Homeland (20 page)

In the midst of the drudgery came moments of fear. Once, a group of us men were sent to work not far from some Russian prisoners. One of them, a huge, menacing man with a scarred face,
demanded bread in threatening tones. I gave him some – I assumed he would take it anyway – and was relieved when we were moved the next day to another part of the forest. Then
Mother sent word to me that Enzio was ill with fever and vomiting. I dropped everything and left the felling camp without permission to travel the thirteen kilometres back to the
posiolek
. Enzio later recovered, but I was thrown into the punishment hut, where Russian and Ukrainian criminals immediately stripped me of my clothes. Without doubt I would have frozen
to death that same night if it hadn’t been for the appearance of the scar-faced Russian, who turned out to be the convicts’ leader and who immediately ordered the others to return
my clothes (which they did). Thus, against the odds, there were strange unexpected acts of kindness and fellowship in that ghastly place.

Janina also fell ill that winter with pneumonia, but Mother fed her the berries and herbs which she’d stored away for just such an eventuality, and Janina survived. But the lack of
nourishment took an increasing toll on all of us – we lost our night vision, our teeth rattled in our heads, and we became covered in boils which refused to heal. That said, we would
undoubtedly have been even worse off, by which I mean dead, if it hadn’t been for Mother’s unceasing efforts to improve our lot and raise our spirits. Her every thought and concern
was for us. Countless times she augmented our rations from her own. After a full day’s back-breaking work, she would go into the forest looking for lichen or moss with which to supplement
our diet, or would offer to clean the administrators’ quarters in exchange for extra bread. Where she found the strength is a mystery. However grim the conditions might be, she always
radiated love and confidence and a firm belief in the future. I saw her cry only twice: when Krysia died and – secretly – at Christmas.

Then, with summer and Hitler’s attack on Russia, came the ‘amnesty’ for Poles. We were of course overjoyed, though the word
amnesty
stuck in our throats. We had
committed no crime that required a pardon! Terminology was anyway irrelevant because the rations dropped again and we were still forced to work – though now it was for the ‘glory of
the common cause’.

When news reached us in October of the formation of a Polish army in the south it goes without saying that I was itching to join, but, true to form, the commandant found excuses not to issue
us with discharge papers. Many men of my age slipped away anyway, but I wasn’t prepared to leave without Mother, Janina and Enzio, nor the papers which were meant to provide us with safe
passage and guaranteed rations along the way. The wait severely tested my patience. I could see another winter fast approaching while we starved again on the derisory rations. Finally the
papers came through at Christmas and we left a week later. We went by sledge as far as the Dvina, then walked the remaining 150 kilometres to Kotlas on foot, sleeping in public buildings or on
peasants’ floors. Using money from the sale of clothing, we then bought places on a convoy train. (God only knows what happened to those without money – presumably they perished.)
The journey was little better than the first: stations crammed with people, severe cold, verminous conditions, long waits for trains lasting days, even weeks, tortuous journeys which often took
us back to where we’d started from, and desperate hunger when the promised rations failed to materialise.

Then – it still chills me to write about it – I was separated from our family. It was at Orenburg, near the Kazak border. I leapt off the train to search for food and returned to
find that the train had left with Mother, Janina and Enzio still aboard! I had to wait two days for another train, which was even more crowded and insanitary than the one before. The journey
over the steppes was long and slow, the temperature scorching in the day and freezing at night. Typhoid and dysentery were rife. The dead had to be left at the stops for the Kazaks to bury.
Arriving in Tashkent, I searched for our family everywhere. I made enquiries of the Polish military and the Soviet authorities, even of the NKVD – wild men who were arresting and shooting
people at random – but nothing. In desperation I moved on to Samarkand and Kermine where the 7th Division of the Polish army was forming. The desert around Kermine was one huge refugee
camp. I searched and searched, but in the end I was forced to join the army or starve. Shortly afterwards I contracted meningitis, which almost finished me off. It was five weeks before I could
regain enough strength to renew my search. Then I heard that the Soviet authorities had been sending Polish families without military accreditation to collective farms scattered over the
steppes. But the details were sketchy. It was only by luck and perseverance that I found an official who directed me to the region where I was most likely to find Mamma, Janina and Enzio.

My heart still trembles with cold anger at the memory of the scenes I witnessed on the steppes of Uzbekistan. Evil had given way to chaos, and chaos to horror. Polish civilians not allocated
to collectives were camped beside the railway under tents made of sticks and rags, in a state of the most abject misery and hunger. They begged for food, but what could I do? I had precious
little myself and there were hundreds and thousands of them. Their faces will haunt me all my life. Having survived the cold winds of Siberia, our brave people were dying like flies of disease
and starvation, their bodies thrown into mass graves without Christian burial. It was the closest thing I have witnessed to hell on earth. I hope never to see its like again.

In growing dread I continued my search for our small family. Eventually I was directed to a collective where my hopes were raised through the roof only to be dashed again. The three of them
had been working there until recently, the administrator told me, but were now gone, and he couldn’t or wouldn’t tell me where. I was at my wits’ end when a Polish worker
slipped me a message with the name of a small township some twenty kilometres away. Thus it was that I found Mother and Janina lying in a mud hovel on the edge of the steppe, alive but close to
starvation. Mother was desperate because Enzio had fallen ill and been taken by some Uzbeks to the nearest town, and she had no idea what had happened to him. Leaving Mother and Janina with
blankets, food and water, I went to the town to ask after him, only to discover that he had died two days before. With aching heart, I bore this terrible news back to Mother and Janina. It was
the only time I heard Mother berating God. Later, I think she found some comfort in the thought that Enzio’s sufferings were over and he had gone to a better place. There could be no
doubt he was in a better place. Never have I seen such a godforsaken spot. The hovel was mud-built, the floor a hollow in the ground, the heat, dust and cold extreme. Their only food had been
weeds, lizards, hedgehogs, and whatever they could beg from the Uzbeks in the way of grain and rotting fruit. As if this were not enough, their last possessions had been stolen from them while
they slept, identity documents, shoes, everything.

I hired an
arba
to carry them to the railway. Thence we travelled to the Polish army in Guzar, where as a matter of course every soldier in the army went short to ensure that none of
the families went hungry. We were all skin and bone; but we shared everything.

As soon as Janina regained some strength, she joined the Polish Women’s Auxiliary Service and appeared one day looking very proud in a man’s uniform that was far too big for her.
Mother took longer to recover. I think she was simply bowed down by grief.

For three months we muddled along, the army without arms or the most basic supplies (the Russians not being forthcoming – no big surprise), and everyone hungry. Rumours were rife. One
minute we were being sent to the Eastern Front, the next to defend Moscow. So you can imagine the jubilation when we heard that the entire army plus dependants were to be evacuated to the
Middle East under the auspices of the British.

At the end of August I left with my regiment on one train, Mother, Janina and the rest of the families following on the next. From Krasnovodsk on the Caspian Sea we then embarked on a ship
bound for Pahlevi. The two-day voyage was the last trial in our journey, so overcrowded that it was virtually impossible to move and dysentery was rife. The civilians were quartered in another,
equally crowded, part of the ship so it was impossible to make contact with Mother and Janina, and when we reached Persia we were sent to different reception centres many kilometres apart.

The British had everything organised for our arrival: food, medical treatment, delousing. When they took our clothes away to burn them, we ran naked into the sea and stood in the balmy wind
to dry, just a gaggle of bony skeletons, proud and happy to be free at last. The only problem was an ironic one – the danger of too much food landing in our feeble stomachs.

As soon as possible I sent word to the dependants’ camp, but before a reply could reach me my unit was sent to a camp near Teheran. Thus it was some days before Janina managed to get a
message to me to say that Mama was in hospital in Pahlevi. I arrived to find her grievously ill with dysentery and malaria. Despite the finest medical care, nothing could be done. She slipped
towards death as she had approached life, with heroism, unselfishness, and boundless love, thinking only of us. In her last moments she prayed that you and Aleks were safe. A Polish priest gave
her the last rites and she received a Christian burial in the Polish Cemetery. When I think of all that Mother did for us, her tender heart, her generosity and concern for others, her
unquenchable spirit, I know that, even in the midst of wickedness and despair, goodness can and does exist. I will carry the memory of her goodness always, as a standard against which the
authors of her misfortune will be judged.

There is little else to tell. I went with the army to Palestine and Italy, where I was injured in the final battle for Monte Cassino. Towards the end of the war Janina also came to Italy,
serving as an army clerk, and it was here that she met and married Giovanni.

Thus our odyssey came to an end, one journey among many others. As a family we fared worse than some, better than others. I suppose we should be thankful to have survived at all. But I find
it hard to feel anything as unconfined as gratitude when we have lost so much, and to nothing but the grotesque power struggles of absurd dictators. When I think of the waste, I can only weep
for the past and despair for the future.

I kiss you goodbye, Helenka, until I write again.

Your loving brother,

Wladek