Czerwień is the hamlet of Hnilcza, in Poland. A typical colony of military settlers who, like Niusia's father, Władysław Przybyszewski (born in 1907), son of Grzegorz (born in 1881) and Katarzyna (born in 1883) Przybyszewski family, received land grants for their participation in the Polish-Bolshevik war. Władysław built a house typical of this borderland area: made of clay, with a thatched roof. He lived there with his wife Stanisława née Pielichowska (born in 1909) and daughter Franciszka, affectionately known as Niusia.

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The house had one-room: a large room and a kitchen together. The cowshed was separate. They kept the cow at my grandfather's because there was little space, there were stones everywhere for a new house. Władysław used to go to Berezany to get them – there were quarries there. He brought a whole pile of white boulders, characteristic of Podolia, but he did not build the house. In the spring of 1940, he was supposed to pour the foundations, but he did not manage to do it because... in February, the Przybyszewski family and other residents of Czerwień were deported to Siberia by thr Russians

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Władysław had served in the army in the Uhlans, but he was a shoemaker by profession and continued this profession after the war. The shoemaker's workshop filled a large part of the room, and even more of the weaving workshop, because Niusia's father was weaving carpets to earn some extra money. Woolen or cheaper – made of linen yarn. He wove for friends and family. Niusia recalls that there was also such a carpet on their floor. He made her angry because he had to be beaten. But the bedspreads – beautiful, burgundy, woven into roses – were the object of her fascination.

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These carpets went with them to distant Siberia. They came in handy. They could be sold, and for the roubles earned, they could buy a goat so that the children had milk. Next to the weaving workshop there was a motorfork. People brought yarn to the carpets, but first it had to be twisted into skeins on a motorfork. There was also a stove, on which little Niusia climbed, because she liked to warm up there, and a wide bed with a duvet and five pillows on it. The three of them slept on it: the parents and the child. And one more element of this unusual furniture: in the modest room occupied mainly by work equipment, there was Niusia's corner with large boxes with toys. Every time my father went to the city, he would bring a doll, a clown, or some other trinket to his daughter's delight.

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Grandpa Grzegorz, who lived on the opposite side of the road, always said to his son: Are you crazy, buying so many toys for your child? And Władysław only smiled and brought a long string of figs from the market square in Horożanka. The girl hung it around her neck and proudly wore it all day like unique beads, slowly eating the sweet "links" of the chain. Grandfather prophesied again: You will see, she will not die her own death, but will die tragically one day. And he said so because the father allowed his daughter to do everything. She climbed on the roof, climbed on a tree, and when the tree was too high and the father was afraid for his daughter, he cut off the top.

She remembers exactly the Hnilec-Czerwien landscape full of greenery and colorful flowers. A stream flowed close to their house, there was a meadow, a field and many characteristic footbridges. To get to Hnilcz you had to cross a bridge. She went there and made "baking rolls" of clay. And when dad rode a horse from the field, he deliberately ran over these "rolls". So she hid them on beams under the bridge. She remembers that there were 6 posts. Such details – crumbs of childlike happiness and carelessness, which was soon to end irretrievably, were anchored in memory.

 Sometimes, when she mentions it, the question is asked: But why remember that there were 6 bars? What for? – she is surprised then. It's like asking: Why do you remember your name? After all, these posts, bridges, trees and meadows are part of her being. It was thanks to the memory of such images, such "unimportant" six posts that she was able to survive the most difficult moments, which life brought her in excess. So she goes back to her childhood, to the house next to which there was a large garden. My father divided it in half. On one half he planted fruit trees: apples, pears, plums, and on the other half flowers, because my mother loved them very much. There were also obligatory ones in front of the house: huge georginia pompoms, multi-coloured hollyhocks on which bees and bitterns sit, some low flowers whose name she does not remember. Like in a fairy tale! There was also a vegetable garden, and in it, as she says, "what God gave".

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The memories of her childhood in Czerwien are moments of closeness, when as a little girl she would sit with her father at the workshop, and he would make riding boots. She remembers this workshop well, the shoemaker's stools. She would climb onto her father's lap and hand him short, wooden pegs from a can that was on the table. The shoemaker would make a hole in the sole and drive the peg in. Hence the characteristic sound of military boots. Dad would laugh that as he took the pegs from Niusia, the boots would be good until death. And she felt important and needed then.

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"Through the fence" they had neighbors whose daughter Marynka was Niusia's age. She came to the Przybyszewski family in the morning and left in the evening. She ate breakfast, lunch and dinner at their place. Dad didn't tell anyone about it. He knew that Marika's father liked to drink and carelessly spent money on alcohol. Two houses away was a shop. They brought him alcohol from this store. He had comfort, and his family was poor. Niusia sometimes asked her father: Dad, when winter comes, what will Marynka eat? She was genuinely worried about her friend. Her parents were also worried, because Marynka was very thin and impoverished. In addition to food, my mother sometimes gave her a dress. Niusia had a lot of clothes. She dreamily recalls black, shiny slippers with fastened straps.

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Poorer women and children went to church barefoot, and they hung their shoes on their shoulders or held them in their hands and only before the church they put them on. She walked in elegant shoes. She remembers her outfits: she had various dresses, arranged skirts. She especially liked the blue dress with folds, because when she was in it, an umbrella came out. One day, my mother bought a thin, white fabric with red stars and sewed another fairy-tale dress. Oh, how proudly she paraded in it! Niusia's mother could sew well, she even had a machine. She sewed not only for her family, but also for people, to earn money, she embroidered napkins and tablecloths. My parents tried their best to earn some extra money and build their dream house.

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One evening, Niusia, as usual, was staking with her dad, and at the same time she was thinking of a plan to help her friend. When her parents went to bed, she left the house and went over the fence to the neighbors' side a whole pile of carps, or turnips, dug up in their garden. When her father asked where she had been, she did not hide what she had done at all. "Well, what will Marynka eat?" – she replied with a question, having heard from her surprised parents that the swede was supposed to be for their cows. Dad didn't shout, he just nodded his head and said to my mother: "It's going to be hard with her", and to Niusia: "Child, tell me where you're going for the second time, I'd help you move some of that turnip. But you cannot give everything." She remembers her father's patience and understanding for the poverty of her neighbors, who cooked soup from turnips for cows, and for her willfulness, because she was driven by compassion, and this was appreciated by her father and not scolded.

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The image of the farm, which she kept in her memory as if on a photographic film, with details, is also the yard of the house and farm animals. In front of the entrance to the yard there was a hay stacking gate: four pegs and a roof on them, which rose up as the hay was added. At her grandfather's, on the other hand, she remembered a treadmill in which horses walked. They had two: one was older, the other young. She couldn't ride on a young one because he was tall. Chestnut, with a characteristic star on the forehead. She used to say to him tenderly: "My dear horse! Chestnut, you have put on your socks," for he had white legs. She grabbed the horse by the neck, and it obediently lowered its head. He drove her patiently, despite the discomfort, because he liked her. And dad didn't forbid it. They also had a white and red cow. She was angry, aggressive, dangerously shabby. Once she almost killed her grandmother. Dad then changed into women's clothes and took the stake in his hand. The cow was deceived. Apparently thinking that it was my grandmother, she went on the attack. Then Władysław slaughtered the cattle with a stick. Niusia was crying and shouting to her dad that he was heartless. And he calmly explained that the cow wanted to kill the grandmother. It was difficult for Niusia to understand. They still had a bull on the farm. Once he suffocated her dad to the manger. Niusia, terrified, screamed until someone came to the rescue. Then Dad killed the dangerous animal, and she resented him again. She always loved animals, and they loved her. She remembers that her dad never hit a horse. Maybe it was left over from the times when he served in the Uhlans and respected horses very much.

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 Mother kept chickens and geese: for eggs, for feathers – there were plenty of these birds in the yard. Behind the yard there was a meadow, and then there was a road through which a stream flowed. The old woman's eyes no longer look at me... They reflect the blue of the borderland sky, the glow of water murmuring near the house. These eyes see the beloved father brandishing a flail while threshing and the mother preparing a meal as usual. And Stanisława cooked very tasty food. She often made pancakes, dumplings, baked groats. Eggs were the order of the day. Niusia remembers the green soup with small balls in it, as if they were some kind of seeds. She doesn't know what it was, but it was good. Pasta always finely sliced. And milk is the order of the day. Not only for soup, sometimes she cooked noodles with milk. The food was "from here": what grew in the field and garden, what was grown on the farm, was used.

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 Niusia remembers the warmth of the kitchen oven where she liked to sleep, and where her mother baked bread on a cabbage leaf or potato babka. Dinner was sometimes two-course, sometimes one-course. A better, festive meal is a broth. Sometimes roast chicken appeared on the table, but more often cheaper, though more labor-intensive, stuffed cabbage rolls with rice. Everyday soups include beet greens, sour rye soup. But Niusia liked to run for soup to her grandparents anyway, because she liked it better there. She remembers those childhood flavors, and they were varied. Not like in the neighbors' house – cabbage soup was cooked there for the whole week. Sometimes Niusia's mother made sweets: she baked fragrant gingerbread, yeast rolls wrapped with poppy seeds or apples, some buns. And, of course, bread, which kept freshness for a strangely long time. Not like store-bought bread today. The bowl for bread was large, and for gingerbread small. The smell of bread, fluffy yeast cakes filled the room. It was the smell of home. They ate meat rarely, like most people in the countryside. When they killed a pig, they divided it between neighbors. They even had their own smokehouse. Behind my grandfather lived Niusia's friend – Mundek. when he had something good at home for dinner, he would take Niusia and give her a treat. His mother called her daughter-in-law. Muńdzio died in Siberia. She sat by him for hours when he was sick. It reminded them of their carefree time in Czerwień...

That time ended with the outbreak of war. One autumn evening in 1939, her mother dressed her in a warm coat and a scarf, sat her on the porch and told her to look out at the forest. That was when she understood that the world could be dangerous. Her father was no longer with them at that time. He had joined the army, and after the September campaign, the defeat and dispersal of the Polish troops, he found himself in Romania. He returned before Christmas. Curious neighbours came in. They wanted to hear stories from the world. Niusia climbed onto her father's lap, hugged him tightly and sat there until midnight, although she did not understand much of his stories. She remembered one because it made an impression on her. Her father told her that once a Romanian woman had given them a home, about 10 impoverished Polish soldiers. Sincerely and with joy, because she understood that they were hungry.

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They were hungry, very hungry in fact. The woman put down a loaf of bread, a knife, brought forks. And put down the jelly. They ate the jelly with gusto until one of them stumbled upon a claw. They thought it was jelly from some birds, because it was war and everything had to be used to eat whatever they could. They tried to ask the landlady, but she didn't know Polish. There was a pile of straw in front of the house. The Romanian showed them that the animals they ate the jelly from were walking on the straw. They realized then that they had eaten jelly from... mice. Niusia, although her eyes were glued shut with sleepiness when she listened to her father's story, woke up at these words. She heard with disgust that the Polish soldiers, who had eaten bread from more than one oven, had vomited everything up after learning what they had been treated to.

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Father's stories, being cuddled in his arms gave an infinite sense of security, that when Dad was there, nothing bad could happen. However, the moment came when Niusia's childhood and family life in Cherven near Hnilecka ended in a matter of a few dozen minutes. The date of the end of the world - her world, the Arcadia of childhood in a borderland village - was February 10, 1940. At that time, almost all the inhabitants of Cherven were among the 140,000 Poles deported by the NKVD to Siberia in the first transport. Also in the early morning, a messenger of bad news dressed in the uniform of a Soviet soldier knocked on the Przybyszewski family's door.

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They were so much luckier (although the word “luck” sounds strange in the context of what they had to suffer later) that the soldier did not rush them. He allowed the mother to feed Niusia, helped the father do the morning ritual, advised what to pack for the journey. While the child ate an early meal, he sat and watched – perhaps Niusia reminded him of his daughter left in a distant country, or perhaps he saw the enormity of the misfortune that was to befall this unaware family, and it was he who had to open Pandora’s box. When the elderly Franciszka recalls that morning and the Soviet soldier, she says that she was lucky to meet good people in her life.

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Yes, she called him a “good man,” although he eventually carried out the order, put them on a sleigh that took the family to the station, where a train to hell was already waiting. But before the driver cracked his whip, before the horse’s breath frosted her nostrils on a frosty morning, the soldier wrapped the little girl in a duvet and then checked her forehead with his hand to see if she was cold. To this day, Franciszka feels the cool touch of his fingers. He brought her a beloved figurine of Mary from home, because she cried for “her God,” which she always decorated with fresh flowers. He told Mother to take a sack of flour, and in another sack four slaughtered hens. Take it, he said, “you’ll cook the child some broth on the way.” He knew what the Przybyszewskis didn’t know yet, nor anyone else on the transport to the unknown.

The train included Niusia's parents and her, a 6-year-old girl at the time, as well as Przybyszewski's grandparents: Grzegorz (1881) and Katarzyna (1883). The same transport also included her maternal grandparents, Katarzyna and Karol Pielichowski, and Stanisława's brother, Jan Pielichowski, with his wife Helena and children: Wanda, Marysia and Staś. The Siberian train had an unpleasant whistle, different from Polish trains. She says it howled like 10 wolves, and everyone cried when it passed the Polish border. It soon turned out that their destination was the Pervomaisk settlement (Berezovsk district, Sverdlovsk region). The Przybyszewskis ended up in barrack # 7, and the maternal grandparents in barrack # 5. The barracks were identical: each had 16 rooms and a long corridor. Only one barrack differed in color: for some reason, it was absurdly red. There was one toilet for the entire village, in the middle of the camp.Those who had the task of cleaning it were called shit-carriers.

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Mother walked around and cried, Niusia had dry eyes. After all, Dad was there. Nothing bad could happen. The day after their arrival, her parents went to work in the Yuzhna gold mine. Dad was a blaster: he drilled holes for TNT and blasted gold-bearing rocks. Mother worked as a loader: she lifted stones onto carts that took the ore to the surface. Sometimes a vein of gold would be found in a stone. Such gold-bearing stones were taken to a separate shed, where they were smashed with hammers, thrown onto a sieve called a sieve, rinsed and sorted. A heap grew, onto the top of which my father's brother was hoisted. His task was to lay out gauze. Niusia sometimes got tangled up near the mine, and then she shone as if she had been covered in glitter for a carnival ball, because the gold dust settled on her clothes. However, reality was far from carnival.

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Hard work and unbearable hunger. The girl already had her own responsible task: she would walk 3 km to Berezovsk for bread. She would take ration cards from the whole family: grandfather, uncle and two other strangers. Bread coupons were valid for one day and unused ones were lost. Those who did not work, received 30 dag of bread each, i.e. the elderly and children, and those who worked received 50 dag. Niusia remembers how she once cried from hunger. Her mother then boiled coffee, that is, she burned a piece of bread and threw it into water so that it was black - such fake "coffee" barely resembled the noble drink in color. Dad's heart sank when he looked at the hungry child. To this day Franciszka "hears" what he said to her mother at that time: "Give her my portion of bread, let the child eat her fill for once." And mother was afraid that Niusia would get an upset stomach if she ate too much, so she only gave her one slice.

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There was always bread, sometimes none at all. They would tell them then: "No bread, it's gone to war." So they had to manage as best they could. They would pick strawberries in the forest, some herbs, wild garlic, sorrel. And of course, mushrooms. She still doesn't know what they were called, but one was shaped like a pig's ear, so that's what she called it: pig's ear. They would throw slices of bread into a pot instead of roux and there would be soup. They would also cook chai from raspberry twigs, it was red and had antipyretic properties. They would use everything that grew. But there, in Siberia, the snow would only melt in June, and the frosts would start in September. It was mainly children who went picking fruit, because the adults were at work.

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Once they were picking under a high-voltage power line. Suddenly, a terrible cry rang out. It was the boy who stepped on the hanging cable. It burned him black. An image was etched in Niusia's memory that she would never forget: The mother took the body of her son in her arms and walked with him to the village, and the children followed her. In this funeral procession, everyone cried – everyone except Niusia. She could not cry. She only cried when Dad went to the front, and then, when there was no letter for a long time, sometimes a tear would well up in her eye. She cried the second time when she received a letter from the embassy that Dad was dead. At that time, she was surprised that so many tears could be shed. But more about that in a moment...

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Siberian everyday life, apart from hunger, of course included cold. Although there were plenty of trees around, to light the stove, you had to steal wood. This is how Janek Pielichowski died – our brother. He was a blacksmith, he had a forge in front of his house in Czerwień, and in Siberia he worked in an armoury. According to the official version, he hanged himself, unable to bear the hardships of exile, but that is not true. He was tough. He took care of his family. He wanted them not to freeze. When he went to the forest for the last time to get firewood, he must have felt something, because he said goodbye to his children. Three of them were cutting down a tree when suddenly a large branch broke off and killed him on the spot. The peasants were afraid because there would be an investigation into why they were in the forest illegally, what they were doing there. The theft of wood would be revealed. So they brought Janek's body home and hanged him, pretending to be a suicide. Niusia remembers how her father came home from work and, not knowing what had happened, shouted resentfully at his dead brother-in-law: "Janek, what have you done!" He then hit him in the face, as if he was counting on him waking up. Janek's daughter, Wanda, found out only many years later, already living in the western lands, that it was not a suicide.

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People in Siberia were getting sick and dying. That didn't surprise anyone. What was more surprising was that even the very old were often tough. They had an unimaginable will to survive, their responsibility for their loved ones kept them alive. And the belief that one day this ordeal would end and they would return to their longed-for land.

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In 1941, Przybyszewski's second daughter, Janka, was born. From then on, Niusia had a sister. Sharing the love of her parents, especially her father, was something new and difficult for the girl. Her mother gave birth in a hospital. The birth was not accompanied by the joy of the parents, but by fear, how to provide the child with the necessary things in inhumane conditions. There were no diapers, so they tore old shirts. Her father made the cradle himself. Niusia sometimes climbed into the cradle. Once she rocked it so much that it turned it upside down together with the baby. For the first month, the family received a quarter of milk for the child. After a month, they did not, only like everyone else, little Janka was entitled to a ration of bread. So there was a huge problem with feeding the infant, no one expected the child to survive. She did. It was strange, but she did not even get sick.

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In 1943, Niusia, went to school. Russian children had been studying for 8 years, she was already 9. They called her Nina because they couldn't pronounce Franciszka. In the barracks, which were intended for a school in their hamlet, there were 3 rooms: Zina Dimitrovna taught in one of them – she was assigned the youngest group, the kindergarten group. In the second, the tall and thin Ivan Ivanovich taught the eldest children. In the last room, the one to which Niusia was assigned, Cleopatra Petrovna, whom they called Koropatwa, taught. She taught those children who already understood the language, calculus, reading, singing, i.e. all subjects. Cleopatra was very good, but sometimes she also lost her nerves when they laughed and fooled around (and there were, a trifle, 45 people in the class), not reacting to attempts to calm down. She would then start reading a nice fairy tale and they would not listen. It must be admitted that it was often Niusia's fault. This petite blonde always sat in the back, went under the bench and made a fuss. And she was sitting with a Tatar who annoyed her. She called him Szurka because she didn't remember his strange name. One time the boy got angry, he said something rudely. She remembers that there was a hanger behind her desk. She then took her hat from the hanger and threw it at Tatar, but it hit someone else. There was noise and chaos in the classroom. And Cleopatra got so angry that she left the room to calm down, but she never screamed.

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Niusia was a good student, and the teacher liked her, despite her antics. She always asked for help when something needed to be done. After graduating from the lower grade in her hamlet, Franciszka continued her education at the school in Berezovsk. Different subjects were taught there by different teachers, not one, as in Pervomaisk. The school in Berezovsk is associated with a memory that she would prefer to erase. One day, Stalin came to inspect the school. The students were lined up in two rows, and she, as a short girl, stood in the first row. She was petite, had fair hair and by some strange coincidence Stalin took notice of her. He ordered his soldier to call the child. He then sat her on her lap, stroked her head and gave her a candy. He was interested in her fair hair. He asked where she got them from and if she was an angel. An atheist and murderer held her on his lap and called her an angel! Unfortunately, it is impossible to forget it, because the testimony from 1944, which she keeps among her documents to this day, reminds us of this episode. From a yellowed sheet of praise for her academic results, Lenin and Stalin look at her proudly. However, she is not proud of the meeting with her companion or of this testimony, because it reminds her of the worst moments in her life. Everything that happened on a foreign land and irretrievably ruined her childhood world came back with trauma in adult life. It comes back to this day...

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The beginning of the losses that were to mark Franciszka's life forever began in 1943, when her father enlisted in the Polish army that was being formed at that time. He was happy, as were the others. It was hope for Poland. It was difficult for Niusia to rejoice with her father. She was angry that he was leaving her. Polish soldiers were to leave for the front from Sverdlovsk. They had gathered there before. When the mother and other women went to say goodbye to her husband, she left her daughters with the caretaker Natasha. But how could Niusia not say goodbye to her dad? She escaped the caretaker and walked along the edge of the forest after a group of women, hiding in the bushes so that she would not be noticed. She was stumbling over protruding roots, tired, until someone finally noticed her and shouted: "Look, some dwarf is following us." Mum got a little angry, but eventually she took Niusia's hand, and they set off to say goodbye to Władysław.

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When they arrived, the soldiers were eating. She saw her dad, started screaming and running to him. She knocked over a soldier, poured soup out of his hands, but nothing mattered except that she wanted to get to her father as soon as possible, cuddle in his arms, grab his hand and hold it like that until he got into the carriage. When the soldiers set off for the train, she was walking with her dad. The commander chased the unruly kid away, escorted her to her mother, but she broke away anyway and returned to the line with his father. And so on several times, until finally the lieutenant gave up. And she repeated the only right argument to justify herself: "But it's my dad!".

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She remembers the moment when the soldiers were about to enter the wagon, her father had tears in his eyes. She, as always tough, kept repeating briskly: "Dad, don't cry!". The soldiers looked at her and smiled. The command was given: "Departure in 10 minutes". Women cried. Niusia hung her hands around her dad's neck, hugged as tightly as she could. Tears were streaming down the man's cheek. She wiped them off so her friends wouldn't laugh. Her father got into the carriage and she with him. Mother was standing on the platform. Dad sat down, dropped his legs from the carriage and looked at his wife with emotion. As if they both felt that this long look was the last... It had everything: love and the memory of common hardships, longing and tenderness, fear of the future and determination that this was the right thing to do. They looked at each other this way: Władysław and Stanisława, two souls from the borderlands torn away from their safe world, whose love could not be destroyed by the frost of Siberia or the meanness of the system that did not care about man.

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Niusia sat down in the carriage next to her dad, sure that she would go with him. The train set off, whistling "in Polish", not "in Siberia". Dad could not speak because of emotion. The lieutenant grabbed the stubborn girl and threw her off the train like a bundle, straight into her mother's arms. There was no other choice – she could no longer accompany her father. The train was speeding up, and she walked first, then ran along the platform, falling over again and again. The engine driver whistled once more and ... The train departed. She felt rage. Not at her dad, but at the lieutenant who took her from him. If she had known, then that forever...

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They were left alone with their mother and little sister. Skinny, impoverished, on a foreign land. My mother cried often. Niusia did not cry. She used to say to her mother: "Why are you crying? Dad went to fight Hitler." Later, Stanisława hid the fact that she was crying so as not to upset the child.

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My father wrote letters from the front: to his wife separately and separately to his daughter. He promised her this: from the departing train, he shouted that he would write to her. And he kept his word. He signed letters to Niusia: "For my bodyguard".

The year 1944 came. Since then, it was possible to receive parcels from Poland. She remembers when her uncle Józek Pielichowski, my mother's brother, sent a package. What a package it was! It could weigh up to 1 kg. The whole barracks watched her. It was important that it was a package from Polanf. There were 15 candies on top. Franciszka remembers this number very well. She ate one right away. And with the rest of the candies, it was like this: New Year, according to custom, children went around with wishes. Two girls also came to them. It was appropriate to give the children a gift as a thank you. But what can you do when they were living in poverty? And then Niusia suggested to give it under the candy. Instead of thanking them, the girls began to cry with joy. They left with two candies, but they didn't eat them. They showed them to other children outside. Suddenly, all of them as many as there were in the hamlet, probably 30, flew to the Przybyszewski family. They dance, sing, and Niusia says to her mother that there are still 12 candies, so you have to give them for performances and wishes. My mother started crying. But she didn't feel sorry for her at all. She liked to share. She only said: "Let them pray for me." Mom pulled out a bag tied with thread and gave the children candy, tears quietly running down her thin cheeks. The children thanked in Polish and Russian. Then they asked for a knife. They divided each candy into four parts. Whoever lacked it, dipped his finger in saliva, then in crumbs of candy. These were crumbs of childhood happiness...

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That fateful New Year with candy wasn't supposed to be sweet. First, the Poles from Pervomaisk were deported to the Gornostaivka sovkhoz (Kherson Oblast). The Przybyszewski family and her grandparents lived in hamlet No. 1. It was poor and primitive. They burned with straw, from which they made bundles, and the bugs crackled in the fire. Lizards were running everywhere. But at least it was warmer than in Siberia.

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In the sovkhoz there were granaries full of grain. It was in them that Stanisława worked. Despite exhaustion and working beyond her strength, she did not get sick. Until the fateful day when she came home from work and started vomiting. Grandpa Grzegorz walked 12 km to the doctor, because there was nothing to take the sick woman with. The doctor gave her some pills. She managed to take one. The next day, on 1 September 1945, Stanisława Przybyszewska died, orphaning two daughters. The younger one was 4 years old at the time, the older Niusia was twelve. From then on, she became the head of the family. But first, my mother had to be buried. Where to get a coffin if there are no trees on the steppe, what to make one of? The chairman of the sovkhoz, a good man, said to Niusia: "Ninka, we're taking it off." He tore out a horse manger and Stanisława was buried there.

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The locals said that they did not remember such a funeral. Russians and Poles came, some from hamlets 20 km away. Szeptun came, Tatar Minulin, a Russian woman from Dubasarka, whose son Sasha she met Niuś many years later in Szczecin. The priest was not there. The mourners sang, prayed and prayed the rosary themselves. One could hear alternately: "Lord, have mercy on Stanislawa" and "Hospodin have mercy on Stanislaus". This is how they escorted Stasia Przybyszewska, née Pielichowska, to eternal rest in a foreign land. Interestingly, two weeks later, in distant America, where he went, Stasia's twin brother, Michał Pielichowski, died suddenly. But the family was to find out about it much later.

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After my mother's death, you had to live somehow. Franciszka, a twelve-year-old girl of the maturity of a woman, became the breadwinner of the family. The chairman of the sovkhoz understood their poverty, he gave her a job and half a kilo of bread, the rate for an adult worker. In addition, 2 kilos of flour, a quarter of oil and 70 rubles. She was happy, but not everyone liked it. They were jealous and reminded her that she was small, and she got so much. And Niusia went to every job without fear. She climbed into bulls to put them in a yoke, drove a two-wheeler 20 km across the steppe, providing fuel to tractor drivers and drinking water for those working in the fields. She was only careful with holes, because if you fall into one, you can also lose your life. She held the reins briskly: she was a coachman, a messenger, and when it was burning, she was responsible for the signal. It used to burn Bujne – this is where the chairman of the sovkhoz, its benefactor, lived. And she could only watch the flames from a distance, hit the suspended ploughshare with all her strength in her small arms, and listen to the whistle of the sheet metal twisting in the fire.

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At that time, when the Przybyszewskis were in the hamlet of Gornostaje, her father wrote letters: first from the front, and after demobilization – from the western new Poland. He addressed all his letters to Pervomaisk, because he left his family there and did not know about their resettlement. 25 unanswered letters. When he finally found out that there were no Poles in Pervomaisk, not knowing where his wife and daughters were, he wrote to... Hnilcza in the Tarnopol region. How could he have known that the Poles had irretrievably left their borderland village in August 1944 after it had been attacked and burned by the Ukrainian Banderites?

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Surprisingly, the letter sent in mid-March 1945 was not lost, but in April it was sent to Pidhaitsi – it was there that the inhabitants of Hnilce waited for a year for decisions about their further lives. Józef Pielichowski and his family lived on Brzeżańska Street in Pidhaitsi. His daughter Janka received a letter from uncle Władysław. She put her note in a package and sent it back to aunt Stanislawa at her new address, i.e. to a sovkhoz in the Kherson Oblast. And Jozef added bacon five fingers thick. At that time, Stanisława was still alive, and the war was soon to end. They read only good news from the letter: her father was alive and well. The Stasia siblings lived: Michasia (married name Czyżewska) was in LwowJózef in Podhajce, and Marysia (married name Chrzan) left for the west. Everything could still be beautiful. And the pork fat from the package smelled of Poland. They cooked soup on it, and my mother cried, of course. These tears had as much happiness and emotion as fears, because there was still no contact with Władysław. Although a letter from him arrived through the resolute Janka, they were unable to send a reply. The situation was dynamic. Soon, the army was to be demobilized and the western territories of the new Poland were to be settled. From the east came more transports of borderland expatriates. They were to be joined by exiles scattered throughout the republics of the Soviet Union. Before they were also on the train to Poland, Stanisława died. The rest of the Przybyszewski family: grandfather Grzegorz, grandmother Katarzyna and Niusia with sister Janka loaded onto the train.

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How different this transport was from the one they travelled in 1940: the doors of the wagons were open, they were given a piece of bread, they traded clothes. There was widespread joy: excitement combined with hope. When they crossed the border, people went crazy with happiness. She remembers very well: freedom was marked by two pine trees, a crossbar decorated with green twigs and an eagle on it. And although the Soviet flag fluttered on every pole, they were in their longed-for homeland. In March 1946, they reached Bystrzyca Kłodzka and settled there. They got a nice apartment because my grandfather had military sons. Upstairs of their house there was also a German woman with her son Kurt. They occupied 2 rooms. They became friends. Niusia played with Kurt, and his mother sewed a white dress for the girl: 2 folds at the front, 2 folds at the back and a sash to tie. It was like going back to the beautiful old days of her childhood, when her mother dressed her up in dresses and her father spoiled her. But there was no home and no mother. And Dad? Since they reached Poland, grandfather Grzegorz and Niusia began searching for Władysław 

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Przybyszewski. Subsequent letters to the Polish embassy in the Soviet Union, archives and institutions helping families find their loved ones after the war hecatomb did not bring any specific answer. Władysław's fate was unknown.

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From her mother's family, who settled in Mieszkowice (today Gryfino County, West Pomeranian Voivodeship), she learned that in 1945, after demobilization, her father was with them, looking for Stasia and his daughters. He even left beautiful brown slippers for her mother. She had small feet, it was difficult for her to get shoes, and he wanted so much to make his wife happy. He did not want to wait. He was worried about his loved ones. He decided to go look for them. He reached the vicinity of the eastern border and waited for the next transports, hoping to spot his "bodyguard" and the rest of his family in one of the wagons. Władysław Przybyszewski did not find his family, but he "found" his own death. Niusia was to find out only after 10 years. It was then that she received a letter from the Soviet embassy that Władysław Przybyszewski had been arrested at the eastern border. As a potential spy, he was sentenced to prison and a labor camp. He worked in a mine in Donbas. He died on May 26, 1946.

Franciszka's eyes are foggy. She almost never cries. But then, after receiving the news of her beloved father's death, she cried. She does not know where she had so many tears from. She thought then that life had ended for her and that she had already shed all her tears. But it wasn't true. Life was to last, bring many more hardships and further losses, but also moments of happiness. And Franciszka knew how to deal with one another according to the principle: And he will never go astray,/ Whoever so disposes his mind,/ As if he knew how to endure happiness and misfortune,/ To endure this courageously, not to rise in that. (J. Kochanowski, Canto IX, Books I).

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Franciszka's further life, rich in experiences, can be summed up in a few sentences: she married Władysław Harhala. She gave birth to a daughter, Ela, and a son, who died soon after. She worked in a lignite mine in Sieniawa Lubuska. She lives there to this day. She is 91 years old, has a great memory, a beautiful mind and a good heart. She almost never cries. Almost...

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Source: archiwumkresowe.pl

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