Bogdan Górniak, 2025 by Grayswood Press, UK.
ISBN: 978-1-7396203-3-2
Z Krainy Slońca I Cieni
Bogdan Górniak, 2013 by Szaron, Poland.
The story is split into two sections with Part One ‘Under the Father’s Roof’ covering childhood through to deportation to Siberia with Part Two ‘On the Winding Road’ covering release and journey from the Gulags into Ander’s Army. It is a compelling story based on what fragments were etched into Bogdan’s memory and contextualised through recorded historical research. It is a technique that amplifies Bogdan’s experience and highlights the brutality of the Soviet system where individuals are not valued despite their propaganda and rhetoric. The book is dedicated to the memory of his parents.
Chapter 1 ‘On the Eastern Borders’ is a very reflective chapter covering his childhood where writing poems enabled him to escape the reality of his parents toiling in the fields while he dreamed of better things in life. For his parents, home originally was Cieszyn in Silesia and not Podolia and for Bogdan, he shared the same feelings with his later ‘exile’ in Scotland. His father’s pioneering work on taming the fallow landscape was a concern for the children since they were not strong enough to give much assistance. The repopulation by Poles in essentially the Ukraine and the later failed attempts to partition larger estates and failed land reforms, enflamed the political situation. His childhood frustrations manifested themselves in the learning environment of school and seemed flummoxed by the German language. Like all children, they managed to explore and make games out of almost nothing. The transit east was arduous and on arrival, their new farm had no living quarters until they managed to construct a hut with local materials and design. Although the land had lain fallow, it posed challenges to clear weeds, roots and remnants of the Great War. Horse drawn ploughs helped tame the land and introduced Bogdan to the thrill of riding despite an earlier incident where an aptly named grey horse named Siwek (Grizzle) attacked him. Post Great War shortages made horses expensive despite many in poor condition and sometimes shared or loaned amongst neighbours. The chapter closes on the making of their homestead which had a barn attached and later a bakery leaving the family feeling very much ‘pioneers’.
Chapter 2 ‘Rebellion’ sets the tone and politics of the borderlands during the interwar years. It started with the undermining the Treaty of Riga by passing a resolution at the Comintern’s 5th Congress for East Galicia to be incorporated into the Soviet Union. The regional Commissar was Josef Stalin who used Lord Curzon’s proposals as a cover for political manipulation within the region. After 1921 specially trained groups of Ukrainian and Belorussian Bolsheviks and Red Army soldiers slipped over the Polish border to attack local police stations and local administrators, causing damage until the formation of the KOP in 1924. Bogdan highlights how rumours and suspicion fuelled the situation and how the degree of hatred by the Ukrainians shaped their lives.
Bogdan admits the arrogance of the Galician Polish nobility fuelled the hatred within the Ukrainians who sought an independent state made up of Eastern Galicia, Lemkivshchyna, Bukovina and northern Hungary during the Paris Peace Conference 1919-1920 with both German and Austrian support. The Bolsheviks exploited the border tensions through occupation of borderlands as liberators. Józef Piłsudski recognised the danger and although agreements were made in support for an independent Ukraine, the planned invasion of Poland and subsequent ‘Miracle on the Vistula’ (Battle of Warsaw 1920) blocked Soviet advances into Europe. Bogdan’s family found themselves sandwiched between the Polish and the invading Soviet Army who relied on the ruthlessness of the Cossacks and the NKVD. Three months after settling on their new farm, the area had been occupied by the Soviets and luckily an old Flobert rifle from the Great War remained undiscovered. The Soviet call for an uprising across Europe was short lived and the family witnessed the defeated Soviets abandoning their equipment as they fled back over the border, allowing the Poles to increase the colonisation of the borderlands.
Chapter 3 ‘Jasiek’ recounts the development of a friendship. In childhood we develop such a bond, imaginary or not. In the latter case, Bogdan befriends Jasiek who lived next door and was of a similar age. He was clever, but poor and a quick learner to become literate. Their neighbour, Nikodem who was Jasiek’s father was an alcoholic and poor at farming. Jasiek was more diligent and sometimes laboured on the Górniak’s farm. In their leisure time, both would go to the local community centre where they would play volleyball and check-out the local girls. During harvest, Jasiek returned home prior to a large summer storm. Jasiek was tragically killed by lightning and time slowly mended Bogdan’s loss. Bogdan decided to return to school to study agriculture, however due to his age was not allowed to attend the gymnasium and studied from home which would eventually guide him to studying at the Polytechnic in Lwów.
Chapter 4 ‘The Value of a Contract’ opens with the threshing of harvest and the different techniques employed by the Poles and Ukrainians. Their success in farming enabled them to build a substantial barn with an additional ‘lean-to’ to store for the wagon and chickens. On completion the carpenters mounted a ‘wiecha’ on the roof made up of flowers and corn ears to signify completion.
It was also a period of high inflation and the devaluation of the Polish Marka made life difficult for everyone, not just farmer. The Złoty was reintroduced in 1924, however the rampant inflation caused difficulties in settling the carpenters bill for the completion of the barn work. With the currency increasingly worthless, the carpenters settled for payment in kind – bushels of Rye. The Polish government’s policy of tying wages to the cost-of-living index meant retail prices remained higher than anywhere else in Europe.
Chapter 5 ‘The Sisters of Charity’ recounts how the local monastery (The Sisters of Charity at Czortków) removed boundary stones and ploughed up part of the family farm without permission or the right to do so. The Sister Superior refused to acknowledge the injustice and the cost of legal action prohibited further action despite Bogdan’s protests. In Poland the Catholic Church was privileged and used its position and wealth to maintain their status where the injustice towards the Górniak’s manifested in Bogdan’s a deep suspicion of the Catholic Church. The problem was resolved through a land swap which was mysteriously revoked.
Bogdan was about to start college life in Lwów as the German invasion started in September 1939 and seventeen days later, the Soviets invaded Poland from the east. In February 1940 the Poles from the occupied region were deported to Siberia with Tatars, Kalmyks and Asian minorities taking their place. Bogdan assumed the Sisters of Charity shared their same fate. The land dispute now seemed irrelevant as all private land ownership ceased to exist.
Chapter 6 ‘From the Banks of the Olza’ explores the extended family life working in a brick kiln located on the banks of the river Olza on the border of Poland and Czechoslovakia near the family’s original home in Cieszyn. Franciszek Górniak was an entrepreneur with interests in farming, brickmaking and weaving, having enough time to develop self-help land improvement schemes and exhibitions to promote the area. His belief in Silesian roots and Poland saw him enter a secret world of politics and the founding of Jedność for the rebuilding of Poland. The chapter is very reflective of early childhood and his extended family and a reminder that at the time of writing, Poland was occupied again and behind the Iron Curtain.
Chapter 7 ‘Pariahs’ returns to events surrounding life at Zaremba and the departure of neighbouring friends the Foltyn’s. Harvest was over and autumn settling in with excess grain transported to the nearest rail link. Many families left the district in 1928-1929 with around 40% selling their farms, many to local Ukrainians. This was a period of prosperity despite land reforms being delayed and fragmentation of peasant farms that caused unemployment. Land reform was enacted in July 1925 with large estates providing small yet viable peasant farms. Despite the excellent quality of the soil in Podolia, the farming units were too small for self-sufficiency. The coup in May 1926 by Józef Piłsudski delayed agricultural economic reform. Stabilisation of the Złoty and a loan from the U.S provided a lifeline to the rural population only to be devasted by the global recession (Great Depression) that lasted in some countries from 1929 until 1939. Poland’s payment crisis deepened as gold reserves were needed to honour debt. A collapse in agricultural prices coupled to industrial strife gave the Soviet backed communists an opportunity to intimidate rural and industrial areas. The unrest was global and Poland underestimated the need for a stable central European economy with Bogdan using economic data and analysis to underline the situation. Inheritance rights in Silesia were also now a threat to the prosperity through fragmentation of farms that became increasingly uneconomic and a catastrophe. Despite the May Coup, political and fiscal interest in the rural communities were pushed aside with any protests being met by the police and army. Marshal Śmigły-Rydz who succeeded as head of state in 1935 after the death Józef Piłsudski did little to help rural communities. Bogdan concludes that Polish politicians were not ready for democracy and even the government in exile based in London continued their squabbles throughout the war.
Chapter 8 ‘The End of Europe’ opens with a biblical quote from Luke 21:25-26 and the belief the World will end. Bogdan also includes a geological survey published in 1910 indicating natural gas deposits would cause an earthquake, resulting in central Europe being reduced to a desert in the year 1972. Despite the millions killed during World War II, Europe was rebuilt and yet the foreboding of the future still remained with him.
Chapter 9 ‘On the Streets of Lwów’ introduces the reader to student life in Lwów prior to the outbreak of war. His ‘digs’ were student accommodation in the Bratniak (Bratnia Pomoc) located near Stryj Park (Stryiski Park). Bogdan describes his student life, first his completion of his matriculation and then off to Lwów where he was concerned about his academic performance not adding to his parent’s financial woes. He enjoyed his independence and the academic work was intense where leisure time was a weekly visit to the cinema or listening to crystal set radios. Although not interested in politics, he witnessed the growth of nationalism and antisemitic behaviour at first hand through the two leading youth organisations: Young Nationalists’ Union and the National Radical Camp. Violence escalated in 1935 with polling stations attacked, anti-government riots and intimidation of political opponents that spread into the universities in 1936 to 1937. The antisemitism was higher in the eastern provinces than in other districts in Poland that would eventually shape Nazi pogroms against the Jews.
Despite Poland signing the Treaty of Versailles, the concept of equal rights for national and religious minorities was redundant by 1934 as Poland was no longer bound to the treaty. With 35% of the population racial minorities, supporters of Narodowa Demokracja (Endek) who modelled themselves on Italian fascism, felt untouchable as did the government of Marshal Śmigły-Rydz. The Endek’s occupied university buildings which were now under siege from the authorities who were using a recently passed law prohibiting students from forming political organizations and crushed the revolt. News was censored with Śmigły-Rydz acting more like a dictator. Bogdan’s masterly account of this period also needs to contextualise similar events that were unfolding across Europe. After the partition of Poland in 1939, Bogdan returned to Lwów to continue with his studies and noted that under Soviet occupation, enrolment of Ukrainian and Jewish students had multiplied with no sign of the Endeks. Endless political and indoctrination meetings, food shortages and Soviet surveillance now dominated student life with further deportations of Poles and other minorities.
Chapter 10 ‘Between the Olza and the Seret’ is a reflective chapter covering family life, their values as evangelists and how religion shaped their daily lives too. In Podolia, there were no evangelical churches, so the family were not only ‘pioneers’ but also isolated from other likeminded people until they met a Baptist family, the Wojciechowski’s from Czortków. Protestants were persecuted for their beliefs in Silesia for two centuries with the Catholic Church and Jesuits industrious in their persecution and punishment. His now ageing father felt there was an unfulfilled dream in Podolia while Bogdan mulled over how the pace of life was so different from today.
Chapter 11 ‘Ukrainian Cauldron’ explores the complex relations between the Poles and the Ukrainians during and after the Great War and a brief period of cooperation prior to the rising of conflict. It is an important chapter since it covers the conflicts of Slavs, Rusyns and the emergence of Ukrainians and the role of the Polish government over the eastern territories over time. The Ukrainian Uprising on 1st November 1918 marks the turning point in relations prior to the Paris Peace Conference of 1919-1920. The Ukrainians were largely from rural areas whereas the Poles were largely from towns and cities. It was a bloody conflict and yet Piłsudski courted the Ukrainians to fight a common enemy, the Bolsheviks. Piłsudski’s grand plan included restoring independence to Finland, Georgia, Armenia, Lithuania, Latvia and Belarus. Unfortunately, there was a gulf between the concept and its realization and lacked support from western Europe and Britain’s Lloyd George was bitterly opposed to it as an emerging stronger, independent Poland.
Despite the Treaty of Riga in 1920, the Soviets were still ‘smarting’ from defeat with Stalin undermining it from the outset where Galicia remained contested between the Ukrainians, Poles and the Soviets. The Ukrainian attempt on Piłsudski’s life on 25th September 1921 and again in the summer of 1922 with arson attacks on Polish property in Eastern Galicia and later Volhynia, demonstrated the depth of feelings. Neighbouring countries used the civil and political strife to derail the emerging independent Polish state, particularly Germany who supported and funded opposition to Poland. Military camps and units were sent east and an investigation by the League of Nations concluded Poland was not exercising a policy of persecution and violence. The Poles were attempting to use pacification after attacks by the Ukrainians. Indeed, the Ukrainians later assisted in the deportation of Poles to Siberia and then supported the German invasion of Russia.
Chapter 12 ‘At the Crossroads’ takes us through the dances and theatre performances by the youth of Zaremba. Education was central to many Polish families where one option was entry into seminaries that would dash their futures and dreams. The celebration of harvest through dances in late August and into September were marred by mobilization. Harvest celebrations were replaced by a fear spreading through the community.
Daily reports of the retreating Polish army dominated conversations and thoughts of war. The Luftwaffe bombed the station at Hadynkowce, just a kilometre away from the homestead that fortunately failed to explode. Rumours of the advancing German army displaced official government reports. Locals joined forces to patrol the railway lines against sabotage with Ukrainian 5th columnists sabotaging key communications in Eastern Galicia and disarming Polish units. At dawn on 17th September 1939, the calamity everyone was expecting happened when Soviet planes appeared over Zaremba. The Polish Border Guards Corps (KOP) were adequately armed to stop the Soviet invasion. Some residents considered escaping into Romania with the Soviets attempting to close any escape routes over the borders into Romania and Hungary. Bogdan having watched Soviet military columns entering the district, made his escape only to find they could not outpace the invading columns of Soviet troops and returned home. Hope now rested on Britain’s intervention. The NKVD controlled the region with attempts to escape over the border punished by deportation. 500,000 Poles were drafted into the Soviet army; 250,000 officers and soldiers were deported and then the civilian deportations in four waves so that in twenty months 1.7m Poles from Polish Kresy were deported to Siberia.
Chapter 13 ‘Under the Red Banner’ brings the horror of lootings by armed gangs seeking revenge on the Polish settlers who had no protection despite contacting the Soviet militia who surprisingly responded to their pleas. Despite driving off the gangs, foodstuff was destroyed. The failing of the inter-war governments to settle minority issues now came to a head. Bogdan left home for a few days staying with relatives in Stanisławów. The arrests started and Bogdan’s friend, Władek who ran the cooperative shop was arrested and taken to Czortków, tortured and murdered. A search for weapons on the farm produced no results to pacify the militia and Bogdan was told to prepare for deportation which at the last minute was rescinded due to the farmhand Józek advising the commander that the family were Evangelicals. The commander assumed they were originally German who at that moment in time were Soviet allies.
Chapter 14 ‘The Last Road’ has Bogdan reminiscing over how many armies and battles have been fought over Podolia. Now, it is deep winter, and the Soviet reign of terror had been running for five months with the family arrested and deported to Siberia. Local Ukrainians had taken a census of the local Polish population as part of the deportation plans and were seeking spoils through taking equipment and eventually property.
Horsedrawn sledges arrived early morning on 10th February 1940 carrying Soviet soldiers and were given half an hour to pack a few belongings. They were concerned over the health of their father and were comforted by the promise to take him to hospital. Fortunately, as they left the village two neighbours were informed and agreed to visit their house and tend to him. A procession of sledges made its way to a freight train waiting in Hadynkowce and after a three day wait, departed for Siberia. Their father had died three days later they would learn.
Part Two – ‘On the Winding Road’
Chapter 15 To A “Happy Life” uses a preface for Bogdan to reminisce and reflect on childhood dreams and how entering the land of fairy tales, the traveller never returns to normal life.
Bogdan’s love of books reminded him of an illustration by Arthur Grottger in 1866 of worn-out Poles being marched through the winter snow into captivity in Siberia.
The Soviet propaganda of Poland’s liberation from capitalism and the sardonic reference to the cattle-trucks adapted to the newly liberated deportees’ needs with a heating stove and rudimentary toilet did not reflect the reality. The Poles did not eagerly await a new life in Siberia. This was far from the truth. Speculation about their final destination was shattered when the train turned towards Husiatyn and not Tarnopol and crossed the monotonous vast plains of the Ukraine. At designated stations, basic food and coal was distributed and the rhythmic clattering of the wheels lulled everyone into sleep.
After being fed and given warm winter clothing, the final leg to their destination was by horse drawn sleigh. With a short overnight stop in a school, Bogdan comments on how well the transportation and logistics were organised to ‘preserve’ their cargo since their labour was needed to support the Soviet war-machine. Khrushchev had mastered the deportations and process in handling them during the interwar years where anti-Soviet sentiments in the Ukraine were wiped out through arrests, abductions and mass deportations to Siberia whose origins trace back to Ivan III. Poland was let down by the West in 1920 and again in 1939 when they failed to initiate any action against Hitler, allowing Nazi Germany and later the Soviet Union to plunder its resources. Now exiled in the Siberian taiga, the Poles no longer presented a threat.
Chapter 16 ‘The Settlement of Skaczok’ was no Hansel and Gretel fairy tale, but a much-used camp in the middle of a forest and located next to the river Kużwa, a tributary of the Kama. It is even difficult to find it on modern maps. Their hut was bare and they used to scavenge wood to build furniture and bedding. They learned that few survived building of barracks and so the Poles were replacement labour. The original labour force were Russians who had opposed the disastrous collectivisation of farms. Bogdan reminds us that the Gulag system had been around for centuries and perfected by Stalin.
Chapter 17 ‘The Timber Station’ follows the newly arrived Poles heading several kilometres into the forest to cut timber and how the elements sapped their strength just to get to the tree felling location through the deep Siberian snow. No consideration was given to the health of the inmates. Bogdan’s sister Zosia was suffering from tuberculosis with no access to medication, a proper diet and rest who was now expected to cut lumber like the rest of their ‘brigade’. They had to master the skills of lumberjacks and as the forest was cleared, they moved onto the next location. Work was from 7 am until 5pm with one hour for lunch and their productivity was measured in the cut cubic metres with the felled trees moved down to the river for transportation in the Spring using horses. In Bogdan’s team, an individual was expected to cut 8 to 12 cubic metres daily of firewood and as a team cut 40 to 60 cubic metres of wood for construction and initially they only met 30% of their quota. Food was meagre and hunger remained one of the daily constants along with the infestation of bed bugs. They had difficulty in meeting their quotas and yet as the war continued, it gave them some hope of returning to Poland. Eastern Poland was not strategically important to the West and so there was no sense of urgency of diplomatically or militarily saving the deportees.
Chapter 18 ‘Rafting’ saw all the camp inmates reassigned to rafting. The summer had arrived and much of the forest was swamp and marshes. Daily quotas were behind them and now they had to persuade entangled logs to flow more freely downstream. The beauty of the forest and the river in Springtime was a suitable distraction and the pay was based on the number of kilometres walked shepherding the timber. A głuchary was a cagelike structure to contain the timber for transportation downstream and in the spring thaw, water levels assisted in avoiding sandbanks, but the work in the summer was more hazardous. Located along the riverbanks were barracks for their overnight rest or they pitched camp in a suitable spot. With the rafting complete and enjoying the higher wages, the living conditions did not improve much. Now tasked with clearing the river of stray logs, the work was no less dangerous and as high summer approached, they would return to the timber camps.
Chapter 19 ‘Stakhanovites’ Summer has arrived and the work detail was pre-preparation for the winter with Bogdan working as a sawyer. Their first letter from Poland carried the news of their father’s death and with it the thoughts and prayers turned to their freedom and return to Poland. The teams were sent to cut grass and dry it for the working horses in readiness of the coming winter. Quotas, mosquitos and resin from the pines slowed their work. The Stakhanovites (these were exceptionally hard-working Soviet labourers) more than met their quotas as they were physically tough and worked longer hours whereas many of the teams or brigades were made up of frail starving women.
At the weekly meeting the commander remonstrated Bogdan whose brigade rarely met quotas and was labelled an ‘enemy of the Soviet Union’ and threatened with prison. The Isaiah’s prophecy in chapter 51 gave him comfort in knowing his imprisonment in the Siberian taiga would not last forever.
Chapter 20 ‘Under Szancin’s Watch’ details Bogdan being assigned to a hauling team working from barracks 3km away from the settlement. Bogdan requested a transfer back to Skaczok to fell trees (zagotowke) which was declined by the Commander. Through exhaustion, his dreams led him back to Polonia and his childhood. He mulled over the different ideological methods of the Nazis and Soviets in disposal of humans. The Nazis used a faster processing method of gas chambers and mass executions whilst the Soviets exploited the individual as enemies of the state through work and starvation before disposal.
Bogdan discovered the beds they now slept on had been looted from Poland. Breakfast was described as a slice of heavy underbaked bread and hot water before returning to work hauling logs. The strenuous work caused him to begin loss of eyesight which his sister Zosia put down to ‘night blindness’ which could be cured with cod liver oil not to be found in the camp. A letter was sent to their neighbours in Podolia who managed to send a small supply which helped to restore his eyesight.
Chapter 21 ‘Christmas Eve’ reminisced about celebrating Christmas, but in the bleak taiga and only a carol broke the godless Soviet inhumanity. Bogdan had fond memories of the family celebrations in Cieszyn. In Siberia, the symbol of a Christmas tree was a stark reminder of their exile and work quotas. Through exhaustion, the carol singing faded away and the dreams of freedom would come.
Chapter 22 ‘A Neighbourly Misunderstanding’ reveals the war had entered a second phase through the invasion of Russia in Operation BARBAROSSA which would impact upon the deportees in Siberia. Bogdan’s analysis of the outbreak of war between the Soviets and the Nazis is brief and although covers Stalin’s landgrab, some significant information is omitted in favour of describing the food and materials exchanges between the Nazis and Soviets where the invasion was allegedly a surprise to Stalin. This remains disputed by historians where some evidence points to Soviet defences built not for defence, but for offence. The British via Polish intelligence operations in neutral Portugal pre-warned of the attack through German intelligence officers stationed there.
Sunday as a day of rest was cancelled for the need to increase productivity for the Soviet impending victory. Roads had to be repaired too for the victory and yet the exiles analysis was that Germany would defeat the Soviets. However, the reverse was true and Stalin’s intension to annex central Europe was at this stage disguised as the Soviet Army attempted to halt the Germans. A NKVD officer was sent to the camp and interrogated individuals of which Bogdan was one. Apart from instilling fear, the system was to make enslaved life unbearable where dreams of freedom were crushed. Two members of the Sówka family were deported from the camp and all trace of them was lost.
Chapter 23 ‘Free Citizens’ recounts how political manoeuvring and the state of the war prompted Stalin to negotiate with the Polish Government in Exile to form a Polish Army inside Soviet Russia. An ‘amnesty’ was made and soon the camp heard rumours that became reality. Not all could leave and although they were ironically free, many chose to remain in the camp until the situation became clearer. The decision to leave had one drawback. There was no transport to the station. After three days, transport arrived and the deportees collected their meagre belongings and left. It was February 1942.
After two days of travel, they arrived in Rudniki in Bashkortostan and awaited the transport wagons. Only one family remained, the Pełechaty’s who were originally Ukrainian whose fate remains a mystery.
Chapter 24 ‘On the Stormy Wave’ outlines the fear of stepping into the unknown where faith in God would be tested. Zosia’s lungs had improved with the clean Siberian air, however malnutrition had taken its toll on her. The train headed south and stopped at pre-arranged stops for food which hardly sustained them with constant hunger attacking their demeanour. Bartering for food and the fear of being left behind shaped Bogdan’s thoughts as there were instances where people had been left behind and never seen again. However, Bogdan managed to barter some food, but generally the local population was fearful of these strangers. At one point they were scavenging for coal to keep the stove working. It is in this chapter we learn his sister Zosia died in her sleep in the almost freezing waggon. She was left in Świerdłowska (Yekaterinburg) station building, east of the Urals and far from home.
Chapter 25 ‘Civil Rights’ covers the long-term impact on Bogdan and his family’s physical and mental health that twenty years later when writing his memories down on paper had changed little. It was difficult to forget the brutality and ruthlessness of the Soviet regime. Ill health and frailty of his stepmother meant she did not work in the forests, but repaired clothes and linens or daubed the hut walls in clay to make it more weatherproof. He reminisced about her visiting him in Lwów and a sudden illness requiring medical attention which for some reason was declined by the doctor who just ignored them. Now as free citizens in Soviet Russia, they had few civil rights as they headed south. The Polish outposts were overstretched in providing food and medical attention where a growing number of bodies were left at stations they passed through. By the 28th of February 1942 they had reached Tashkent. The discovery of wheat in a wagon posed a dilemma for Bogdan who would have preferred death by starvation than be imprisoned for theft. The NKVD inspected all the wagons once the theft had been discovered and several deportees were taken away and never seen again.
By March, the train had crossed the Russian steppe towards Krasnovodsk (Türkmenbaşy) where the monotonous brown desert or fields stretched to the foot of the distant mountains. The deportees wanted to go further and refused to leave the wagons whereupon a detachment of the NKVD expelled them from the train with no food or shelter.
Chapter 26 ‘Uzbek Kibbutz’ regales the exile from Gijduwan (Gijduvon, Uzbekistan) to collective farms where work would cover the costs of food and shelter on the orders of the Soviets. There was no transportation and the walk only weakened the starving refugees who were housed in kibitkas (a covered carriage or primitive hut). The family soon learned the border had been closed and the route from Krasnovodsk over the Caspian Sea to Persia had been cut. Work on the collective farm began with sowing and harvesting cotton. Food was scare again too and life on the collective farm was quite primitive which led to the discussion of joining the Polish Army which was later dismissed. A nearby Polish outpost in Gijduwan could not provide food or accurate news on when the border might reopen and release the remaining Polish Army and civilians. The news that Gen. Anders was collecting information on the refugees, and their location gave some cheer. However, the time also marked the death of his mother.
Chapter 27 ‘Amu-Darya’ leads us into the scorching Uzbekistani summers replacing the extreme cold of the Siberian winters. In the distance lies the Hindu Kush and the Pamirs and in between lies desert. The only rivers are the Amu-Darya and the Syr-Darya taking the glacial melt waters to the Aral Sea. The dwellings are adapted to the climate and made from clay using tree branches to strengthen the structure. Clay ovens resembling dog kennels lay outside buildings. The Uzbeks had an inherent dislike of the Soviets and there was a gulf in the productivity of the poorly farmed collectives and prosperous private farms. Although cotton was extensively grown, wheat and Barley were grown too. The refugees learned little of the local culture or traditions as they were isolated within the farming community.
In the summer sun, Bogdan laboured almost naked, however time in Siberia had caused physical injury and pain and he reminisced about their days labouring in the clearing up of timber in the Kama River. Now, Polish refugees on finishing their morning labours would sit in the cool river water. Gijduvan held a weekly market and Bogdan, and his sister would visit seeking out treats to support their meagre diet and resorted to selling his prized watch his father had given him. On one visit, the market was suddenly closed and units from the NKVD started searching. They had their papers with them, however Helcia was allowed to pass while Bogdan was held back. An interrogation revealed Bogdan’s papers were not in order since the head of the collective should have updated them and hadn’t. After much verbal abuse, he was set free. The refugees, although technically free citizens were still at risk from the NKVD who were known to kidnap Polish soldiers, never to be seen again. The Barley harvest produced a few ears that could be threshed and added to their meagre diet. A roommate, Józia had collected some grapes and hid them to dry. The theft was discovered and prison was threatened with the contraband thrown into the canal and destroyed.
Thoughts returned to freedom and not enslavement under the Soviet system. 300 grams of Barley provided was the basic sustenance, close to starvation but not enough to build strength. To their surprise a slaughtered pig was donated to them so long as the skin was cleanly removed from the carcass which would then provide meals for two families. Additional labouring by Bogdan was rewarded with a meal leaving a feeling of guilt that he had not brought any food for his sister. An attempt in producing soap failed, but a new opportunity arose through Helcia working as a nurse in an orphanage. After three days, she returned to the collective farm with news – they’re leaving for Persia.
Chapter 28 ‘Exodus’ A refugee camp had been set up on the Persian shore of the Caspian Sea with new clothes being provided after everyone was de-loused and disinfected. Hot food was provided and once processed, moved to a ‘clean’ camp before embarkation and transfer to camps near Tehran. Bogdan saw this episode as an exodus of those who managed to survive the last gruelling journey from the collective farms with no food or water. The Soviet’s no longer cared, and their propaganda masked the stark truth. Their freedom was now curtailed by health and lack of money to buy fresh fruit to regain their health.
Transport arrived and they were required to strip before boarding the ship. The old steamer carried troops on the lower decks while the civilians occupied the upper decks. Water and food were scarce, and the facilities were inadequate for the number of refugees onboard. Bogdan’s faith in Sikorski faded after researching the true nature of the General. He acted as a dictator, not a saviour of the deportees. Compromise or compliant, Sikorski became the puppet of the British who appeased Stalin’s wishes. Bogdan quotes Gen. Sosnkowski’s views on the deportees to Siberia, the formation of a Polish Army under Soviet control and the Eastern Borders or the debate over the Curzon Line. However, the agreement between Sikorski and Stalin did result in the deportees’ freedom and the saving of many lives. Anders would not be Sovietised hence the schism and release of what was seen as the Polish troublemakers. The Katyn Massacre was an attempt to sub judicate the Poles. Later Berling’s Army was discovered to be poorly equipped and trained as ‘cannon fodder’ which is reminiscent of today’s tactics in the Ukraine war.
Chapter 29 ‘Descendants of the Tartars’ is a slight detour from the main story’s narrative. Political intrigue during the interwar period was fomented by both the Germans and Soviets attempts to weaken the Polish state and eastern lands they had acquired under the Paris Peace Convention. The Ukrainians under German guidance rebelled against the Poles and allowed Stalin to profit from it. Rulers of Russia had based their reign on conquest, violence and plunder from the Tartars. Using a condensed history of the Tatars and Russia, Bogdan’s treatise attempts to provide how key points in history shaped the Soviet and Russian psyche. Minorities like the Uzbeks saw the Russian Revolution as a liberation rather than a dictatorship shaping their daily lives, politics and education. As a result, the Great Famine of 1932-33 can be blamed on the Soviet system and ideology. In 1941 as the Soviets fought the Germans, Khrushchev ordered Ukrainian prisoners to be murdered which was carried out by the NKVD where over 100,000 perished. Stalin gained one of his goals during the temporary partitioning of Poland, the eastern states of Podolia and Galicia. The Curzon Line was temporarily destroyed. In 1944 the remaining Poles in the eastern provinces were to be deported to Western Poland with the news of a Polish Civil war being suppressed for decades. In 1945-1950 deportations to Siberia resumed. So, Russia had become a prison of nations with the insatiable demand for forced labour in the Gulags where no crime needed to have been committed. The degree of inhumanity drew contested comparisons between the Nazis and the Soviet systems and the use of secret police such as the NKVD. From the beginning of the conferences between the Allies and Stalin, the Sovietization of eastern and central Europe gave the Soviet’s a stepping stone to the goal of Germany. The Curzon Line debate was seen by Churchill as complicating any settlement with the Soviets and at Yalta the outcome was the death nell to an independent Poland.
Chapter 30 ‘The Launch of My Military Career’ covers their wanderings in the Middle East. All men (and women) went before a draft commission and a medical check. Deemed fit for service, Bogdan’s start to military life was at times slow due to shortages in uniforms and equipment. Helcia was sent first to India with other families and then Africa. An incident in storing of blankets highlights the practicality of doing something versus the military’s idea of doing the same job.
Bogdan dispels the myth that the deportees flocked to Polish Army recruitment centres by any means possible. The deportees or now refugees were skeletal, dressed in rags, cold, hungry and ravaged by diseases and pests. They flocked to these centres for medical attention and flee the torment of the Soviet system and through ‘joining up’ could escape from Russia. While military training and discipline could be harsh in the Polish Army, the ‘joining up’ was a means of escape and for many not for patriotism. At Khanaqin transit camp in Iraq, they were given Australian army uniforms due to the gross shortages throughout the British and newly formed Polish Army under Anders.
Chapter 31 ‘On the Wings of a Song’ opens with a choral rendition of a work by Romanowski by the Sokół who were trying to galvanise the Poles after partition through fitness, national and cultural programmes aimed at the Slavs. He reflects on interwar events and the disputes over borderlands with the Czech’s while they were living in Cieszyn. The chapter is interspersed with songs and poems and how simple hobbies like reading or photography amused them during this period and their friendship with Janek who remained in Cieszyn. They learned through another friend Stasia that her father had been arrested by the Gestapo, at that time unaware of knowing of their role in the liquidation of the Poles in concentration camps of which Bogdan learned of the true horror when he arrived in Britain.
Chapter 32 ‘From the Land of Sun and Shadows’ reflects on the early days in Podolia and his introduction to farming life where all the children were expected to contribute to the farm and building of the farmstead. The emotional gulf between Bogdan and his parents afflicted him later as a parent. Bogdan had dreams and aspirations away from the farming and rural life of Podolia. While his father’s illness took over the family’s life and emotions, he could never bridge the gap. He describes how his own success eluded him and found it difficult to express his true sentiments. His memory of a sunny childhood remained with him and found comfort in his beliefs. Like many Polish veterans, his war record is omitted but includes the Commemorative Monte Cassino Cross for his participation in the Italian Campaign. It was one of the bloodiest in which the Poles gave no quarter and remains less well known in literature or in movies.
There are appendices and bibliographies to support the historical content of the individual chapters which helps contextualises the events described in the book. The illustrations and pictures are informative and helps the reader navigate and immerse themselves into the stories. The maps contained in the appendices also helps to underpin the narrative especially if the readers geography of eastern Poland and Russia are not strong. Included are photos of his sister Helcia in the camp in Masindi in Uganda and family celebrations post war in Glasgow where they settled. It is a personal account and disguises the horror and the inhumane conditions that gives the reader a light to follow. It is a well written and documented book with many of his own poems included covering childhood to adulthood in a sincere and touching way. The book is beautifully published and a joy to handle in an age of digitisation.
