When my mother died, a few years ago, everyone attending her funeral service impressed upon me the need to write her story, not only for the sake of her grandchildren but so that others should have the opportunity to learn about the incredible life of this woman, described by all who knew her as ‘remarkable’. Since her death, I have started my research and collating what little wartime memorabilia and information I have about her in preparation for what I hope one day will be a book, entitled Maria’s Story.

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Brought up in Warsaw and like many fellow Polish compatriots, Maria managed to survive the war both mentally and physically but not without a great deal of suffering. Never one to dwell on the past or to ever feel even the minutest bit of self-pity she would, on the odd occasion, recount parts of her extraordinary story to me. Hers was indeed an incredible tale and I always felt an immeasurable pride in her and what she had overcome in the face of adversity. I admired her faith in God and humanity, her strength, her courage and like all Poles, her extraordinary pride.

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Above all, my mother was a survivor and a great inspiration to my daughters and to myself. I owe everything that I am, to her.

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The following is a much abbreviated account of her wartime experiences which she penned for a talk she gave to a local group. Her story starts in Warsaw in 1939 at the outbreak of the Second World War.

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“When the war broke out I was eighteen. I had had a fairly privileged childhood, but my parents strongly believed in the Spartan upbringing of children, and I was seldom, if ever, indulged. Henry, the man I married in June 1939, on the other hand, was an only child of devoted and absolutely DOTING parents. They were quite rich and Henry was indulged by them to a ridiculous degree. He was good-looking and very clever and had fulfilled all their dreams. They, in return, devoted their life to fulfilling all his.  Whatever Henry wanted, whatever he desired, Henry got.

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All my friends and certainly I, considered myself lucky that Henry wanted me. He was the most eligible bachelor in my circle of friends, and ten years older than me.

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My parents, however, were of a different opinion. In fact they, especially my mother, were, totally opposed to my marrying him and for a time my mother refused to agree to attend my wedding. She was persuaded to by the priest-friend, who married us. We were married at the church of the Holy Cross in Warsaw, which is known to lovers of Chopin, to contain his heart.

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My parents’ objection stemmed mainly from the fact that Henry was a gambler. A hopeless, incurable gambler, although, of course, I was confident that I could reform him.  His parents, whom I loved dearly, shared my optimism.

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As I said, we were married in June, when talk of war was becoming more frequent. In July the preparations for war were being talked about more openly and in August Henry was called up and I went to live with my parents. Henry phoned both his parents and myself frequently until 1st September when Germany attacked Poland and the war started for us.

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The bombing of Warsaw began on the first day and continued relentlessly for twenty-eight days. In order to break Warsaw’s resistance, Hitler let loose his entire air force on the capital. Whole streets were reduced to rubble and ashes, churches were bombed during services, the water supply was cut off and his artillery was equally relentlessly employed.  Although Warsaw capitulated after twenty-eight days the fighting went on well into October in the rest of Poland.

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Poland fought its war entirely alone, completely unaided by its Allies, who – simply – weren’t prepared for it and was unable to check the might of Hitler’s Air Force and Panzer Units. Later other countries found themselves equally unable to do so.

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On 17th September Russian armies marched into Eastern Poland and invaded half its territory. Earlier, on 23rd August, they signed a treaty with Germany and when Warsaw capitulated another treaty was signed by this unholy alliance affecting a division of Poland.

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When Warsaw capitulated I went to see Henry’s parents, to see if they were all right and I was almost alarmed to find out that for my dear mother-in-law the tragedy of the capitulation was less important than the hope that now Henry would be coming back!

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She now started a vigil, sitting by a window which looked out on to the main entrance to the house and refusing to leave her ‘post’ for anything but the most necessary reasons. Sleep was NOT one of them. After all, she argued, Henry may arrive in the middle of the night and she must be there to welcome him!

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To start with, her husband and I were not unduly worried but after two or three days we became anxious as she, deprived of sleep, started to behave strangely. After a while her behaviour became quite bizarre and she was reluctant to eat the food which was brought to her on the tray so that she wouldn’t have to leave her post.

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After three or four weeks she was very confused, had lost a great deal of weight – which she could scarcely afford – and her husband and I were beside ourselves with worry.

Quite a number of men had now returned and from them I was able to learn that Henry’s division had fought in the East of Poland. Apparently quite a number had been taken Prisoners of War by the Soviets.

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I felt helpless and frustrated and one day decided that the only way I could save my mother-in-law’s sanity was to go and find Henry. That entailed crossing the now official border between the two occupying zones and when I informed my parents of my plan, they thought I was quite mad. My in-laws were very upset as well, but my mind was made up. I proceeded to find out about the best route and collected, from people I trusted, safe addresses where I could get help on the way, either to stay or to get a meal. My parents had friends in two of the main towns in Eastern Poland and these became my targets.  Henry was likely to be in prison in one of these. Our cook had been with my parents since before I was born. She was, apparently, in the early stages of pregnancy when she was first employed and when her pregnancy became obvious, expected to be dismissed. Her absolute devotion to my mother was said to stem from the fact that she was allowed to stay in the servants’ quarter and bring her son up there. He was now also about eighteen and while I was saying my goodbyes and everybody was trying to hold back the tears (unsuccessfully, I may add) I saw Stas putting on his coat and his scout-cap. When he also picked up his own rucksack I became suspicious and yes, Stas was coming with me. My entreaties to his mother, to my parents and to his mother again, were to no avail.  “If you go he may as well go and see you across the border – then we will know that you got across safely”. And so it was. Stas had seen me safely across the border and into my first town.  We had walked about 100 miles and although, I dare say, I could have done it by myself, I most certainly got there in a better shape than I would have otherwise.

 

I can still remember the bath I had when I arrived at my parents’ friends’ house in Bialystok. I had a good rest there but I could learn nothing about Henry. I drew a blank with all my enquiries. I then went by train to a town called Lwow and to the house of my parents’ other friends. The wife greeted me with a warm hug and I knew I was welcome, but I also realized that she was worried. I then found that her husband, a military judge, was taken by the Russians as soon as they came and there had been no sign of him. She was worried that I increased my danger by being there. With her help I started making enquiries about Henry straightaway. She had connections in the city which were extremely helpful.

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But… fate has her own way and I met Henry in the street two days later. He was taken POW and escaped from the prison two days earlier – the day I arrived in Lwow. It was, of course, a pure coincidence. I must say my life has been full of these ridiculous coincidences.

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Together we found a place on the outskirts of Lwow where it was safe for Henry to stay or so we thought. I was, needless to say, anxious to get Henry back to his mother. There was no other way to let her know that he was safe and that we were together.

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Henry absolutely refused to cross the border. He was scared that if found crossing the border he would be summarily shot. That was true, but I thought worth the risk. It took me two months to persuade him that the guide I had found had an unblemished record of successfully getting people across the border.

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By then I was nearly three months pregnant, it was winter and the going was very hard. I managed quite a part of the way on foot but we were still some way from the border when I realized that I could not go any further. I begged Henry to go without me but he wouldn’t hear of it and we turned back.

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When I was leaving home, my mother gave me a very valuable gem, which she had had removed from its setting for the purpose, and I was to use it in case of the utmost emergency. She had it stitched into my fur-lined coat. I had enough funds otherwise to get us through a short period of time quite comfortably. Now, in utter desperation, I decided that the only way to make sure of delivering Henry to his mother was to have an abortion. The winter still had months to go by which time I would be even more handicapped. There was, of course, the constant fear of arrest and deportation, or worse, for Henry. People were being taken away all the time, always in the middle of the night.I had no alternative. I finally got Henry to see that there was no other way and told him of the gem and asked him to sell it – which he did. But instead of bringing the money back to me he lost it all in the game of poker.

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We were arrested the first time in Spring 1940, but were miraculously freed before Henry was interrogated. A few weeks later we were again woken up in the middle of the night, but this time the soldiers who came for us had told us to get dressed and pack one small bag of things. They stood over us with guns pointed at us while we did as they ordered. Henry decided to wear his army uniform in which he was taken POW because it was the sturdiest thing he possessed. I took my fur-lined coat and an eiderdown and anything else I considered useful or valuable. We also took all the food we could lay our hands on. The lorry, which awaited us outside and which already had many people huddled up on top, was guarded by more armed soldiers and it took us to a railway siding where we were loaded on to cattle trucks. There were already some people in the one to which we were pushed, but we filled it to capacity. There were thirty-one of us. Later I found that there were even more people in other trucks. I didn’t realize how lucky we were. The door was slid closed and bolted. There were two bunks, one on each side, two small windows about 8 x 14 inches located between the bunk and the roof and these were to be used not only for giving us some badly needed air, but for relieving ourselves. I needn’t tell you that most of the time it was easier for men to achieve this than for women. Occasionally the train stopped and we were allowed out to perform this function, but it was always with a soldier pointing his gun at you. The constipation I acquired then plagued me for many, many years.

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After three weeks the train stopped more frequently and our guards became less watchful.  By then we were in an area from which we would not find it easy to escape. At one such stop some women ran towards our train and asked if we were Poles. They, just a handful, were the sole survivors of the transport of Poles who were employed on building barracks for future deportees. There had been thousands of them and, apart from this little group, they had all perished.

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A little further on the train stopped and there were no guards to be seen. We waited a while then Henry grabbed our bags and made for some buildings which could be seen in the distance. After a few minutes, encouraged by him, others  followed and I with them. Henry stood in the door of the first hut and beckoned me into a room which divided the hut along the whole depth of the building. He intended it for us, he said. I was full of misgivings about being allowed to have a room all to ourselves. I was sure it was meant for the commandant of the hut or as an office. But Henry was right. Nobody bothered us and we started to settle in. We considered ourselves very lucky indeed.

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The next day a woman who was there with her husband and young son came to see us. She knew that she was asking a great deal she said, but could we let them have the room.  She had a heart condition and felt sure that she would not survive in the main barrack. She must have been 40 but looked older. She did not press us but asked us to think about it and added that she was a nurse and could help me with the labour when my time came. We thought about it, felt sorry for her and agreed to move out. We settled in the corner of the barrack which they had occupied and later Henry built a sort of fence which divided us from the rest of the people there. There must have been about twenty in our half of the building. There was a stove, which we later used to warm ourselves at and to toast or dry bits of bread when we had it.

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When we arrived in the place the first thing we noticed was an absolutely obnoxious smell.  When told that a ‘meal’ awaited us in the dining room and we went towards it, it became too obvious that the smell emanated from the dining room. The ‘meal’ which awaited us was soup based on the stinking Siberian fish called TRASKA.

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I think that on that occasion we all turned back unable to entertain swallowing the foul-smelling substance, but that was because we were not yet hungry enough. When we were arrested, we all took with us all the food we had and we did not have an idea what real hunger was. Later that incredibly offensive smell signified a treat.

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We were told that we were 120km from the town of Archangel. We were not allowed to leave the camp without a permit and a permit was very rarely granted. It was no use, we were told, trying to escape, because even if we were not caught, we would soon die of exposure, or hunger, or both. There was tundra all around us and it was too easy to get lost. The men were to be employed on log cutting, and women grass cutting, with a sickle in summer, and in winter log-sawing. We would be paid for our work and with the money we earned we could buy ‘meals’ in the dining room, or bread and things in the ‘shop’.

Work started the next morning. I found cutting grass with a sickle a back-breaking task, but stretching was forbidden and every time one was caught stretching, 10 per cent of one’s pay was deducted. The same applied to picking wild strawberries, and resisting that when one was starving was a terrible torture.

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The treatment we received was influenced to a certain extent by how you appealed to the young sadists who were our new masters.  A lot of them were semi-literate thugs with a warped sense of humour and a very exaggerated sense of their own importance. One of the people in our barrack, an eminent professor of medicine, was not liked by these people and they treated him abominably. He was quite old and did not try to retaliate which made them even more insolent. It was difficult to watch without reacting, but one could not afford to do that.

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Henry too was their chosen victim. They could not bear his officer’s uniform and to start with kept sending him back to change, in spite of being told that he had no other clothes to change into. Every time they did that, his pay for that day would be deducted. Later they tried to get him to cut the buttons off, but Henry wouldn’t do that even if he could. In the circumstances he had little choice – there were no other buttons to be had, and he was not going to wear an unbuttoned tunic. They even called me into the office and asked me to influence him.  Of course I could not, and besides, I would not. And so Henry’s earnings were practically nil and our income, mainly from my earnings, was not enough to buy the occasionally available bits of bread let alone the watery soup from the dining-room.

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I had a great-aunt in the West of Poland on whose estate I used to spend some summers, and while there I learnt some farming skills, one of which was to use the scythe. Only men used the scythe in the camp and when I asked if I could be put on that instead of using the sickle, I was laughed at. However, I pleaded and told them that it was very hard for me, being pregnant and they agreed to let me try and see what the foreman said.

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The foreman soon decided, probably quite correctly, that I was not best skilled in the art of using the scythe. He then proceeded to show me how to get the “rhythm” of it by attaching himself firmly and closely to my back, and holding the scythe with me, moved rhythmically and I learnt the skill sufficiently to be taken on. He was a man of about 50 and he rubbed himself against me while “teaching” me, and if that had happened in other circumstances I would have reacted very strongly indeed. Now I said nothing and thanked him when he told me that I would “do”.  This enabled me to earn a little more, but the saying that “every little helps” has never been more true. I did become quite skilled in using the scythe, by the way.

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My baby was due in October. By now I had learnt that when a woman started labour she was taken in an open cart to the nearest infirmary which was 18km (about 12 miles) away.  In the Siberian autumn and winter, they invariably died.

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I went into labour on 20 October and about a week previously, my nurse friend, to whom we gave our room, whispered to me that I was to let her know as soon as my pains had started, but to tell nobody else. We now did so and she came after a while. When my waters broke she told Henry to go and fetch the camp nurse and she herself disappeared.  The nurse immediately sensed that somebody had advised me to call her so late and demanded to know who it was. Of course, she never found out, but I later learnt that if she had been found out, my nurse friend would have been sent to prison and separated from her husband and son.

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She fulfilled her promise and repaid what she had considered was a favour by probably saving two lives.  On 20 October the temperature must already have been -20 deg. C.

There was a nursery on the camp where babies and small children were left while their mothers were at work.  It at first seemed a blessing, until we found that children were fed according to how much their parents earned.  In our case, with Henry’s earnings being virtually nil, Victor was fed very poorly indeed.

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I breast-fed him throughout and although the milk he got was mainly waters, it sustained his life for fourteen months  In order to ensure the supply, I drank a bucketful of water everyday. I usurped the fire bucket for the purpose. Actually it is not very difficult to drink as much as that when your stomach is empty.

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Such as it was, this existence continued until summer 1941.

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I am not sure of the date, but one day during that summer of 1941, I waited in the seemingly unmanned office of the camp, waiting to see somebody, when the telephone rang out of sight and a man’s voice answered it. I then heard the man say something like: “Yes, yes, I’ve got that. The German forces have today attacked the Soviet Union.” I did not wait to hear any more but ran, as quickly as I could and shouted the news to everybody in the barrack. I can’t now remember their immediate reaction, but I clearly remember that when nothing happened after a week or two they either told me that I must have misheard, or avoided looking at me when I insisted that what I heard was no illusion.

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It was some months later, well into the autumn, that they told everybody in the camp that they were free to go – without any explanation. There was great rejoicing when they all started to prepare to leave. We were told that we had to stay and when we were the only people left there, they called Henry in and told him that he was “very welcome to stay as a free citizen and, as a graduate electrical engineer, he would arrange the electrification of the camp”. When he answered that he did not wish to stay, they smilingly told him not to be so hasty. He must take his time and think about it. He kept going to see the camp commandant and repeatedly said that he wished to take his family away. He demanded a permit to leave, but they kept us there. Going to see the authorities in the nearest town in order to complain, meant a risk of being arrested and imprisoned if caught without a permit. In Soviet Russia, at least when we were there, nobody travelled anywhere without a permit, especially a foreigner. Nevertheless, Henry decided to take the risk.

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For some time I had been saving bits of bread (for our hoped for journey) and drying them for rusks. They were in a handkerchief suspended from a beam on the ceiling by a thread.  As I sat there in the evenings alone – there was now nobody in the barrack – with Victor asleep and the window covered by a small blanked to shield him from the “white night”, mice kept climbing up the blanket and on to the beam desperately trying to get to the rusks, but they kept falling off and starting again. This was not a nightmare. It did really happen, although it became a nightmare which I found difficult to shake off.

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After about two or three days, Henry got back triumphant with a permit. We started on our way almost immediately. I still had my fur-lined coat, an expensive, fashionable coat, but since I was very slim and Russian women were very large, I only managed to get two loaves of bread for it. For my golden compact (Henry’s wedding present to me), I got about a pound of butter – they did not believe it was solid gold. Still, we were on our way, on a train going south and I saw the first Russian using a handkerchief to wipe his nose! We were back in civilization!

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We then travelled by ferry, and then again by a cattle truck, although this time we had it all to ourselves for a while.

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Henry climbed on to the bunk when we boarded it and would not get up. His legs were now badly swollen from hunger. Victor slept next to him and I, the fittest member of this little family, in spite of weighing about 5½ stone, stood in the open door whenever the train stopped and savoured my freedom. On one such occasion I was sure I heard Polish voices and, terribly excited, tried to tell Henry. In fact I wanted us to get off there. I shook him and begged him but he refused to listen and I cried bitterly when I knew I was not going to persuade him. I later found that the station was called Buzuluk and it was there that the Polish Army was being formed. Had we got off there both Henry and Victor would have survived.

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At the next station a Russian woman came into “our train with a small child. She got onto the bunk opposite and we soon found out that she was a wife of a Soviet functionary and was being evacuated. After some time her child became ill, cried and whimpered most of the time. I tried to persuade her to leave at the next station but she wouldn’t hear of it.  When I saw the child, it was obvious that he had measles. I covered the little windows to shield him from light and when, at the next station, with the help of a station nurse (amazingly, there was a nurse at every station!), I got them out of the truck.The train started again and I took the ‘blinds’ off the windows. It soon became obvious that Victor had caught the measles.

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We got off at the next station and were directed to some hall which was converted into a hospital for children with measles. There was a measles epidemic. The name of the place was Polodnaya Stepp – Hungry Steppe.

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I was allowed to stay with Victor – they needed mothers to look after the children there – Henry was not. I saw him frequently during the three weeks Victor was there. I never asked how he was living, at least I cannot remember asking him, I was tired and hungry and worried about Victor. They treated the children with permanganate of potash and I thought they were killing them. The Rumanian doctor who looked after Victor could not have been more helpful or caring, but there was little he could do. After three weeks, however, he got Victor better, amazingly since all the other children died, or were dying off, and insisted that I take him away immediately. We still had the eiderdown, or so I thought, and I asked Henry to sell it and find us somewhere to live. You might have guessed. He had sold it, because the poor man was hungry. There was now nothing left.

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Soon Victor developed pneumonia and died aged 14 months. We wrapped him up in something – I cannot now remember what it was – dug a hole in the ground in the cemetery and buried him in Hungry Steppe on 21 December 1941.

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Somehow or other, we went on south where we had by now heard that the Polish Army HQ was and managed to get to Tashkent.  Yangi-Yul, where the HQ was, was a few miles out and we found friends there with whom I could stay while Henry went to join his regiment.

 

My friends were awaiting evacuation to Iran. They were actors and as such had a certain independence from the Army structure, so they lived privately in a Russian cottage where they had 2 rooms.

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When the news of Henry’s death reached us, they were getting ready to join the transport for Iran. Henry had died from typhus on his way to collect me.

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My friends left very soon after, urging me to join the Army which they saw as the obvious answer to all my problems. It obviously was, but I had other plans for myself and decided to stay there while the rooms were paid for and live as long as I could on the little food that was left – and then join my husband and son, naturally.

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When I had eaten all the food there was, my Russian landlady started giving me potato peelings to eat because she guessed that I was hungry. The one item that I could sell to buy more food was an electric iron that my friends had left me. All I had to do was to get to Tashkent on one of the Army lorries which frequently travelled by the cottage between the Army HQ and Tashkent and stand outside the main store holding the iron in my hand.  Soon someone would come and offer me more money for it than it was worth because there was a permanent shortage of everything in Soviet Russia.

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As soon as I arrived in Tashkent the skies opened. It was the sort of tropical rain which goes on for hours, if not days, and I knew that it was hopeless. I waited and got on to the next lorry back. The deluge continued as I climbed up. There were some Polish Army Officers already there and one of them took off the groundsheet he was wearing and covered me with it. Soon after, the lorry stopped and the driver asked if I would like to ride in the cab out of the rain. I returned the groundsheet to its owner and climbed down. When we stopped and I got outside the cottage I heard a voice calling out “Is that where you live?”  I nodded and ran into the cottage.

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The next day the owner of the groundsheet turned up at the cottage. Apparently he had known Henry, and had met me in Lwow where he came from. I could not remember him.  He wanted to know why I had an electric iron with me and then he wanted to know more and more about me which I resented, because I suspected that he wanted to help me. My very off-hand attitude did not seem to discourage him. My situation must have been very obvious to him and the dear man wanted to help. After a while he said that it was quite ridiculous for me to be there when I should be in the Army.

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He kept coming and trying to persuade me to join up and, of course, he brought me bits of food which on one occasion I threw after him. He was interfering with my plans and I wasn’t having it!

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One day he told me that he had talked to the Commandant of the Polish Women’s Auxiliary and that she had agreed to enlist me, subject to a medical, and he had brought a form for me to fill and sign. He filled in the form and I refused to sign it. He asked me, he pleaded with me, he shouted at me and then he began to hit me. To start with he slapped my hand, then he hit me on my arm, then on my shoulders, all the time saying that he would not stop until I signed, indeed that he would hit me harder and harder. And he did, and it hurt. And I could not bear it, and I burst out sobbing and then I signed, because he stopped hitting me.

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I joined the Polish Army Auxiliary on my 21st birthday. The friend who made me join it, and so saved my life, lives in Washington and he claims he does not remember any of it. As time progressed I regained my strength, both physical and mental.  I started putting on weight almost visibly. I ate everything I could lay my hands on, but I do think that it was malt extract which was sent by the British Government to be supplied to victims of starvation which really put me back on my feet.

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Within a few months I was lucky enough to be included in a transport to Iran. I was very ill with a rare tropical disease while we were crossing the Caspian Sea and soon after we arrived I got malaria. In the hospital in the Iranian Port of Pahlavi I shared a room with two little Polish boys whose palates were rotten from hunger. A lot of people still looked like survivors from Auschwitz. It was good to be out of Soviet Russia.

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Teheran was civilization again. While there I lived privately in the house of an Armenian architect and his White Russian wife who was very amused by the kind of Russian I spoke.

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I had not menstruated for nearly three years, and now that I was eating again my hormones had been put into disarray and I came out in boils all over my body. A friend of my father’s, a Polish officer, stationed in Iraq decided to visit me at that time and was horrified by my appearance. I looked rather like the Elephant Man. He did not believe that I would ever look normal and paid a photographer to take my picture if ever I did, so that I could send it to him and he could see it with his own eyes.  

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An opportunity occurred to volunteer to join the Polish Air Force in Britain, and I put my name down immediately. Britain was my father’s favourite country and he visited it frequently and I absolutely dreamed that I would be accepted. I was, and started on the first stage of my journey once again on my birthday – the 22nd. Through Iraq and Palestine, I reached the Port of Alexandria and boarded the Dutch ship “The Christian Huygens”, which three weeks later brought me to Greenock. It is quite impossible to describe my joy when I heard the pipes welcoming us in the port.  Our ship was full of servicemen and 80 Polish women.

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I had to do a six-week-long army course before I transferred to the Air Force – believe it or not.  Now there’s logic for you!

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In November I joined the WAAF (Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, now WRAF) and after a recruit’s course in Wilmslow, was sent on a Wireless-Operators course to Blackpool, and Blackpool in 1943 was full of WAAFs and American soldiers and, my goodness, they made the most of it!

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Radio School in Wiltshire followed, then my WAAF Officer decided to put me up for a commission, much to my dismay as I simply could not afford to be an officer. You had to have a private income in those days and I did not have it. I tried to get out of it but the Selection Board thought that I was officer material.

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I had to borrow money to get through the Officers course (OCTU) so that I could buy drinks before dinner, which I was expected to do, and smoke the more expensive cigarettes because it was not done to smoke the cheaper brands. I had to borrow more when Burberrys delivered my officer’s uniform, and all this time we received no pay whatsoever. When  my officer’s pay started coming in, it too was inadequate, but I survived that too, and even managed to repay my debts.

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Maria unfortunately ended her talk here apologizing for only providing a brief insight into some of the more poignant of her war experiences. Her life thereafter continued to be eventful. 

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It is hard to comprehend that my mother was but 21 when she finally got out of Siberia and embarked on her travels to England. In her short lifetime she had experienced so much and seen sights which horrified her and left an indelible impression upon her for the remainder of her years.

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Maria talked fondly about her time as a Polish WAAF officer and of the friends she made whilst serving. She felt honoured to be made so welcome by the British, but talked about her feeling of betrayal by Winston Churchill when, at the end of the war the Poles, unlike the other allies,  were not allowed to participate in the Victory Parade – so as not to offend Stalin.This was particularly shocking given the Poles’ extraordinary contribution to winning The Battle of Britain. One of Maria’s cousins was thought to have shot down the most number of planes in the Battle and so to be denied the right to march with the British forces and therefore not allowed to represent their nation in the parade was disheartening to say the least.

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In my research about my mother, I came across some wartime photos of Henryk Szczesny that my mother had kept in her album. Accompanying the images was a newspaper cutting with the headline ‘SHOT DOWN 15 HUNS….A Polish fighter pilot, with 15 Huns to his credit, has lost his life during fighter operations recently.  Henryk Szczesny was the holder of the British Distinguished Flying Cross and its Polish equivalent …..and the coveted Virtuti Militari, which ranks in Poland with the Victoria Cross’. Curious to learn more about this man I had also understood to be my mother’s cousin, I researched his name and discovered that he had not been killed, but had lived to the age of 86, in London.  Did my mother know this fact or did she continue to assume him dead, unaware that they only lived 70 miles apart?  I will probably never know the answer to this question, but it is perhaps a reflection of how completely war destroyed families (and friends), even where it did not wipe them out completely.

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My mother was full of secrets and intrigue and she often made assumptions about people which she was not always able to substantiate. Her time served in Soviet Russia had caused her to be permanently suspicious and distrustful of everyone.

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For a devoted Catholic, Maria was incredibly superstitious, but one of her superstitions was wholly understandable. Her own mother, Romualda told her it was unlucky to give a handkerchief as a gift, as you were unlikely to ever see the person again. And so it came to be; Maria had given her mother a handkerchief before she left Poland and indeed, the last time she saw her was when she left Warsaw to search for her husband, Henry. By the time she arrived in London she had heard nothing from her parents since leaving Siberia and had no idea of their whereabouts. Warsaw by then was but a shell, totally demolished by German bombings.

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While based in London, my mother was visited in early 1946 by a man who she took to be a fellow Pole. He had come to give her news that her parents had been shot by the Germans because they had discovered that they had been hiding an English spy. Much to her incredulity, my mother learnt that this ‘Polish’ gentleman standing before her was in fact the person they had been hiding and who managed to escape. She subsequently placed an announcement of their death in Dziennik Polski (The Polish Daily Times) in London on 15th February 1946. The piece names her family and simply states “Shot by Germans on 16th March 1944 in Warsaw”. ‘Signed’, Córka i Siostra – daughter and sister.

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Maria lost her entire family as a result of the war with the exception of her cousin Michal who had been over in England studying architecture at the outbreak of the war. Maria had heard that he was living in Canada and it was not until 1965 that she finally tracked him down and they were reunited. He was the only Polish relative I knew. His widow, Wanda continues to live in Toronto and I have always regarded her as an aunt. Wanda’s war-time experiences under German occupation were horrendous and one day her story should be told.

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Maria was destined to lead a troubled life, but she was a fighter – and a survivor. During the war, she had fallen in love with a married man who had decided to leave his wife and children for her. Being the supremely honourable person that she was, and in order to prevent him from breaking up his family, she decided instead to marry someone else who had proposed to her. On 19th October 1946, in the church of Our Lady of Czestochowa and St Casimir in Islington London, she married Jerzy Kwapniewski, a Polish RAF pilot. This marriage was doomed to failure and they divorced in Chelsea Town Hall on 13th September 1951.

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On the day the decree absolute came through, she was coerced by her friends to attend a party to cheer her up. There she met my father and almost a year to the day of her divorce to Jerzy, she married John Doull in Sierra Leone, where he was serving in the Colonial Police Force.

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Maria disliked intense heat and so her experience of living in the tropics with extreme humidity was not a pleasant one. She was desperate to have a family and it took 4 years to conceive. On discovering she was pregnant she made the decision to have the birth in London and so she sailed over at the end of 1955 to find a room to rent and before giving birth, as she anticipated, in December. However, she found it almost impossible to find somewhere to live as everyone suspected she was a single woman which in those days would have been a taboo – to have an unmarried, pregnant lodger!  A concept difficult to believe in the twenty-first century!  However, she finally found a room in Pimlico and deciding to take my time to emerge into this world, I was finally born at what is now known as the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in January, a month overdue. Six weeks later, we sailed back to Sierra Leone where we were to remain until the country gained independence in 1960 and by which time my mother, aged 40, was expecting my brother.

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Life back in England was initially happy and soon after choosing to live in Suffolk, my parents moved into a house on an old unworked farm near Aldeburgh. Maria adored this house as it was the first time since she left Warsaw that she had a place of her very own and which she could actually call home. She enjoyed a wide variety of eclectic friends in the area and was a frequent visitor to the nearby Aldeburgh Festival. She spoke daily to her closest friend, Sęp-Szarzyński who was a paraplegic as a result of being shot down as a rear gunner. Theirs was a meeting of great minds and shared intellect. Although Sęp was my weekly Polish tutor, I am sure that I learnt the majority of my Polish by listening to the two of them talking endlessly on the phone. The house was always full of interesting and stimulating visitors and I grew up being party to the exchange of heated and lively debates on every subject under the sun from philosophy to religion to politics and beyond.

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Maria was a perfectionist and accomplished at everything she turned her hand to; she sewed like a couturiere seamstress, she knew every opera by heart, she could play Chopin by ear, she drew like a professional artist, her international cooking was legendary, her articles were published by the main papers…and she was renowned for her elegance. Whilst living in the country, she was able to indulge in all her favourite pursuits.

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However, eight years after moving into her own home financial disaster struck and we were forced to sell the house and move into Ipswich. Resilient as ever, Maria picked up the pieces and started up a new life for herself and her family. Like many women of her era, Maria was unqualified in any specific area of work but she managed to find employment and slowly but surely built up the family finances having repaid all the debts her husband had incurred.

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Maria’s marriage disintegrated although she remained with John for some years after moving to Ipswich. Whilst attending the funeral of her dear friend Sęp-Szarzyński, she became reacquainted with an old colleague from the Polish Air Force, Major Alexander Bujalski. A passionate relationship developed and Alexander who lived in the States soon started to make frequent clandestine visits to see my mother in London. He then started to visit the house and I am sure my father was aware of the situation but chose to turn a blind eye. He adored my mother and was probably content to see how happy Alexander made her, in a way he could not. Their affair continued for about a decade and she was frequently asked by Alexander to marry him; it was not to be. Often tempted, she felt in her hearts it would never work – whilst they adored each other, it would have been a turbulent marriage, as although they adored each other, they quarreled frequently. Alexander, himself married, moved with his wife to Barcelona from the States, partly to be closer to Maria but soon his wife was to become ill with cancer and he sought better treatment for her and decided to remain by her side.

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Maria was Baroness Sue Ryder’s translator and friend and over a period of two years she translated her autobiography Child of My Love into Polish – a laborious work of love. Sadly the book was never printed in Poland as the cost of paper at the time was prohibitive. Maria felt privileged to have her role with Baroness Ryder especially when she accompanied her to meet Lech Wałęsa during the period of Solidarity. Over the years she met with several dignitaries and was devoted to Baroness Ryder admiring the incredible work she did for the Poles in and out of Poland.

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Maria had a powerful presence and was adored by all who met her. She was the most unselfish woman I have ever known and was interested in everything and everyone she came across. She had the most amazing intellect and I always said that she did not possess an ‘off ‘switch; she could be exhausting to talk to and you dared not make a simple statement as it would result in being met by a barrage of Spanish Inquisition–like challenges. Her grandchildren adored her and she lived for the six of them.

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Unlike many of her compatriots, Maria never dwelled on the past and always looked to the future. Whilst always proud of her adopted country she remained devoted to Poland and all things Polish, to religion and to her family. She was never bitter towards her enemies and her sense of justice was all-consuming and her pride knew no bounds.

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She could be dogmatic and stubborn and her war experiences trained her to keep her emotions in check. Her attitude towards death was almost cold and dismissive but you could hardly blame her given what she had endured during the war. She never complained and there wasn’t a shred of self-pity even when her macular degeneration caused her to lose almost 90% of her sight. Her stoicism was remarkable.

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It gave me enormous pleasure to be able to take my mother back to Warsaw a year before she died, January 2009, aged 88. She was able to be reunited with the Warsaw of her childhood; vibrancy and colour had returned and this capital city was now like any other major prosperous Western City. I took her to visit the Polish Art section of the National Museum of Warsaw and with her poor eyesight I had to describe the paintings to her. In relation to two paintings, she leant over to whisper that she thought that they had belonged to her family before the war. She was delighted that they were hanging in this gallery to be enjoyed by her fellow countrymen.

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She is greatly missed by her family and friends.

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Copyright: Nina Finbow

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