Mrs Janina (Rydel) Nowoslawski

(Janka)

The freight car’s doors opened. One by one, the soldiers ordered them out. It was bitterly cold. Around them, cars and trucks were standing by. There were even some horses and sleighs. The groups were then divided. Into the trucks went those with small children. All the men were loaded onto the sleighs. As the mothers packed their children in among pillows and blankets, the caravan began its journey. In all, they numbered over a thousand.

All along, the soldier escorts warned Janka’s family of the journey ahead. They told them that it was two days travel to their destination. "Good thing that it’s winter," they said, "we can cross the river because it’s frozen. Once the ice breaks, there’s no hope of crossing." They learned that there were bridges, but that they often break and cannot be fixed. From time to time, the caravan stopped at some tiny village, where there were only a handful of houses. There, they would get warm water. After two days crossing the Siberian Taiga, they reached the settlement called "Czary."

It was a tiny village, a camp; really, with only a few houses made of rough-hewn logs. There was some kind of school, and a town hall. Everybody was directed to the town hall, where it was warm. The Russian representative of the village arrived. Now, he was in charge. He told them that they would divide the village homes among them, at least a few families to a home, depending on the size of the family.

These houses had stood vacant for several years they had originally been built by Belo Russian exiles that were sent to Siberia following the revolution. They wondered: what had happened to the inhabitants? No one could say with certainty. Surely many had died off (later, they found human skeletons in the forest). Perhaps those that survived had been repatriated after several years, and returned to their families?

Janka’s family was assigned to a house along with another family. It contained one large room with a clay stove in the center. The stove was large and flat on top, so that one could sleep on it and be warm, if the stove was lit. Although there was plenty of wood for the stove, they had to go out into the woods to get it. Most of the wood, however, was too fresh to burn.

The next day, the adults were directed to come to the town hall. It was terribly cold, and no one was prepared for such freezing temperatures. The Captain of the KGB, (secret police) the most important and feared individual among the local population, told them, "Here you must work and keep up with norms". Those who work will receive bread and soup. All will receive ration cards, to be used at the store for bread. You can get soup or kasha from the commissary."

They were all happy, after their long journey, to walk around — to be out in the open air. Everyone was trying to be cheerful. "Somehow, they will get through," they said.

Both the men and the women were told they had to work. In Russia, no one gets bread for free. Some were sent to fell the enormous pines in the forest, and prepare them to be sent down the river to the sawmills in the spring. Others were chosen to prepare the pines for the collection of sap in the summer. The children, on the other hand, were expected to learn the Russian language.

The snow in the forest was incredibly deep, and no one had warm shoes, much less boots. Instead, they had to wrap their feet with rags. After only a few days in their new surroundings, they had another surprise: during the night their skin began to itch terribly. Lighting a piece of kindling (they had no lamps), they saw that the beds were infested with bedbugs. Apparently, the parasites were left over from the former inhabitants. It seems they remained in the bedding, half-dead, for years, until the heat of their bodies revived them. Soon, their backs were covered in bites.

Janka had never seen bedbugs before. In horror, they began washing and boiling the bedding, in order to rid themselves of the infestation. This scene repeated itself in all of the homes.

After a few weeks, someone made a new discovery. If you went deep into the woods and dug into the snow, you could find frozen berries. Not one of them had eaten a single fruit or vegetable since they had left their homes. They learned that, if you broke up twigs from wild raspberry bushes, you could make a delicious tea. Thus, they were always learning new things, just in order to stay alive.

Already, many had died. A cemetery was prepared. The men chose a piece of land near the forest, and set up a cross at the makeshift entrance. The next day, the KGB Captain told them to take down the cross. Such a display was not allowed. The Russians asked them "Why do you pray to your God? You were sent here, and here you will die no one will help you."

Janka was sent to school with the other children. Since she could speak Ukrainian, she had little trouble learning Russian. After only a few months, the Russians ordered her to go to work, since she could read and write. One didn’t need more than that. If you wanted to eat, you had to work. Janka was sent to work in the forest.

Spring in the Urals comes late, but when it comes, the forest transforms in only a few days. Everything wakes to new life, the forest is full of flowers, and the soil is fertile. Some decided that it would be good to start some kind of garden to grow potatoes or beans, perhaps? But there weren’t any seeds, and no one had seen any potatoes like those back home.

The sap collection looked like this: The men would cut one or two long channels in the bark of the tree, approximately a yard long. Some trees could have more channels, depending on the width of the tree. At the bottom of the channel were pound in two small pegs and clay containers were hung from them. The containers had to be made on the spot from clay mixed and stomped by bare feet. This was the job Janka’s mother was assigned to do. Others walked around with buckets and gathered the sap from the clay containers.

There they sent Janka, too. She walked an average of 10 kilometers per day. It was so far to work; she had to get up at dawn. But, she had to remember that, if you did your work, you got your bread and your soup when you returned to the barracks at night. This was the beginning of a difficult time for Janka. She had been spoiled by her parents.

She had never done much beyond her schoolwork, and now she was being forced to do exhausting manual labor.

Their worst enemy was hunger. The bread that they received in rations was very dark and extremely heavy. When Janka got the bread, she would divide it into three pieces: one for supper, one for breakfast, and the last for lunch the next day. But it never turned out that way; she ate the evening and breakfast portions right away. When she laid down to sleep at night, she couldn’t sleep thinking about that last piece of bread. She could only fall asleep after the last crumbs were eaten.

Their breakfasts consisted of some sort of kasha, but the rest of the day was all about hunger. The communists know how to persuade people to work, because when one is hungry, one thinks about nothing except food!

Janka’s father was sent far away to work. He rarely came home. Defeated, he never complained, but he worried that he could do nothing to improve their lives. Her mother had several jobs: in the clay, and elsewhere in the forest where they sent her. The family was rarely together. When forest fires would break out, Janka’s father would be gone for months.

The forest itself turned out to be a beneficial to us. You could gather mushrooms and even berries. These came in handy, since there was no other source of vitamins. Everyone dried the mushrooms for the upcoming winter. Everything else was rationed and there was very little to go around. From time to time, you could buy dried fish at the local store, sometimes they would deliver flour Those with large families and elderly could not even afford to buy these things. No one had rubles, for the Russians hardly paid them at all.

Everyone lived with the hope that some miracle will happen, and they would all return to their homes in Poland. Some even wrote letters to Stalin saying that they had done nothing wrong!

As autumn approached, the days became shorter. People began experiencing night blindness, from the lack of vitamins. But the Russians distributed pay and ration cards on Saturday evenings. Each person had to be there in person to receive his or her pay. People would lead others around in the dark, helping wherever they could.

People began getting sick and dying. There was no milk for the children. More and more graves appeared at the cemetery. There was no hope of getting a doctor. There was some type of medic, but he could not help, as there were no medicines. The taiga was another danger. A dozen or more people had gotten lost in the forest. They were never found. Did they sink into the mud, or did some animal eat them?

Thus, the winter approached, and winter in the Urals is harsh. They still did not receive any warm clothing. That which they had brought from home was practically falling apart. During the summer, people had fashioned moccasins from tree bark, or from twigs which were woven like baskets. One would wrap ones feet with rags and put them in. In the fall, the store got some boots made from some sort of animal hide. They resembled something like Eskimo boots. They were very expensive, but somehow Janka’s family managed to get a pair for her mother. What a treat!

During the winter, when they could not gather sap, the Russians ordered them to cut down the trees that were emptied of sap and dry. What a sight it was, when those enormous trees would fall to the ground!

Christmas that year was very sad. Everyone ate whatever they had. They shared bread instead of oplatek. Everyone missed Poland and all their loved ones at home. What misfortune! What kind of people would send whole families to exile , children and elderly alike!

The winters in the Ural were treacherous, nonetheless, Poles had to work every day. The snow was often past their waists, but no one had any warm clothing. Still more people began to die. Janka’s aunt was one of them. She had been sent here with them, along with her husband and five children. Her oldest was Janka’s age; her youngest was only two. Thankfully, she wasn’t even sick for long. They made her casket from some boards, and carried her to the cemetery. More graves, more human tragedy.

Soon, spring approached. People optimistically told each other, "they have to let us eventually go." For the first time, at Easter that year, the Russians gave each family a few kilos of potatoes. Some of them were frozen, but they were potatoes nonetheless! Everyone looked at them as if they were gold. After a whole year potatoes! They could make soup! What joy! Some got the idea, however, to save the better potatoes to plant in the spring. Perhaps they could succeed in making a garden. Someone else got a package from their family in Poland. In it were some beans they had to be saved for the garden too.

During free moments, Janka would go into the forest with her friends. They were young, and they sang songs and dreamed about their homeland: What happened to their church? Their school? Are the flowers blooming there? Often, they would cry together from longing. One day, there was a Russian holiday, and they were able to go out into the woods. On the way back, they encountered a group of Gypsies. Impossible! In the middle of the Siberian taiga, Gypsies? Apparently, they were Gypsies who had once been sent to Siberia, but who had become free. They had a few carts, and some sickly looking horses. They tried to convince them to have their fortunes read. They were easily persuaded, and in exchange, the Gypsies took the berries they had collected. When her turn came, the Gypsy told her that Janka would leave this place and go far away across the sea. She said that Janka would have a good life and a family, and two children, but that the road would be a long and difficult one. For this, Janka had to give up all her berries.

When Janka came back, she met her father, who had just come back from another journey, to spend a few days with the family. Upon seeing him, Janka began to cry, because she had nothing to welcome him with. Janka had given away the delicious berries they had collected. Her father hugged her and comforted her, and assured her that it wasn’t important. He would eat some bread. The meeting with the Gypsies stayed fresh in Janka’s mind for a long time, for she had let herself be taken advantage of.

(Janka's father seated during a better time)

Janka’s father had looked terrible. He was malnourished, and his work was difficult. He had gotten a hernia from having to lift heavy loads, but there was no hope for an operation. Once in a while there were accidents when a tree would fall on someone after they cut it, or someone would get lost in the woods and no one would find them. Mostly, however, people died from exhaustion. The elderly received no bread at all their families had to share their portions. The motto of the communists was "he who doesn’t work, doesn’t eat." The cemetery was filling up with graves now. There, no one was hungry. The grass grew, and here and there a flower would appear. The forest murmured its lullaby of perpetual sleep. Janka liked listening to the sound of the trees.

They were so tall. Among them, one could dream. Janka would dream that a plane would come and take her and her family away, but her greatest dream was to no longer be hungry. Janka remembered with sadness all the crusts of bread or apples that she hadn’t wanted to eat back in Poland. Janka hadn’t seen any fruit like that here.

Quietly, Janka would talk to God, and ask why they were being punished. Still, she believed all along that they would return to Poland. In her mind, Janka imagined how it would be when they returned to Poland. First, she would kiss the Polish ground, run over to the roadside chapel and complain to the Blessed Mother about the injustices they experienced in Russia. Then, she would go to her home and be happy again, as she had been before. After thinking this way for a while, Janka became very depressed. Janka was worried for her parents.

Thus passed the months. The gardens that were prepared were not very fruitful. Some kind of insect had eaten everything. Even the peas failed to grow. Summer passed quickly.

Around the beginning of autumn. The Russians called everyone to the town hall. All the meetings were held in this large room. The Russians were yelling, as always, that we were not keeping up with the norms. The Russians were at war with the Germans. As if it mattered to them whether this enemy was winning or the other! The Russians would often organize a sing-along or a dance. There were few who were interested in participating, nonetheless everyone had to attend. From the speakers you could hear popular Russian songs. Janka remembered the words:

Vast is the land of my fathers;

Full of fields, forests and rivers;

I know of no other land as this,

Where one can so freely breathe.

 

It was a very pretty song, but not under the rule of the Communists!

As soon as they entered the meeting hall, they knew that this was no ordinary meeting. The Captain of the KGB was there, as were other KGB and some civilians. They didn’t talk about work or keeping up with norms. They told us that the Russian Army was experiencing heavy losses in the war with the Germans, and that the Russian Government had reached an agreement with the Polish Government in exile in London, to allow the Poles to fight alongside the Russians. The Russians told them that they were now free, and could leave the settlement immediately. If anyone wanted to stay, they could work and would be considered a full citizen of Russia. They told them that a representative of the Polish Government would come within a few days and would explain more.

Not many of them believed in miracles, but a miracle had, indeed, occurred. Some were crying, others were thanking God, still others simply didn’t believe the Russians. "We are free! But where can we go?"

After a few days, we received a communication in Polish, which was read to all:

"The Poles are now free, but may not return to Poland, because the front is passing through. For now, you must wait." It gave instructions that whoever can, should sign up for the Polish Army, which was forming in Buzuluk in southern Soviet Union. Some were in disbelief, and others immediately prepared for the long trip to the Swierdlowsk train station.

Who would take care of them now, and give them what they needed? They had to prepare their families to go to Buzuluk. It seemed that the men would go into the army, and the Polish government would take care of their families. People immediately started drying bread for the journey.

The first group of young families left the settlement for the station. Everyone else began planning what they could sell in order to get rubles to pay for the train tickets. They told each other: "We must stick together, and we will all help each other." There were eight families in Janka’s group, none of whom had small children or elderly family members. They took some dry bread, some bed linens, whatever clothes they had left, and some bowls and spoons. In the name of God, they started walking. By themselves, so to go more quickly.

The Russians had promised that within a few days, they would provide some cars to transport the rest of the people. Not many stayed behind. While there were over a thousand when they arrived, only about six hundred remained.

It was four days walk to the train station. During the night, Janka’s family would light a fire and sleep by it. They walked only during the day, because it was faster. After they reached the station, it took them several days before they could reserve a small corner of a freight car which was headed toward Buzuluk, where Janka’s father would join the army.

When the train finally left Swierdlowsk, their freight car held a dozen or more families. There were Russian families from Moscow. There were Jews who had been freed because they had been born in Poland. There were Ukrainians. The train was very long, and went very slowly. Very often, the train had to wait on side tracks while the more important military trains went by. Their reserves of dried bread began to run out.

Janka’s family had a few rubles, but those had to last until they reached the army post and the Polish government began taking care of them.

CHAPTER THREE BUZULUK

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Last modified: June 30, 2001