ONE WAY TICKET TO HELL
Land allotment document, issued to Wladyslaw
Piotrowski for a parcel of land in the Commune Mizrocz (Distr. Zdolbunow,
Voiv. Wolyn).
Zdolbunow, Nov. 13, 1922
One, large category of Polish citizens, targeted by the Soviets for
deportation, were Polish Eastern Borderland settlers who, in the early
twenties, received land allotments from the Polish government. They
were veterans of the Soviet-Polish War of 1919-1920, the outcome of
which prevented the spread of the Bolshevik Revolution throughout Europe.
The settlers and their families were tough, hard working farmers, who
brought to those regions modern agriculture as well as ardent and
unflinching Polish patriotism. The Soviets were right - the Borderland
settlers, without a doubt, could be qualified as "anti-Soviet elements".
They defeated the "red peril" in 1920, they knew what it was and, if
called to arms, they and their children would fight the Soviets again.
The NKVD USSR Order No. 001223 to deport "anti-Soviet elements" was
issued on Oct. 11, 1939.
•
GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE MOST PROGRESSIVE
POLITICAL SYSTEM
IN THE WORLD
A postcard from Wanda Andrzejczuk, deported to
Traktovoe (Fedorovsky Raj., Kustanay Obl.) in the Kazakh SSR, to Alina
Gonek in Stanislawow.
... Can you imagine - I sleep on a table and feel like in a
crow's nest. But no critters, like cockroaches, fleas, ticks, earwigs
or ants can access my fortress...
Traktovoe, Jun. 14, 1940
Polish deportees, even those from the most underdeveloped parts of
Poland, were shocked by the harsh and primitive living conditions in
the Soviet Russia. Filth, lack of care for basic living standards,
dilapidation of living quarters overpopulated by humans and cockroaches;
untidiness of their surroundings, crime - were overwhelming.
Epidemics, venereal diseases and omnipresent lice only completed the
picture of terror, disintegration of social fabric and hopelessness
created by the World's most progressive political system, so much
admired by some of the most brilliant minds of the time - Bertrand A. W.
Russell, 3rd Earl of Russell and George Bernard Shaw, the Humourist.
•
POLISH CRIMINAL
Tadeusz Zukowski, age 22, from Czarnobyle near Wilno,
on a photograph from "his" NKVD file.
Lwow, March 1941
A criminal by the NKVD standards, sentenced to ten years of hard labour in
the Magadan Oblast (Kolyma), but lucky enough to escape the NKVD's bloodbath
of the Lwow prisons in June, 1941.
Released from imprisonment in late 1941, he joined the Polish Army formed in
Soviet Russia under Gen. Wladyslaw Anders' command and fought in the Italian
Campaign of 1944-1945. Awarded Poland's highest military decoration for
bravery on battlefield - the Order of Virtuti Militari.
•
SEARCH AND INTERROGATION -
SOVIET SACROSANCT STATE RITUALS
NKVD search record issued to Helena Klein, deported
from Bialystok to the Yaminsky Sovkhoz (Yeltsovsky Raj., Biysk Obl.) in
Altaysky Kray. The search revealed: twelve photographs, an emblem (?), one
piece of Polish currency. Klein's signature present under the statement is
to confirm that she has no complaints related to the search. What happened
to the items found - one can only guess.
Yaminsky Sovkhoz,
Aug. 4, 1941
NKVD searches and interrogations were so common in the daily lives of Soviet
citizens that they became a norm. This "norm" extended instantaneously over the
lives of "former" Polish citizens in the Soviet occupation zone.
Polish deportees, first robbed by the Soviet regime in the name of Soviet
justice, then robbed again by Soviet criminals with the approval of the Soviet
regime, were eventually stripped of almost everything of any value. As if this
was not enough, even if deported to some godforsaken, completely isolated places
in Soviet Russia, they would still be subjected to harassment at the hands of
the NKVD - frequent searches and interrogations. |
|
ONE WAY TICKET TO HELL
Eastern Borderland settlers family - Jan and
Bronislawa Koziol with daughter Helena, deported on Feb. 10, 1940
from Armatniow (Com. Poddebce, Distr. Luck, Voiv. Wolyn) to Lednya
(Lensky Raj., Arkhangelsk Obl.) in the Russian RFSR.
Luck, 1927
That night the Soviets, assisted by Ukrainian collaborationists from Luck,
deported almost all inhabitants of Armatniow: the Koziols...
the Sulkowskis... the Wolanskis... the Dorociaks... the Orliks...
the Derlagas... the Szponars... the Hajduks...
All of them were Polish Eastern Borderland settlers, and all family heads
veterans of the Soviet-Polish War, members of the same Polish Army
artillery regiment.
The owner of a local estate, and also a veteran of the Soviet-Polish War,
Capt. Kazimierz Marszalkowicz, was murdered by the Soviets in the first
months of Soviet occupation.
The Central Committee Politburo's resolution to deport Eastern Borderland
settlers and their families to the forests in Northern Russia was made on
Dec. 4, 1939 - only to "legalize" the NKVD USSR deportation order,
issued almost two months earlier. The deportation scheduled for Feb. 10,
1940.
On Dec. 21, 1939, the Politburo's Resolution No. P8/151 was made
that all Eastern Borderland settlers' property be confiscated.
•
ASCENDING FROM POLISH PRISONER-OF-WAR IN LITHUANIA
INTO SOVIET CITIZEN-PRISONER IN THE GULAG
A postcard from Wladyslaw Tyminski, a Polish
soldier interned in 1939 in Lithuania, to his wife, Jadwiga and children
deported to Orlovka (Ayyrtausky Raj., North-Kazakhstan Obl.)
in the Kazakh SSR. The text indicates that his sister-in-law, Aleksandra
and her daughters were also deported.
Following the Soviet invasion of Lithuania on Jun. 17, 1940, Wladyslaw
Tyminski became just an ordinary Soviet prisoner and was treated by the
Soviets accordingly. The last message to his family came from the Orenburg
Railway's Emba station hospital.
Ukmerge, Jun. 16, 1940
It has to be stated that despite difficult, or even hostile
Polish-Lithuanian relations before WWII and immense internal pressure,
in September 1939 the Lithuanian government declined the Nazi-Soviet
"invitation" to join their invasion of Poland; Polish POWs were treated
in Lithuania in accordance with the international law; the Lithuanian
government turned a blind eye on those Polish POWs, who attempted escape
from the internment; many Lithuanians were sympathetic to the Polish
cause. That counted a lot then, should be remembered now, and should not
be forgotten in the future.
•
SACK FULL OF DREAMS
A bag, hand-stitched from pieces of coarse linen
by a Russian girl for Czeslaw Obminski, age 19, deported from Lwow to
Verkhneuralsk (Chelyabinsk Obl.) in the Urals.
Verkhneuralsk, 1941
For months he prayed to God for the bag to be filled with bread at least
once before he dies of starvation.
Released from deportation in late 1941, he joined the Polish Air Force in
Great Britain to fight against Nazi Germany. He flew missions as a
radio-operator in the 300 Polish Squadron. On Nov. 6, 1944, during
one of operational flights (Gelsenkirchen), his bomber plane was shot
down - he survived, but caught by the Germans spent the rest of the war
in a POW camp.
•
SOVIET PRIDE - Made in GULAG
Soviet concentration camp prisoner's ration scoop,
made from a piece of "gulag" supplies container - remnants of the
cardboard converted into an eating utensil. The top and the bottom
pieces of the scoop made of tree bark.
Its owner and maker was A. Klein, a "former" Polish citizen from
Bialystok, undergoing "resocialization by work" in the "Tolokmianka"
Corrective Labour Camp (Ivdelsky Raj., Sverdlovsk Obl.) in the Urals.
The scoop was one of his few meager possessions in the camp.
1940-1941
Russia, a country of unparallelled natural riches as well as enormous
human, cultural and economic potential; enslaved for centuries by the
tsars, and from 1917 imprisoned for decades by the Bolshevik gang. A
country of grandiose, politically motivated and environmentally
disastrous megaprojects, slave labour, primitive living and working
conditions, with products and technologies as primitive, as its national
emblem - the sickle and hammer. |
|
ONE WAY TICKET TO HELL
Forest ranger Wlodzimierz Zieniewicz in the
Poddebowe Forest (Com. Czuczewicze, Distr. Luniniec, Voiv. Polesie),
deported to Russia early during the Nazi-Soviet occupation of Poland -
never to be seen again. His wife, Eleonora, and son, Zdzisio deported
to the Vologda Oblast in the Russian SFSR, where Zdzisio died shortly
from cold and starvation.
Poddebowe Forest, 1938
Forestry service personnel and their families were included in the
category of "anti-Soviet elements" and scheduled for deportation on
Feb. 9/10, 1940 by the Central Committee Politburo's resolution from
Dec. 21, 1939.
The paramilitary character and organization of the forestry service,
as well as its members knowledge of the forests with ability to shelter
anti-Soviet partisans and hide large caches of weapons were the true
reasons.
•
From the road
A postcard from Zofia Senciwa to Amelia Gonek
in Stanislawow. "From the road" written in the space for
sender's address.
My Dears! This is our 11th day on the road - in the same car. We are
going, most likely, to Siberia, which is 10 more days. We have to buy
food on our own and have been given some warm soup only twice so far -
apart from that, just bread and water. This journey is still tolerable,
but without many of our acquaintances, who are with us, it would be very
sad. We are still in relatively good health... Zosia and Franek
Jul. 8, 1940
However dreadful by any civilized world standards, these words would
sound quite normal, if not familiar, to the ear of any Soviet citizen
- they knew exactly, where the cattle trains were headed... they knew
exactly the fate of their passengers... as millions of Russians,
Ukrainians, Belorussians and others - sometimes entire nations - were
victims too.
•
GULAG'S CURRENCY - makhorka
A postcard from Bronislaw Tomczyk to his
fiancee(?), Aniela Kilar in Lwow. In 1940 he was arrested and sent to
the "gulag" - Palkino (Ivdelsky Raj., Sverdlovsk Obl.) in the Urals. He
asks for a towel, denim shirt, trousers and denim rags for repairs -
strong to last and cheap enough to make them unattractive to the Soviet
thieves. Also for basic foodstuff, like barley and noodles. But the
most important of all he asks for was makhorka - "gulag"'s currency.
Palkino, Apr. 17, 1941
Makhorka - a low grade shag - was always in high demand in the
"gulag" and could be swapped for virtually anything, whereas any real
money sent to prisoners would be held "in trust" by the Soviet
authorities - never to be seen by its rightful owner.
•
Severny, Jul. 1, 1941
|
|
ONE WAY TICKET TO HELL
Sgt. Michal Greczylo, State Police, with his wife,
Joanna, and son, Mieczyslaw. Sgt. Greczylo was imprisoned by the Soviets in
the Ostashkov concentration camp and murdered in Kalinin (Tver) in the
Spring of 1940.
His wife and son deported on Apr. 13, 1940 to a "kolkhoz" near Aktyubinsk
("obl.") in the Kazakh SSR.
Brzesc nad Bugiem, 1933
Families of all those, sent to death by the Central Committee Politburo's
Resolution No. P13/144 from Mar. 5, 1940, were included in the category of
"anti-Soviet elements" and targeted for deportation by the decision on the
Soviet of People's Commissars from Apr. 10, 1940. The same decision
"sentenced" also for deportation all refugees from the western parts of
Poland, occupied by the Nazis.
•
METAMORPHOSIS
Gertruda and Basia Braeder, deportees to the Voroshilov
Colony, near Khristoforov in the Kirghiz SSR - wife and daughter of a Polish
Eastern Borderland settler, Jan Braeder, murdered by Ukrainian nationalists. [the third person
on the upper photograph is Elzbieta Langner, also a Polish deportee]
Khristoforov, Nov. 23, 1940
Two photographs taken on the same spot, just minutes apart. On the upper
photograph, they look like an average wife and daughter of a Polish Eastern
Borderland settler. On the lower, the look is that of average Soviet citizens.
The deportees were allowed to take with them only very limited quantity of
luggage and within a very short time they were forced to exchange their
belongings for food with the locals, wherever they found themselves deported.
Their clothing, although representing nothing more than average European
standards, became instantly an object of desire - only the older generation
of Russians from the pre-Bolshevik era remembered the European apparel's
standards and quality.
•
SOVIET BLACK HOLE
Identity certificate, issued by the NKVD to Helena
Klein, deported from Bialystok to the Yaminsky Sovkhoz (Yeltsovsky Raj.,
Biysk Obl.) in Altaysky Kray. The certificate states that it is issued to
her by way of a Soviet "passport"; that her movements are restricted to
the place of residence; that she can not leave without the NKVD's permit;
that she is under the NKVD surveillance, and that she has to report to
the local NKVD twice a month.
Yaminsky Sovkhoz,
Jul. 09, 1941
If falling under Soviet occupation (as it happened to millions of
Polish citizens in 1939) was for any foreigner like entering a
distant, unknown and hostile planet, being deported to the wastes of
Soviet Russia (as it happened to almost two million of Polish
citizens) was like being sucked into nonexistence by a cosmic black
hole.
Dispossessed of their property in Poland, robbed by criminals on
their way to the place of deportation, deportees were left with
almost no personal belongings and in the middle of nowhere. The
NKVD confiscated even their hated Soviet "passports" - for they
were expected never to leave. They were nonexistent, human trash.
•
How many enemies of the USSR have you finished
off lately, Comrade?
NKVD guard chief Leonid Maksimovich Mikhailov
on a photograph in his Primorsky Kray NKVD service identity card.
|
