Force of Memory: your stories

Forgotten Force tells the stories of six remarkable women who went through times of turmoil and upheaval of the Second World War. These extraordinary women were swept by a tsunami of events affecting the lives of millions of people around the world. We asked you to share your family and community tales commemorating lives of that forgotten force, women and girls, that struggled through everyday reality of this tragic episode in the 20th century history. The stories you shared with us form this chapter of our tale, expressing the power of memory.

Barbara Buczek

‘The Germans often shot first and asked questions later’

My father’s background was German and he studied at Leipzig Polytechnic, becoming a vehicle engineer before the First World War. He fought in the Austro-Hungarian army and served until wounded in the legs by enemy machine gun bullets. He was sent to Skawina, a village southwest of Krakow, where he recuperated by working at a saw mill owned by the village mayor. He fell in love with the mayor’s daughter and married her, and she was my mother. Our family lived close to Będzin, Silesia, by the time I was born in the early 1920s and my father was working as an engineer once more. He was quite successful at this, allowing us to return to Skawina a little later on and I was privately tutored before being sent to a boarding school run by nuns. It was a strict place, although the education was good. However, I remember feeling happy when war broke out because it meant our school would be closed for the foreseeable future. I was just a teenager and had no idea what the war would mean for Poland or for my family.

Despite his earlier injuries from the First World War, my father was called up and served as an officer in the Polish army when hostilities broke out. His unit was forced to retreat eastwards and it tried to reach Romania after the frontlines began to collapse. Unfortunately, the unit's luck soon ran out and they were rounded up by the Germans. Along with many others, he was transported by train to what would have been a prisoner of war camp[1] but, rather amazingly, some Poles working on the train knew my father and agreed to help him escape by wrapping him in lots of blankets and throwing him off at a slow section. He had bumpy landing, but was unharmed. Luckier still, he was near Skawina and able to return home fairly quickly.

The Occupation had already started by then, with the Germans taking all available cars and bikes. They also confiscated radio sets and closed the schools and universities, and it seemed that only the churches were allowed to stay open. However, the awful reality of our situation was not really apparent in the first several months as the severe winter of 1939/1940 created difficulties for both Poles and the invaders, distracting everyone to a certain extent. I remember the pipes in our house bursting soon after the first cold snap, leaving our house icy cold.

I was able to get a job at a nearby hospital, a place the Germans were afraid of because, among our many responsibilities, we looked after the district’s typhus cases. Wounded member of the Underground Army, the AK, were sometimes hidden in the hospital because of this. Being a member of staff also meant I was protected from being called up by the Germans or being taken to a camp by them. In addition, our hospital passes allowed us to move around the village and local area after the nightly curfew came into effect. However, it was still dangerous to be out late because the Germans often shot first and asked questions later. My job was to assist the doctors and they were soon struggling with shortages of equipment and medical supplies, a problem that would last the whole war

Skawina had a population of almost 4,000 and quite a few people were Jewish, which was fairly common in Polish towns and villages at that time. The Jews often ran the shops, such as the tailors and shoemakers, although they usually lived in separate parts of the village. I knew a lot of Jews because I grew up with them, went into their shops and played with Jewish children my own age. The Germans came for them in maybe the second year[2] and I remember the day’s events because my father arrived unexpectedly at the hospital, telling me to go home because something really bad was happening. We discovered the Jews were being rounded up and squeezed into the market square in preparation for being taken away, and I remember standing by our garden fence, watching two young Jews walking along a nearby path. They were being monitored by a group of German soldiers, who were standing near our house smoking cigarettes and talking loudly. Shots suddenly rang out and I looked back at the path: two bodies were now lying on it. The soldiers had killed them just for fun. I went into shock and my father grabbed me by the arm, dragging me back into the house... We were simply powerless to help.

On another occasion, a close friend came to me and told me a horrendous story. He was about 16 or 17 years old and extremely frightened. 

‘I was ordered into a car with some other boys by the Germans last night,’ he said. ‘They took us to a place and then made us dig a big hole. A lorry filled with lime then arrived, closely followed by a lorry carrying a group of Jews.’

‘What happened?’ I asked.

‘They shot them all.’

He and the other boys were terrified and immediately threw threw up their hands. The Germans ordered them to keep silent about what had happened, saying they would shoot them too if they told anyone about it. Some of the Jews were still alive and seriously wounded, but the boys were forced to continue shovelling earth onto these people – their bodies still moving and covered in lime and dirt. The grave was eventually filled, flattened and covered with branches. Much later, in 1947 or 1948, I was sent a local newspaper cutting that gave details of this event and reported the grave’s rediscovery.

Our lives were always in danger during the Occupation and the Germans never gave reasons for their actions. We certainly had no legal protection from them and you had to behave very carefully if you spotted Germans in the street. For example, to be seen talking and laughing could get you into real trouble. I also remember young boys waiting near the railway line and keeping an eye open for trains carrying coal from Silesia. If they were lucky, they would race up into the wagons, grab some coal and drop down again as the train slowed on its approach to the station. Later on, the trains suddenly started carrying coal dusted with lime and anyone caught with this type of coal, now easily identifiable, would be shot.

My father and grandfather were frequently taken to the local prison for questioning. Sometimes they and several others were detained and held hostage by the Germans, who hoped to discourage further acts of resistance. Because he had been an officer, my father was soon recruited into the Home Army, the AK. Later on, it was decided I should join with other family members, such as my younger brother. My job was quite simple: I had to keep my eyes and ears open; deliver messages and papers; and make a mental note of German soldiers and their locations. My reports were made through the doctors at the hospital.

Our knowledge of the outside world mainly came from the family’s radio, which we still had access to. I should add the top floor of our house was occupied by a German officer and he had kept hold of our wireless for personal use. This officer would leave for work during the day, allowing us to sneak upstairs and listen to Allied broadcasts. We would tune into the BBC, listening to the special Polish programmes, although it was important to be very careful as the punishment for illegal listening was severe and we always noted the position of the dials before using the set. We would turn them back after finishing. In addition, a family member would always stand watch on the balcony, making sure no German was approaching our home. Finally, we kept the volume down just to be doubly sure.

Signs the Germans were losing badly became obvious by the start of 1945. The military trains had always travelled from west to east after Hitler declared war against the USSR, carrying equipment, ammunition or German soldiers. By January 1945, all of the trains were travelling from east to west, evacuating whatever weapons the Germans could salvage, which meant the Russians were closing in. There was heavy fighting when they arrived and I remember the approach of Soviet tanks, watching one getting hit and bursting into flames. The soldiers all managed to scramble out. Lots of homes in the village were destroyed and an ammunition train exploded at the railway station, causing additional damage. Thankfully, the Germans were pushed back after two days.

The Red Army was very different from the German one. For example, the Germans almost always had rations in boxes or tins, but the Russians simply brought along livestock, such as cows and pigs. They would slaughter these animals wherever they needed to, roasting them on open camp fires. Their mentality appeared to be this: ‘We’re going to Berlin and nothing stands in our way.’ The Russian women who followed them were quick to look through empty or damaged houses, hoping to find silk nightdresses. After the war, if you went to Krakow to visit the theatres or restaurants, you would sometimes see these women going out in nothing but night dresses. When we first saw them, we noticed they wore jumpers and underclothes with the night dresses over the top because it was still cold. We weren’t frightened of the Russians and, in the immediate aftermath of our liberation, there was concern the Germans might return. There were no newspapers available and information was very hard to come by at this stage, although life slowly returned to something like normal.

So how did I end up in Britain? Before the war, I had met Ludwig Januszewski, a Polish officer. His unit had been stationed very briefly in our village in September 1939 and my parents also knew his family quite well. He had escaped from Poland via Hungary and had joined the Polish armies abroad.  To my great surprise, I started receiving letters from Ludwig not long after I started studying medicine at university in 1946. His correspondence made me think a great deal. He was very good at languages and had worked as an army liaison officer, with many contacts among the British embassy staff about to set off for Warsaw. Ludwig handed a letter to one them, Basil Stors, asking him to deliver it to our family.

Basil decided to deliver the message in person, travelling down from Warsaw to Krakow. He was unable to speak Polish, although he was fluent in German. On the train, Basil decided to have a rest and took off his jacket. He visited the toilet as the train neared Krakow and, on returning, found his jacket and other possessions had disappeared – they had all been pinched. This included his money, passport and other papers, so poor Basil arrived at our house in a taxi and, because of his unusual situation, he had to ask my father to pay the fare. Really it was very funny and the first thing we did was dress him in proper clothes.

Basil frequently travelled between the UK and Poland, and delivered messages between me and Ludwig. He would also come to visit us in person, bringing us parcels. Talking to my father and mother, Basil explained Britain was not a bad country for someone to settle in and this helped persuade me to leave Poland for Britain and see Ludwig again. I started by taking the train from Krakow to Wroclaw and, from there, to Frankfurt on the Oder. This area had been heavily damaged during the war and there were lots of ruins. There were also millions of people travelling from east to west and vice versa at this stage. I travelled onto Leipzig, where there was a huge station packed with people waiting for trains or just seeking shelter. People there were washing themselves with buckets, while lots of children were crying; it was like a vast refugee camp and everyone looked hungry. Perhaps the Germans were now hungrier than the Poles?

I knew the Polish 1st Polish Armoured Division was stationed in northwest Germany and had decided to go there first. They spent some time investigating me just beforehand, asking me why I had left Poland. They wanted to check my character, worrying perhaps that I was a spy, although I already knew people in the division and soon found myself among friends. Ludwig came out from Britain to be with me and, because I had no papers, we visited Paris to get married. It was very romantic, although I’ve no idea what the registrar said because it was all in French! We stayed on Boulevard Montparnasse in the Hotel De Nice. I then received my first British identity card, which allowed us to travel together officially. It was the start of our new lives. Many years later, I returned to Paris and that hotel for a wonderful sentimental visit. It was beautiful.

Simon Rees (all rights reserved)

[1] Polish officers captured by the Germans were sent to Oflags as prisoners of war (POW). It seems the security guarding this  batch of prisoners was lax and probably stems from an absence of German manpower. Conscripted second-tier and older troops would soon be available for guard duties etc., while numerous POW camps would be established in Poland to detain Allied prisoners from the Western nations.

[2] It was the third year, specifically, August 1942. Jews from several villages in the region had been ordered to congregate in Skawina from 1939-1942, taking the Jewish population to roughly 2,000. The community's destruction occurred across 29-30 August and around 180 Jews were killed in the village, primarily old people or children. The fittest men were then sent to Plaszow concentration camp, while the others were transported to Belzec and murdered there.

https://sztetl.org.pl/en/towns/m/528-myslenice/99-history/137719-history-of-community (retrieved 7/5/2018)

https://books.google.ca/books?id=tumlOiOZvSUC&pg=PA1192&lpg=PA1192&dq=Skawina+Jews&source=bl&ots=zmsmIN6Zo_&sig=l76Iv31JYuuL60T0-FylPHkTOxU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjHs_7w4fPaAhWl8YMKHYZvBv0Q6AEwCHoECAAQZA#v=onepage&q=Skawina%20Jews&f=false (retrieved 7/5/2018)

Spector, S and Wigoder, G (editors), The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust (NYU Press, 2001), p.1192

Irena Kuklińska

Gillian Mulley

My Memories of World War Two

I was very lucky, and my memories are banal compared to most peoples. Nevertheless that period, and the years of austerity which followed until I was adult, made a profound impression on me. I was 9 "when war broke out". A single child, I lived with my parents in High Barnet, just north of London.

No one I knew was killed.  My family were mostly either too old or two young to serve in the armed forces.  They were worried about my relative John Carr - "don't you remember him?" but what girl of nine remembers a boy in his late teens?  A few people at my school were killed in the bombing but none were in my class.  There were two occasions when I was sure I should be killed.  At the time one felt about death fatalistically.

The bombing came in different forms. 

First high explosives:

My father had turned a shed into a shelter, where we slept during an air raid.  He thought this was a bit safer than the public shelters in the road. Those were just brick skins with concrete roofs and I now suspect mostly used for illicit purposes, or Anderson shelters, corrugated iron hoops over holes in the ground with more earth on top of them, and which were full of water unless it was unusually hot and dry, or Morrison shelters, which were large thick metal tables kept indoors and too large for our house.  Our shed shelter was tiny; my parents slept on the ground and I in a hammock, made from narrow and stiff canvas (all Father could get) until I turned over in my sleep and fell out, after which my parents decided I'd better squeeze in between them.  The bombs were dropped in a "stick" of about half a dozen, and we quickly learned how to work out which direction they were coming from. On one occasion we all decided the next one to drop was bound to hit us.  We huddled together and Father put his arm round us. In fact it landed on a house in the next street, at the bottom of our garden: the house and inhabitants were all totally destroyed.

Incendiary bombs:

There were plenty of these, but near us all in gardens.  Each house had a stirrup pump and neighbours joined in efforts to extinguish them. In case water supplies were affected, everyone kept a tub of water in their garden. Ours was like one of those tin baths in Degas paintings.[1]  The tubs proved an ideal place for mosquito larvae and we had some itchy times.

The Blitz:

Living on the edge of London we were not targeted in the Blitz, the bombs dropped on us were random ones. Father, who was too old to enlist (he was in Gallipoli in WW1) was a volunteer fireman at his place of work, the Post Office Headquarters. One night the building next to it was ablaze and he stood on a connecting passage and hosed it.  Mother and I stood in our garden and saw the red sky over London; we believed we should never see him again. That was my worst memory of the war.  Eventually he did return, filthy and exhausted; he washed, went to bed and slept for 30 hours.  Mother had a severe gynaecological problem.  She had hoped to work in a nearby factory rolling and packing bandages but they wouldn't have her. Instead she worked for the WVS (Women's Voluntary Service, later with Royal added before Voluntary) looking after supplies of emergency tinned food; this involved turning tins over and sometimes moving them and caused her pain and exacerbated her illness.

V1s, doodlebugs:

These were nasty because one could see them slowly coming, then hear when their engines switched off before they dropped.  On one hot night I had stayed in bed with a high temperature.  My mother had opened the window and curtains hoping for a breeze. I saw a doodlebug, heard the engine cut out and watched it start to drop. This was the second time I thought I was going to die.  However the wind did suddenly get up and the V1 finally dropped on a house nearly half a mile away.

V2s:

Although these were very powerful they were not frightening because you did not hear or see them coming, when you heard the loud bang you knew you were safe.

The Battle of Britain

My maternal grandparents lived near us, at the top of Barnet Hill, and had a second floor balcony.  I saw dog fights during the Battle for Britain from that balcony, and planes being hit and plummeting to the ground, knowing those on board had died. I presume I was with my parents and also that they thought that, if I survived the war, the scene was one I'd then be glad to have witnessed.  When I was very young Father had got me out of bed to see an Aurora Borealis; I've never seen one since.

Defences

There were searchlights and big guns, dramatic rather than effective. The morning after a raid children went out to collect shrapnel, the lethal bits of metal from the Anti Aircraft shells.  Later my mother threw away my collection.  Another defensive measure was the dropping of shredded tinfoil, known as windowpane, dropped to confuse enemy radar.  Our next-door neighbour had a big fir tree in their front garden. One Christmas morning it was charmingly decorated with this.

Rationing

Food:

There were no obese children during the war.  One girl (whose name I remember, oddly, June Buckling) was a little chubby; her father was a baker and they had plenty of bread. Rationing was strict, and as Shirley Williams remembers in her autobiography, we were always slightly hungry. My family liked brown bread and did not miss white.  While I ruefully remembered fruit such as oranges and grapefruit, other fruit now commonplace, such as kiwifruit and mangoes, had not appeared locally in the 1930s.  Yorkshire relatives sent eggs in well padded compartments in boxes holding a dozen, but few survived the journey unbroken. They also once sent a hare, unskinned, with an address label round its neck.  It was slightly gamey on arrival.  Father put it on the hearth mat to tease our cat, which when it came in and saw it rushed out of the house and was not seen again for a week. Father had two allotments and supplied vegetables for us and some neighbours.  Mr. Burfoot next door kept rabbits for the pot; once or twice I heard them squeal as they were dispatched.  Anxious to keep me healthy, my parents bought a syrup called Virol; I disliked it but our cat loved it and I fed him it surreptitiously. All children were required to collect rose hips which were made into a syrup to augment our intake of vitamin C, I hated that too.  I queued for lungs, called ‘lights’, for our cat; they had to be boiled and made the house smell horrible.

Clothes and material:

Rationing was difficult for parents of growing children.  Clothes were handed down; an aunt passed on my cousin Margaret's frocks to me, but she was red haired and big boned and her clothes never suited me, though of course I had to wear them and be grateful. Ones own clothes were remade as patchwork, a style I have hated ever since.  One day I tore my old cotton dress on a fence and hardly dared go home to tell my mother. Synthetic fibres were not yet common, only rayon which creased easily. At school we wore black stockings and when they had a hole we inked in the gap. When nylon stockings came in (tights had not yet been thought of) they were in very short supply; we used to draw lines up our bare legs to look as if we were wearing them.  Small shops appeared where laddered stockings could be mended. We wore studs, I think they were called Blakey's, on the soles of our shoes.  Old sheets were cotton, not poly-cotton, and when they wore out they were remade sides to middle, uncomfortable in a single bed.

Other shortages:

In brief, everything. Ask for anything and the reply was invariably "Don't you know there's a war on?"  Father had a soldering iron and attempted to mend saucepans. All garden metal work had been commandeered (it later transpired as a moral booster, rather than for war use; many historic and beautiful railings were lost):  we only lost a rail between our front garden and next door's.

Evacuees

We were in an area between children being evacuated or receiving evacuees. We did get a new pupil at school, Hannah Gotfreid, who may have come on the kindertransport; the girls studying German resented her being allowed to take a school leaving exam in German. The authorities surveyed how many unused rooms each house had.  My grandparents had Canadian nurses billeted on them, with whom we kept in touch for many years afterwards. Once or twice we put up families who had been bombed out. They arrived in shock, miserable, and on one occasion with fleas, which it took Mother and I some time to get rid of.  Then the Army Pay corps was based in Barnet.  Two pleasant but most dim minded lads stayed with us. Father had made a perfectly visible wooden drawer to put on the gas fire in one room, so stop soot falling into the room: the lads once came back while we were out and lit the gas fire without moving this, setting the chimney on fire. Luckily we soon returned and Father put it out.

Prisoners of War

For a time there was a POW camp not far from Barnet.  I loved going past it because they had made a big model of what I thought was a fairy castle; years later I realised it was Salzburg. My Yorkshire uncle ran a village pub:  once he saw a German airman had baled out of a stricken plane and come down in their yard.  Going cautiously out with a pitchfork he saw the man had landed in the muck heap.  He yanked him out saying "Eh, lad tha's better come in and have a wash."

Education 

The girls Grammar school I went to was a large building at the top of Barnet Hill.  Fearing it might look like a factory and be bombed, the school authorities closed it and tried to organise the teaching of small groups of girls in private houses.  I was in a group near my grandparents' house.  The age range was too wide, sensible education proved impossible and the experiment was abandoned, so we went back to the school.  At the start of the war a gas attack was feared and all children were provided with gas masks, made of rubber with the filter in a snout like lower part. When I clumsily attempted to put mine on I couldn't see through the visor but rushed round the room shouting "I'm a Minotaur" until I hit something soft, which turned out to be the headmistress's stomach.  Winded, she yanked the mask off and said "Oh, Gillian that had to be you."  To my surprise I was not punished; perhaps she was so upset at the thought of children being gassed that she did not want to punish any.  Mixed information made my school decree that we should take "half Latin" for A levels, but the universities I would have liked to go to did not accept this. There was virtually no career guidance. Bright girls were guided towards teaching, others to becoming secretaries.  Being an air hostess was thought by many girls to be glamorous.  I became a Civil Servant - but that's a different story.

Leisure 

My best friend was Molly, who lived next door but one.  90 years later she is still a very good friend. Our residential street was quiet, we played with marbles and 5 stones, and had wooden hoops, which we called our Spitfires, hitting them twice and shouting "contact" before setting off. By modern standards I did not have a large number of toys.  One day my aunt Winnie came and took away some of my favourites, including my Russian Matryoska nesting dolls, to donate to some children who had been bombed out. Only a few days later I passed by the house where they had been billeted and saw some of the nesting dolls broken and thrown away in the garden. I joined the Girl Guides, and even had a summer camp with the tents hidden under trees; mine was under a holly tree and my sleeping bag was not thick enough to withstand the prickly leaves. 

D-Day

By 1944 we knew the tide of the war had turned and the Allies would soon invade Europe. On 3rd June, I was visiting my friend Beryl. We were mucking about in her garden. A formation of 'planes flew over, heading south, not in itself unusual, but then another and another. We rushed inside to tell her parents and very soon all the street's inhabitants were outside, waving and cheering. 

Peace

On V-Day (the end of the war in Europe) I was in the garden with father.  The wind was in the right direction and we heard the church bells toll. For me tolling bells will always denote peace - just as well as I now live next door to the largest church in Essex, with enthusiastic bell ringers!   

Gillian Mulley, July 2020

[1] My Yorkshire grandparents also had a tin bath, as their house had no plumbing. I was bathed in it when we visited; being younger, a girl and a visitor I used it first, then cousin Keith was washed in the same water. Hot water was precious, having been brought from the pump down the road and then heated.

Henryka Magiera-Brzezowska

‘The NKVD told my mother they wished to speak with me’

My home town used to be Sambor, near Lwow, which is now part of western Ukraine. I was the youngest child in my family and I was born in the late 1920s. I had two brothers and a sister. My parents lived in the Austrian partition of Poland before the First World War and my father later served in the Austro-Hungarian army. He became a civilian administrator in Sambor after Polish independence, although he was semi-retired by the time I came along. My sister Maria studied mathematics and became a teacher, while my elder brother, Michal, attended Lwow University. He was unable to serve in the armed forces because of poor eyesight, while my other brother, Franciszek, studied at Krakow University and then joined the army, becoming an officer.

I was still at school when the war started. All of us had seen what had happened to Austria and Czechoslovakia, and we knew there were going to be problems for Poland. However, don't think people were expecting a war to happen. Perhaps this was reflected in the mobilisation of our armed forces, which started far too late.[1] Franciszek was based in eastern Poland before the invasion and his division was rushed westwards to assist. He was wounded on the way, although it was not serious, and his unit eventually came under General Kleeberg’s command and fought in the final battles of the Polish campaign at Kock. The fighting ended with the Polish surrender on 6 October 1939 and he managed to escape and return to Sambor by the winter of 1939/1940, by which time the Russians were in full control of our region.

The Germans had passed through our town on their way to attack Lwow, hoping to capture it before the Russians reached the city[2] and I remember they took some of their wounded soldiers to Sambor hospital. Then they started to withdraw, making way for the approaching Red Army. Important citizens, such as medical staff, academics and administrators, were taken away by the Germans and we thought they were going to be executed. Apparently, they were deported into the Third Reich instead.[3] The Russians then arrived and made a big show of force, their soldiers marching through the streets in parade-ground formation. They initially said everything would remain the same and that they were our friends. The school was even reopened in October, although only the Russian language was allowed and there were a lot of propaganda meetings, with the Polish government condemned for failing its people and plenty of other lies told about Poland.

Maria was soon teaching again, avoiding political issues because her subject was mathematics. Franciszek was lying low and, by early spring 1940, he had decided to try and cross the southern border into Romania once the weather improved. He wanted to travel to France, where the new Polish armies were being raised under Sikorski's command. But almost everyone in the area knew he was back and it was not long before someone informed on him to the Russians. He was hiding in a safe-house just outside Sambor, waiting to make contact with handlers who would help him across the border. The Russians surrounded this property and then arrested Franciszek, taking him to the local prison. My father and Michal had already been arrested for a separate reason, although they had been released and then we were all targeted at once. The Russians knocked on our door in the middle of the night, entering our house and telling us to get ready for transportation east. Maria was told not to worry because the government would find her a better job in the USSR. Tired and dazed, we were given just a few minutes to take items for personal use on the journey. We weren’t fully aware of what was really happening and, strangely enough, some of the soldiers were helpful by telling us to take food and warm clothes.

We were taken to Sambor station and discovered many others had been arrested too. They crammed us into miserable wagons and Lwow was our first stop, with many more Poles then squeezed onboard. The journey proper started soon afterwards and we travelled thousands of miles into Kazakhstan and I recall one occasion when the train screeched to a halt, followed by the sound of gunfire that stopped almost as quickly as it started. We were later told someone had tried but failed to escape. It took 13 days to reach our final stop: the town of Aktyubinsk in Kazakhstan. The region was very different to back home as Kazakhstan is a vast country dominated by steppes that have few trees or streams, while the weather is almost arid in the summer and freezing during the winter.

The Russians put us into trucks under armed guard and took my family to a collective farm, a kolkhoz, many miles from Aktyubinsk. The thaw had set in as we arrived and our first job was to bury the corpses of animals that had died during the winter. Afterwards, when the conditions allowed it, they set us to work in the fields and we only ever saw cereal crops being grown. There weren’t many tractors available because the collective farm was small, with only about 18 people, including women, elderly men, children and us. Payment was made mainly in grain that we had to grind ourselves. There was a manager of this collective farm, called the president, and I ended up working for his secretary. I did most of filing and office work, and I was able to speak Russian quite well by then.

As summer turned to autumn, an NKVD unit suddenly arrived. They wanted to inspect the kolkhoz’s files and I decided to hide because I was only 12 and really scared. The NKVD told my mother they wished to speak with me, although she lied about my whereabouts, saying I was working on the steppe and much too far away to be reached at such short notice. So they carried on and checked the files without me, finding mistakes during the audit. They discovered several people had been claiming too much food, which was perfectly understandable given how hungry we all were. Thankfully, I was still undiscovered by the time they left and there were no reprisals against me or my family.

We still had no idea about what had happened to my brother Franciszek a this stage. In fact, he was kept in Sambor until June and then taken to Moscow for ‘clearance’ through the Lubyanka prison.[4] He was then sent to a camp somewhere near Archangel, where he joined some others who had also been in the Polish army. He discovered what had happened to us after writing to friends back in Poland, which we were all allowed to do. By good fortune, we had written to the same people and it was through them we discovered Franciszek was still alive and had a rough idea of his whereabouts. Unfortunately, we could only correspond with people back in Poland and weren’t allowed to write to him directly.

Our contacts at home were allowed to sell our possessions and send us the proceeds, which was a great help because we were living in poverty. For example, our house had a straw roof and the walls were made of animal… well I know the Russian word for it, but I’m not sure I could translate it politely! There were only two rooms, with animals like chickens living in the house as well. Autumn saw us harvest the crops, while the winter of 1940/1941 was simply horrific: snow covered everything and it was sometimes necessary for the young among us to push through a hole in the roof and then dig everyone out. It was soon impossible to work and all of us struggled to occupy the time, although there were some books that helped. Sadly, my father died in March 1941. He was already elderly and the conditions were just too much. We buried him with the help of others, although the grave was not very deep because the ground was still frozen.

Spring eventually arrived, announced by the sound of running water as the thaw set in. My mother and sister were now sick and unable to walk, so Michal left for the nearest town to find places in Aktyubinsk hospital for them. I was left to organise some transport, which was easier said than done because the nearest main road was quite far away. Luckily, I managed to flag a truck down and gave the driver some money to take my mother, sister and me to the hospital. I was housed with a Russian family as they were being cared for and, thankfully, my mother and sister recovered enough to come and live with me in the same place. The war between Germany and Russia broke out not long afterwards and the husband was called up to fight, leaving us to look after the couple’s two children as the landlady went to work.

Unfortunately, she started to become afraid of our presence because we should have returned to the collective farm. But we had now heard about General Sikorski's agreement with the Russians to release Poles from captivity and allow the creation of a Polish army in the USSR.[5] Therefore, we believed all Poles in the Soviet Union were free subjects of the Polish government-in-exile and no longer captives. It wasn’t long before a NKVD officer visited the landlady and told her to get rid of us, bluntly rejecting the argument that Poland was now a friend of the USSR. He told the woman in no uncertain terms that we should be returned to the collective farm. I argued against this, pointing out that my mother and sister were still too ill to travel and that the journey back would be too much for them. He reluctantly agreed and gave us a few days grace before returning. His threats were more menacing this time and our landlady became very nervous, while I became desperate and started to shout and cry at this officer. Flustered, he left and never returned. It was amazing that nothing happened, but maybe he really could see that my mother and sister were unable to travel, or perhaps he was uncomfortable with forcing us out?[6]

I should add Michal had left us a little earlier, looking for work in another town not too far away. He had also learnt about the formation of the Polish army and travelled onwards to join up at Buzuluk, where many Polish troops, women and children were gathering under the overall command and care of General Anders. Franciszek had also been told of the army’s formation and had been released, travelling to Buzuluk as well. He was reunited with Michal, who told him of our whereabouts and the sad fate of our father. Franciszek then visited us in Aktyubinsk, even though his body was still suffering the effects of starvation, and all of us were overjoyed at his survival and the good news he delivered. The Polish army was being transferred to Uzbekistan and his division would be passing through Aktyubinsk by train. It was decided we should join him in travelling south together.

We waited on the platform at Aktyubinsk for about three nights, until the right train rolled in and we jumped onboard. Most of the Polish troops were in a fair condition, although many men arrived in a terrible state in Uzbekistan, often ill and dressed only in rags. I can only imagine how horrific it had been for those who had been worked so hard for so little. Lots were sick with typhoid and some died almost immediately on reaching safety, the cemetery near our camp continuing to grow because of this. It was terribly sad. Confidential news arrived in March 1942 that the army would be leaving for Persia. Franciszek had been transferred to Alma Alta in Kazakhstan by this stage, so it was his friends who said we should get ready to leave. And really it was thanks to them that we made it out as they arrived in a lorry on the day of departure and took us to the train station, which is where we joined the army in transit.

All of us then travelled down to Krasnovodsk on the Caspian Sea, where we waited for a boat to take us to Persia. The journey across was terrible and the conditions over-crowded and, to make matters worse, a storm overtook us that made almost everyone seasick. I was very grateful when we reached the Persian coast, arriving soon afterwards in a port under British control. It was like being in a new world – a world of sun and sea, and it was lovely. We were housed in tents and given lots of fruit and dates. In fact, I remember eating so many dates that I got sick. We were then transferred to Tehran in April, staying in a tented camp for civilians as our forces moved into Iraq.

Franciszek arrived in Iran in the second major transit of Poles out of the USSR in August 1942 and was also forwarded to Iraq. The Russians refused to allow any more Poles to leave the Soviet Union, saying we were giving them a bad name by talking about the gulags and the suffering they had inflicted. Tragically, a lot of Polish people were left behind.[7] Michal was posted onto Britain, travelling via the Cape of Good Hope and joining Polish units in Scotland, while Franciszek ended up fighting on the Italian front with the Polish II Corps. He stayed in Italy after the war and married a local girl and had three children.

Back in Tehran, our camp was managed by Poles and a school was soon operational, while many other civilians were sent to India and Africa. There were lots of orphans as well, the children from families who had not survived. We stayed in Tehran until November 1945, several months after the war in Europe had ended. There were not many of us left because of the transfers to other camps and we were eventually moved to Beirut, staying in accommodation paid for by the government-in-exile. Most of young Poles in Beirut were in full-time education and I started a pharmacy degree at the city's American University, with many of my fellow students having been medics on the Italian front. My studies came to an abrupt end in 1948, when we were all transferred to Liverpool and posted to a resettlement camp. British universities did not recognise American University modules and I was told I would need to start all over again. Rather short-sightedly, I believed I was now too old to be a student, so I took a two-year course in business studies, learning short-hand, typing and accounts etc. I also got married to my husband Czeslaw and we had a son, Tadeusz. The rest of my family also came to the UK, including Maria, who secured a PhD in Iranian and Arabic studies.

I only met my mother-in-law in 1956, when she was allowed to travel to the UK following the end of the Stalinist regime in Poland. She was very distressed on arrival, telling my husband about the terrible fate his brothers had suffered. Both had fallen foul of the Polish-Russian regime after the war for having been members of Home Army units that resisted the communists. One of the brothers was captured, imprisoned and released after catching tuberculosis. He died soon afterwards. The other brother was murdered after someone informed on him to the authorities. An armed unit set fire to the safe-house he and some others were using, forcing them to come out. They were gunned down as they tried to flee.

We visited Poland in 1962 and were interrogated by military personnel on arrival. They asked me what crimes my family had committed in order to have been deported to Russia and I was furious:

‘What crimes could I have committed to have been deported at the age of ten?’ I asked.

The officer then told me he wanted to interrogate my son, also aged ten at that time. I refused, adding that he only spoke English, which was a lie, although a very useful one and they left him alone. I was unable to visit Sambor as this was now part of Ukraine, following the redrawing of Poland’s borders after the war. The first opportunity I had to go back was in the 1990s, after the Soviet Union collapsed. I travelled with an old friend, who also came from the town, although it was totally different from how we both remembered it. We visited our old addresses and it was very strange to see my childhood home once more, although I didn’t feel like going in. The people who lived there were worried I would serve them with documents of ownership, but I told them I just wanted to look at the outside. Frankly speaking, Sambor seemed to have been irretrievably damaged: the river was dirty and the parks were gone. There was nothing to see or do, other than visit the local cemetery and to my pay respects to my grandparents' graves.

Simon Rees (all rights reserved)

[1] Poland was under pressure from Britain and France not to undertake any actions that might provoke Germany, including full mobilisation. Still, as Hitler’s sabre rattling grew in August 1939, instinct told the Poles partial mobilisation of its reserves, regardless of their allies’ concerns, would be prudent.

[2] German forces wanted to capture Lwow as a matter of prestige and to embarrass the Red Army, which should have reached the city much earlier had Stalin kept to the pre-agreed timetable of carving-up Poland between Germany and the USSR. The two forces moved behind secret, pre-arranged boundaries after the fighting ceased, with German units shifting westwards and Red Army formations taking their place. Some further border adjustments and realignments were made in the following weeks.

[3] Execution might be more likely. Hitler had already insisted on the destruction of the Polish intelligentsia – nobles, bureaucrats, doctors, priests, businessmen, political activists etc. – and the secret Intelligenzaktion murder programme began almost immediately after the invasion. Nazi death squads killed around 61,000 members of the intelligentsia and 39,000 of their relations and associates. The Intelligenzaktion was followed by the AB-Aktion murder campaign organised by Hans Frank in the General Government zone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_AB-Aktion_in_Poland

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Order_(Nazism)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksdeutscher_Selbstschutz (Retrieved 02/05/18)

[4] The Moscow headquarters of the NKVD also contained an infamous prison in its basements. Many prisoners were sent here before being forwarded to other destinations, although it was also a place of interrogation, torture and execution. Later to command the Polish II Corps, Władysław Anders was held in the Lubyanka during this period.

[5] See Sikorski-Mayski note from your other interview.

[6] It is more likely this officer was reassigned, although Magiera-Brzezowska’s pleas about the legal status of Poles might have carried more weight than she realised. The Polish amnesty had been approved by Stalin and had come at such speed that many Soviet apparatchiks were unsure what the definitive policy was. And therein in lay great danger: when faced with uncertainty in Stalin’s USSR, it was often better to fudge things than risk taking decisive action that could be later denounced.

[7] More than 1 million probably remained in the USSR, with most allowed to return to Poland after the war. However, a sizeable number died because of the grim conditions and many others remained trapped in the Soviet penal system, only to return home once Stalin had died in 1953. A few even gave up on returning to Poland and stayed forever.

Teodora (Tola) Turska

Helena (Hala) Czarny

Helena Czarny, whose maiden name was Śmietana, was born on the 24th March 1927 in Leżajsk. She attended Z. Oleśnicki’s Primary School in Kraków. The war brought her carefree childhood to an abrupt end.

While still in primary school and only a teenager, Hala joined the Polish Scouting Movement.  “God, Honour and Country” was not just a motto, it was what they lived for, they loved their homeland. From the very beginning, Hala realised that in taking the Scout’s oath, she was ready to live and die for Poland. It was her life’s purpose.  

While still a young woman, Hala signed up to work with the underground movement. After being sworn in in 1942, she worked as a nurse and later as a courier for the 14th Company of the Home Army, nicknamed „Żelbet”. Her pseudonym was „Żywia”. She joined the underground Scout Movement in 1943. Their work was primarily focused on spying on German activity, securing materials needed for the underground movement to continue its work, collecting medical supplies including bandages, disinfectants and pain killers. Later, she learnt to use communication equipment, delivering reports and circulating leaflets. All of these activities could have led to immediate arrest by the Germans, followed by a death sentence or transportation to a concentration camp.

Hala also continued with her education, first at a school of economics and later she completed a one year course in the hotel industry. This was done to protect her from deportation into forced labour in Germany. During the occupation, all Poles over the age of 15 had to demonstrate they were employed within the list of jobs permitted by the Germans or continue their education but the only subjects open to them were those linked to a trade. Hala completed her education in secret, following the high school curriculum. For taking part in these lessons she was again at risk of being arrested, imprisoned and sent to a concentration camp. Despite this, both teachers and students continued with the education programs, despite the brutal repression. Getting an education, particularly in the Polish language and history was a crucial part of the battle against occupation.  

Aside from her work with the underground movement and her studies, Hala also volunteered her time. Her teachers were involved in the Scout movement and leaders Zofia Rymar and Maria Lubaczewska ran a so-called „club for street children”. She spent her free time looking for abandoned children, often orphans, for whom they organised school lessons, games and meals which she transported, often risking her own life.

Unfortunately, as the end of the war approached the Poles did not gain the freedom they had fought for. The new Communist government did not see those who fought for independence as heroes, but in fact quite the opposite.

In 1945 the leaders of the war time scouting movement began efforts to legalise their activity.

In response, the Department of National Security undertook a series of arrests of the most prominent activists of the scouting movement, hoping to frighten the young members of the movement who remained loyal to their patriotic values.

In response to these arrests, in April 1946, a group of girl scouts including Hala Śmietana and Ola Nodzeńska decided to visit Bolesław Bierut, the leader of Communist Poland, who was supported by the Soviets and the person responsible for the arrests. Their audience with Boleslaw Bierut gave him the opportunity to be portrayed as a benefactor of the youth who were growing in influence. The girls decided to take advantage of this situation.

Their mission was a success and the imprisoned leaders from the Kraków area were released. The remaining arrested leaders were used as an example to others and during a show trial in 1947 were sentenced to many years of imprisonment.

Edited by Anna Michniak, translated by Ewa Hammond

Danuta Maczka Gradosielska

One thing I remember as a child was being told that we had to eat up all our food and never waste – “if you had been in Siberia during the war …”

Later, I often heard the word “Kresy”, Mum was always talking about Kresy and going off to meetings with other people involved with this “Kresy”. I never dared to ask what it meant because I felt like I should already have known this. Then I left home, spent a few years in Canada and eventually ended up in Sweden.

When our Polish families came to the UK after WWII, they were told not to talk about their experiences during the war. No one wanted to upset our powerful ally Stalin. So they didn’t. Some couldn’t talk because they found it too traumatic. Others talked only to their closest friends within the Polish communities. Very rarely to their English friends or neighbours. It took many years before my mum could look at her diary, but she was one of the first people to give talks or interviews locally. It was only in the late 1970’s the Polish exiles living in the UK got together and started talking about and sharing their memories and experiences in Poland before WWII, ie life on their osady/settlements and during deportation. A couple of books were printed in Polish. In the 1990’s Mum was translating her autobiography from Polish to English so I got involved in the project. I joined several Yahoo groups online, met other people with the same background and finally found out what Kresy meant - The Eastern Borderlands of Poland – the land close to the borders with the USSR where our grandfather settled in 1921. He had been a volunteer in the 1920 Bolshevik War in a cavalry regiment called 1 Pulk Krechowiecki.  As a reward, the ex-soldiers of this regiment were given land, small farms, on a settlement called Osada Krechowiecka. This and many other osady were strategically placed along the border with the USSR to protect this corridor which was called Kresy.

Life was very difficult in the early days as most of the young soldiers had no farming experience. Gradually things improved, the osady became modern productive farms. Life was peaceful and idyllic for the settlers and their growing families. Here my mother Danuta Maczka was born in 1925, she had two brothers and a younger sister. But their carefree life was interrupted when the Soviets attacked Eastern Poland on 17 September 1939. The Germans had already attacked Western Poland on 1 September.

On 10 February 1940 Danuta’s family were woken up in the night, told to pack and be ready to leave in two hours. This night-time banging on doors by armed soldiers happened to very many families in Kresy on that same night. They were assembled at stations and packed into crowded freight wagons, 72 people in Mum’s wagon.  220,000 people were forcibly taken from their homes that night and transported to Siberia. They had to endure long train journeys, sometimes up to several weeks, in brutal conditions in appallingly overcrowded and unhygienic boxcars. They were kept locked in, with only a tiny grated window at the top so it was dark and stuffy. There was a stove for heating food, and for occasionally melting snow to wash themselves, and a hole in the floor as a toilet.  It was this tiny window that made my Mum‘s diary possible. She would lie on the top bunk and write down the names of places they travelled though. These notes giving basic information would later inspire her to write her autobiography, jogging her memory to be able to add more detailed descriptions and experiences.

After stopping briefly at two other family camps (called Posiolki) Danuta’s family were eventually settled at camp Monastyriok, just south of Kotlas in Archangelsk. Here they worked in the forests, cutting down trees, and later in the sawmill. The winters were extremely cold, down to -50 C. Approximately 1.7 million Poles were forcibly re-settled in 1940-41. Freezing temperatures, hard labour, and a lack of food, warm clothing and medicines contributed to an extremely high death rate. My Mum’s sister Zosia died during this time, only 14 years old.

When the Germans attacked the USSR in June 1941 things changed drastically.  The Soviets needed men in their army so the Sikorski-Mayski agreement was signed on 30 July 1941, granting a so-called  “amnesty” to all the Polish citizens who had been forcibly transported to the Soviet Union in 1940 and 1941, freeing them from their camps and kolkhozes. The Maczka family, as all others, were overjoyed at the thought of freedom at long last but had to wait until the New Year to leave their posiolek. Some of the boys, like Danuta’s older brother, escaped earlier, being keen to join the army but they had a difficult time, being without travel documents or food coupons. After about six weeks of travel, the family arrived at Guzar where Danuta signed up to join the Polish army. Actually, she had to lie about her age as she was really only 16. She joined the PSK – the Polish Women’s Auxiliary Service and was given an army uniform that was way too big for her.

The Polish army, along with civilians, were evacuated across the Caspian Sea to Persia (now Iran) during the summer of 1942. General Anders insisted on civilians being rescued too but only 115,000 evacuees got out before Stalin stopped the evacuations.  Roughly one third of those were civilians. More than 15,000 were children, mostly orphans. These refugees were all very well received and looked after by the Iranians, taken to camps in Tehran and Isfahan. Later, families were sent to Africa, India, Mexico and New Zealand to recuperate until the war was over.

When Danuta got to Tehran she started a Red Cross nursing course but became seriously ill with typhoid and spent three months in the hospital, fighting to survive. After convalescence she joined the all-female PWSK Transport section and when they were moved to Palestine, she learnt all about heavy trucks. First they did a mechanics course, taking motors apart and putting them together. They needed this in case their trucks broke down in the desert. Then, they learnt to drive the trucks and Danuta became part of the 316 Transport Company. The girls made several trips to pick up trucks in Egypt and drive them back to Palestine.

On 4 May 1944 the 316 Transport Co. arrived in Italy to take part in the Italian Campaign. They got new 2½ ton Dodges and drove all over Italy, delivering supplies like food, provisions, ammunition, fuel, equipment, sometimes wounded soldiers and prisoners-of-war. This was a dangerous job as they had to drive at night, on serpentine mountain roads, with no lights – they just had to follow the truck in front. Always under the threat of German planes overheard, ready to drop bombs on them. But, my Mum was only 18 years old and didn’t realise just how dangerous things were and probably saw it as a great adventure. Of course, they also drove supplies to the soldiers fighting at Monte Cassino and later on, during action on the Adriatic Coast.

After the victorious Battle of Bologna in April 1945 the Polish 2nd Corps was withdrawn from action but stayed in Italy in the Marche area. Danuta had met a handsome Polish 2nd Lieutenant, Jerzy Gradosielski, during these last months and they were married after the war was over, at Porto San Giorgio in August 1945. After a romantic honeymoon in Venice and Lake Como they had to go back to their respective camps but met as often as they could.

In October 1945 Danuta transferred from the Transport Company to the Army Grammar School in Porto San Giorgio to catch up on her missed education. She had been an avid reader in Siberia and a conscientious, ambitious student, so studying came easily to her. In August 1946, the girls from the school travelled by ship to Liverpool, UK and continued their secondary education at the PRC (Polish Re-settlement Corps) camp in Foxley, near Hereford.

After graduation, Danuta joined her husband at Hermitage Camp near Newbury. I was their first child, born in 1948 in the Polish military hospital in Penley near Wrexham, Wales. In April 1949 the family moved to London and Danuta is still living in Forest Gate, East London (as of October 2020). They had five more children after me, now with many grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Danuta’s love of Kresy never faded, but returning to Poland after the war was not an option as her osada was now part of Ukraine and her home country was occupied by the Russian communists. Those who did return were treated as traitors and often disappeared or ended up back in Siberia. Luckily Danuta’s mother, father and brothers also survived and settled in the London area. After the fall of communism in 1989 visits became possible so Danuta visited her osada twice with family members. Osada Krechowiecka had been a large settlement, with around 140 small farms. During the war the houses had been torn down – but incredibly, the only one left was my Mum’s! So, there were some memories left from her happy childhood after all: the house, the orchard, ponds and fields. They were still there when I visited Ukraine in 1996. An emotional trip for all of us. Unfortunately, the fields were just used to graze cattle instead of growing food for the starving Ukrainians.  And the huge beautiful newly-built church had been destroyed, with a pig farm built on the site.

There were many thousands of Polish refugees in London after the war so large communities were formed with Polish parishes, Polish school on Saturdays, Scouts, youth activities and various social gatherings for all ages to promote the Polish language and traditions. Both my parents were highly active in Polonia, Danuta overseeing a social work group for many years. She also worked as an interpreter for several boroughs for many years, even into her 80’s.

My mum kept up contact with the girls from her 316 Transport Company, they even started a performance group “Zespol 316” in 1979 with songs and sketches reminiscing about their army lives and new beginnings in the UK. They toured all over the UK with their show and even had a tour to USA and Canada. Most people were not aware of the fact that young Polish women had contributed to the war effort by working as doctors, nurses, in communications, canteens and mobile libraries, administrative, military intelligence, press and entertainment. I always think it’s amusing to think of these girls driving around the battlefields serving cups of tea to the soldiers!

You can read more about them here.

She has certainly led a busy life! She wrote many articles and gave many interviews over the years and even now I find details that I haven’t heard before. She also took part in memorial ceremonies in the  UK, Poland and Italy, where it was usually the men who laid the wreaths, but later on, Mum also took part, representing the women soldiers - the forgotten force.

You can read more about Danuta’s story here (short version, also available as a pdf file): http://www.kresyfamily.com/fh-danuta-gradosielska.html

Longer, more detailed descriptions:

Life on farm before deportation: http://www.kresyfamily.com/wow-078-krechowiecka-maczka.html

Life in Siberia and after deportation: http://www.kresyfamily.com/sec-048-krechowiecka-maczka.html 

Elizabeth Gradosielska Olsson