Buczak Family

The Buczak family consisted of parents, Szczepan and Katarzyna, and children Kazimierz, Stefania, Edward, and Zofia. They came from a village called Medyka on the Polish/Ukrainian border, southeast Poland where Szczepan and Katarzyna had a farm with cattle and land. The River Bug flowed nearby, and they would go to the town of Przemysl to auction cattle.

In 1940 the family was deported from their home in Poland in cattle trains to a forced labour camp in Siberia, where they were imprisoned for nearly two years. When they had 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.

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.

In June 1941, Germany turned on its ally, Russia. Stalin then quickly changed tactics and allied himself with the west so that the allies could help him defeat the Germans. This led to the signing of the Sikorski-Majewski agreement that called for the freeing of Poles imprisoned in POW camps and labour camps in the USSR, and the formation of a Polish Army in the southern USSR.

The news of this ‘amnesty’ did not reach every camp, but where it did become known, the families soon made plans to make their way south to join the army. For most, this meant walking thousands of kilometers and only occasionally getting on a train for part of the journey. Many did not make it, and those who did were emaciated skeletons by the time they got there. The Buczak family were among those who made this perilous journey.

General Anders oversaw the army, and he tried hard to get the Russians to provide the food and equipment they had promised. When this became increasingly impossible, he negotiated the right to evacuate the army to Persia, where the British would provide what was needed.

The evacuation took place by ship over the Caspian Sea to Pahlavi in Persia (now Iran). The ships that were used were oil tankers and coal ships, and other ships that were not equipped to handle passengers. They were filthy and lacked even the necessities, like water and latrines. The soldiers and civilians filled these ships to capacity for the 1-2-day trip. When there were storms, the situation got even worse – with most of the passengers suffering sea sickness.

Szczepan and his son Kazimierz joined the Polish 2nd Corps to fight against the Germans, serving in Palestine, Iraq, and Egypt, then took part in the Italian Campaign at Monte Cassino, Bologna and Ancona.

Meanwhile the dependents of the soldiers released from imprisonment were sent on to Polish refugee camps in: Lebanon, Palestine, Africa, India, New Zealand, and Mexico.

Katarzyna and her children (Stefania, Edward, and Zofia) were sent from Persia to India. After arriving in Karachi they sailed to Bombay. In Karachi Zofia became lost among the orphan children, who were to sail out on the next ship bound for Australia. Szczepan eventually found her in the orphans’ camp and returned her to her family. After Karachi they were sent to the Polish refugee camp in Mombasa, where the children continued their education.

Contrary to today’s refugee camps around the world, the Polish refugee camps were equipped with schools – elementary, middle school, high school, and a technical school; a YMCA with sports and recreational facilities and a reasonable library; a cinema covered by a roof on stilts but without walls; and an open-air theatre. There was a co-op bakery, and a co-op store sold a modest supply of sundries along with foodstuffs from the settlement’s impressive farm.

The Buczak family took the ship Carnarvon Castle to Southampton and arrived in the UK on 4th May 1948 and reunited with Szczepan and Kazimierz who had come to the UK from Italy.. Registering at Pulborough, West Chiltington camp in West Sussex, they were allocated to Marsworth Camp near Tring. The family lived at Site 7 in a Nissen hut. The family left Marsworth camp in 1961 and moved to Pitstone.