Julia Gerech

Julia Gerech was born in 1927 in Ostrowek, Poland. On 10 February 1940 she was deported to a forced labour camp in the Arkhangelsk Oblast of Siberia along with her entire extended family. At age 13, she was considered too old for school, so she was sent to work in the forest, cutting branches from trees. She was injured while doing this and was then sent to work as a nanny in a nearby town.

Julia ended up being evacuated into Iran in April 1942 with her sister Katarzyna, while their mother stayed behind in Krasnowodsk to take care of their ailing brothers. Their father was deployed with the Polish 2nd Corps, so they were alone. The girls lived in the Tehran Polish camp among the scouts until August 1942 when their mother caught up with them.

The family was eventually sent to the Polish settlement in Tengeru where Jula finished her schooling. She then worked in Nairobi alongside RAF mechanics. Her life was inadvertently saved by this job, as she became critically ill and needed surgery to have a kidney removed - a complication from her injury in Siberia in 1940.

The Gerech family emigrated from Tengeru to England in 1949, and Jula eventually ended up in Sheffield, where she became Mrs. Maciejewska, raised two children, and lived the next 75 years of her life.

Julia passed away in Sheffield on 7 January 2026 at the age of 99 years.