Stanislawa Bednarczyk

This is Stanisława's story as told by her:

I was born on 2 January 1930 in the Krechowiecka settlement, Równe district, Wołyń province, Poland.

On 17 September 1939 the Red Army invaded the Eastern territories of Poland. The Ukrainians were murdering the Poles when the war started, and Poles were thrown out of their homes, and the homes were confiscated. Aleksandra (nee Jaskulak) Słomka (my mother) and Władysław Słomka (my father) were spared temporarily because Władysław was building a new house on their property, and the head foreman was Ukrainian. Aleksandra was good to them and would cook and feed them, so they left them alone.

Early on the morning of 10 February 1940, two Soviet soldiers and NKVD (KGB) agents and four Ukrainian soldiers surrounded our home in Maciejowice, Poland and broke in with guns. They woke everyone. At home were my father Władysław, my older sister Władyslawa (13 yrs. old), me (10 yrs. old) and my baby sister Marysia (7 months old). My brother, Edward had died in 1935 as an infant. My mother Aleksandra was at church and my middle sister, Wanda (11 yrs. old) was living with family friends in another village so that she could attend school. The schools in our area were closed because of the war.

The soldiers pointed their guns and demanded we sit down and not move. My mother returned from church and was shocked to see what was going on. They ordered us to pack whatever we can carry and for everyone to go. We were told to dress quickly and as warmly as possible. We took only clothing with us. They would not say where they were taking us. My mother sat down and wouldn't move. She refused to leave without all her children. The soldiers promised her that Wanda would be brought to us. She still refused, so a soldier was assigned to go with my father to the village to get Wanda.

When they returned, we were all taken by sleigh to a railway station. There was a long train of cattle cars waiting, guarded by soldiers. We were made to climb into a cattle car. These were very long and high. We were packed in the train car with our belongings. It was crowded and we couldn't move. There was no heat, no beds, no bathroom. There were only two tiny windows just under the roof. This was the only way for air or light to enter once they closed the doors. Someone made a hole in the floor to serve as a toilet.

When they couldn't fit any more people into the car, they slammed the door shut and locked it with an iron bar. People were crying, yelling, praying, or just sat quietly. We were now prisoners. During our journey, people began to die in the cars. Our first stop was a deportation area in the city of Minsk in Soviet Russia. The dead were thrown off the cars when the train stopped. During these six weeks of travel, we stopped at stations where we were given boiling water for tea and sometimes bread. We were hungry and freezing. We had very little food. They beat the men and mistreated the women and children.

When we arrived at our first destination in Siberia, there was so much snow. We were put in a stable overnight. The building was very cold; it again had no heat. Our baby sister, Marysia, was very ill. We all gathered around her and cried because we knew she was dying. That night Marysia died at 9 months of age. I do not remember the date. She died of pneumonia from the brutal cold. Some men came and took her away. We never buried her, we don't know what happened to her.

We were then transferred to another cattle car for another two-week journey. After the two weeks, we were transferred to a horse sled. Women and children were put on the sled. The men had to walk. During the long walk, they would fall and die. It took one week to arrive in our destination in Siberia, in Arkhangelsk.

We stayed at our last destination for two years. Our parents worked hard so that we could eat. It was mostly forestry work. The girls were put in school while Aleksandra and Władysław worked pushing logs into the river.

Food was scarce. Aleksandra and Władysław gave their bread to the girls instead of eating it themselves. The girls suffered from night blindness due to malnutrition. Wandz and Władyslawa were the first to get it. I then told my mother that I, too, couldn't see. Mother thought I was faking because I wanted to be like my sisters until I walked into a hot stove.

After two years, the re-formed Polish Army took us out of the USSR. We were put on a train to Uzbekistan where Polish units were being formed. We were told the train would leave in one hour, but it left in 5 minutes. My father missed the train but later caught up with our family.

The Polish Army was moved out of the Soviet Union to Persia to be under British command. We were taken by coal barge across the Caspian Sea to Persia. We stopped on the beaches near Pahlevi where stationary camps were set-up with white tents along the oil-polluted beach. We were quarantined, debugged, deloused and our hair was shaved off. We were suffering from dysentery, malaria, typhus, eye and skin infections. Our clothes were burned.

Wanda and Władyslawa were in a type of Polish Army, the Young Women’s Auxiliary (Junaczki). I wanted to go too but was too young. The Junaczki wanted to put me in a type of orphanage, but I cried and said I knew I was going to die anyway, so I wanted to die with my mother.

When we were well enough, we were moved by army trucks to Tehran. It was very hard and tiring. We were in Persia for only a few months because my father joined the Polish Army. If you had a relative in the army, you had a greater chance of being able to settle temporarily near the army headquarters and leave Russia. While in the Army, my father became ill in Palestine and was brought back to Persia.

After a time, we were moved to Isfahan. In Isfahan, the Shah of Persia created a center for the Polish school children. Isfahan became known as the "City of Polish Children". Then we were sent to a Polish settlement in Mombasa, Africa.

In 1948, any families that had members in the Polish Army were sent to the United Kingdom after the African camps were closing. We could not go back to Poland because it was occupied by Communist Russia, so we were forced to remain in foreign lands for the remainder of the war. We sailed to the port of Southampton England from Mombasa on the MV Winchester Castle, arriving on 15 August 1948. There were 790 Polish displaced persons on the ship.

My mother was 44 years old, Wladyslawa was 20, Wanda was 19 and I was 18. We were then sent to the N.A.B. Hostel in Check Endon, England. We lived in Quonset huts in the Displaced Person (DP) camp with several other families.

I continued my schooling in the United Kingdom. I also met and married Marian Bednarczyk and we had daughters: Teresa, Danuta, and Zofia. We emigrated to the United States, arriving in New York on 1 March 1956. We settled in Perth Amboy, New Jersey.