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Kazimierz SWIDERSKI

Kazimierz Swiderski was born in Lwow, eastern Poland on December 17, 1934. 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.

Kazimierz, along with his mother Agnieska Swiderska (nee Dawidowicz) and his sister Emilia, were forcibly taken from their home at gunpoint, by Russian soldiers. They had been given less than an hour to pack what they could, without knowing where they were being taken. They took what they could carry and had to leave the rest behind.

They were 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.

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 in order 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 men and boys soon made plans to make their way south to join the army. For most, this meant walking thousands of kilometres 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 women and children who followed later, encountered the same difficulties on their journey south.

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

Anders insisted on taking as many of the civilians that had reached the army as possible. There were 2 mass evacuations: in March/April 1942, and in September 1942. Then Stalin changed his mind and closed the borders. Those who had not been evacuated were now stuck in the USSR.

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 basic 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.

His father Stanislaw joined the Polish 2nd Corps, while Kazimierz, his mother, and his siter, were sent to the Tengeru Polish refugee camp in Tanganyika, (now Tanzania) East Africa. 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. Established in order to make the settlement as self-sufficient as possible, the farm accomplished this with great success, combining crops native to Africa as well as – climate permitting – old favourites from Poland.

After the war, they spent 4 years in England where Kazimierz completed Technical High school. From England they immigrated to Winnipeg in 1952, where he completed his engineering degree at the University of Manitoba in 1956. Soon after, he moved to Toronto where he started his career with Carrier and met his wife Irene at St. Casimir’s parish hall dances. A couple of years late,r they married and started their family.

In 1959 he became a partner with R.T. Tamblyn and Partners Ltd, in charge of large and small projects throughout Toronto and across Canada. In 1977 he joined Canada Square Development Ltd for a short period of time. After which Kaz joined Andrew Hidi and Associates in 1981 as a senior partner where he worked for 42 years until he retired in 2013.

Kazimierz had a very illustrious and awarding career. He was involved in the development of large office and condominium projects in Canada and the United States, including the Canadian consulate in Warsaw. He was the recipient of the “Low Energy Building Design” award for Gulf Canada Square building in Calgary and a special award of “Excellence” in Utility Design for Ontario Hydro building in Toronto.

Kazimierz passed away in Toronto on October 17, 2019.

Copyright: Swiderski family

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