The Germans invaded Poland from the west on 1 September 1939, and the Russians invaded from the east on 17 September 1939. They divided Poland between them. In the Russian-controlled area, the plan to ethnically-cleanse the area soon took effect with the first of four mass deportations to Siberia that were carried out in 1940 and 1941.

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Alfreda Starza-Miniszewska was born in 1928 and was just 12 years old when Soviet soldiers burst into her family’s house in 1940 and gave her family two hours to pack up and leave. They were forced onto a cattle train and sent to labour camps in Siberia.

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The family was taken to the railway station and loaded into cattle cars with 50-60 other people. This included infants, toddlers, children, teens, adults, and seniors. Most of the adults and seniors were women. The cattle car had two shelves at either end, where people could sit or sleep – the rest had to make do with the floor. There was a cast iron stove, but they soon ran out of wood to fuel it. There was also a hole in the floor that served as a toilet.

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They travelled like this for weeks, and were given some water, stale bread, and watery soup, only a few times. When someone died, their bodies were cast out next to the tracks and left there. Many infants and elders did not survive this journey.

When they reached the work camp in Siberia, they were told that this is where they would eventually die, but in the meantime, they had to work to earn their daily ration of bread. Children as young as 13 were set to work in the forests – cutting branches from the trees that had been cut down.

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Aside from the extreme cold in winter, and extreme heat in summer, they had to contend with hordes of mosquitoes and black flies, as well as infestations of bed bugs in the barracks. There were no medical facilities in these camps, and diseases ran rampant, leading to a high death toll.

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While just a young girl, she experienced extreme cold, starvation and brutal oppression. She developed tuberculosis, pleurisy, pneumonia, malaria, and was chased by wolves, bears and a wild man living rough in the forest. Starvation drove her to eat fish-eye soup, dog meat, and even a leather belt. Yet even in her worst moments, she found hope and strength within herself and among the exiled Polish community.

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She endured six years in a camp where she saw many cousins and friends die, but most of her close family returned to Poland at the end of the war.

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Standing as a memorial to her mother and sister, whose bravery and ingenuity repeatedly saved Alfreda’s life, she recorded her memories of six years in darkest Siberia, in her book titled “where the Devil says goodnight”.

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In August 2017, she was awarded the Siberian Exiles Cross by the Polish government at her Derby home.

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She died in Derby, UK, in September 2017, and her ashes were interred in Poland alongside her brother and mother.​​​

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