under German bombs and there was fire because people began to burn up in the cars. There was shouting to let them out but they didn't let them out but only unhitched the cars that were burning, and kept going on like that for thirteen days, there was nothing to eat because the bread got moldy and they didn't give provisions because they didn't have any themselves, only Polish people brought food to the stations and handed it to the cars. Very many people died from desiring water and food. The train only stopped a little and they threw the dead people out the window. There was no medical help. When we got to the place where we were to zgruzhat' [unload,] wagons requisitioned from the kolkhoz came immediately and we started to nagruzhat' [load] on the little wagons. We traveled two days by wagon to the kolkhoz, on the way there was no water because it was a dry steppe only pricking grass grew, and only the camels ate it. They brought us to the kolkhoz and started forcing us out to work at once but everybody was tired and couldn't work, most of all they didn't give us anything to eat, people ate beet leaves. The next day mama went on the road for bread with my sister and I stayed with my two brothers who are younger then me and I kept house by myself.
It was very hard to get bread there were such lines that you had to get in line at night to get a kilo of bread. Mama and my sister was three days and she began to come back and the road was hard the nights cold they had to sleep on the steppe there were no houses there wasn't even a place to hide from the rain. But again at noon it was hot so that their clothes smoked from the sun, they didn't have anything to drink because the bottle broke and the water poured out. They came home at night tired and ragged they didn't have a place to lie down because there were no beds only a clay stove so they slept on that. There were very many flea-beetles, fleas, and ants because there was no tub so you could wash somewhere and most of all there wasn't any soap. That's how it was in our kolkhoz in that Russian paradise without bread, without clothes, without soap.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "War Through Children's Eyes"
by .
Copyright © 2019 Irena Grudzinska-Gross and Jan Tomasz Gross.
Excerpted by permission of Hoover Institution Press.
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