I, Zofia Chriscicka, was born on 29 April 1916 in Nienadowie, Poczta Dubiecko, Powiat Pszemysl, Poland.

 

In our family there were three girls and a boy.  Our mother died in 1918 when I was 16 months old.  My brother, Piotr, was four years older than me. My sister Maria was the oldest.  Weronika was about four years older than my brother.  Another brother died at birth.  My sister Maria left for France.  I do not remember when our father died. 

 

For eight years after our mother was gone we suffered a lot.  There was no one to work in the fields. There were three acres of land.  We started going to school.  There were no boots in the wintertime.  I went only in the summer time.  Weronika did not go to school at all because there was a war. 

 

I was 12 years old when my sister Maria brought me over to France.  In 1928, my sister Weronika went to work for a landlord, to feed her brother.  When I was 10 years old, I would hold a cow on a rope (we had only one cow) while I made dinner (pearl barley) for my sister.  My sister made 90 groszy a day and every day I would have to go to buy this pearl barley because we only had enough money, at one time, to buy for that day.  I took dinner to my sister to where she worked.  It was a kilometer away.

 

In France, I had to work hard.  My sister, Maria, and I were at one farm for a year.  I was in France for 10 years and I got married there.  Jan was born there. 

 

I returned to Poland in 1938.  My husband Blazej went ahead of us to look for a small farm for us.  After our return from France, we lived with my husband’s sister, Karolina.  She was not home at this time.  She was at work in Germany.  This was a one-room place.  We lived together with my husband’s sister, Karolina.  She had a son and a daughter.  The boy was with us and the girl was with her grandmother.

 

At this time, land was being parceled out in the Tarnopol area near the Russian border, powiat Chusatyn.  The settlement was called Liczkowce.  When my husband learned that there was still one parcel available, he went to the district office and purchased it.

 

In this settlement, there were 50 farmers.  There already were homes, barns, grain storage bins and wells.  We arrived last.  It was late fall and there was a lot of snow, but we were happy that we had a place of our own.

 

The settlement was very pretty.  Some fields were near Zbrucza.  There was a village, and there were guard towers with several Polish guards.  We were in this settlement for one year, 1939 – 1940.  By February 1940, we had a cow, a horse, a heifer, and a few chickens.  We even had maize, in the hayloft, for the cow that had a calf in a few months.

 

In 1939, the war broke out.  When the Polish government fell apart, freedom came about and the people did what they wanted.  In the village of Liczkowce, there were many Ukrainians.  They did not like us.  They called us the damned Mazury.  Our land was taken from us when there was no Polish government. 

 

One time, there came to us a gentleman by the name of Zurbik. He was Ukrainian, a respected farmer.  He told us to be on guard because we will be attacked.  When we hear the bell ringing in the Ukrainian church, that means they will be setting out.  The men did not sleep in their homes, but in the grain storage buildings.  The women and children were in the houses, but had the windows boarded up.  We were so afraid.

 

We listened for the bells.  One day we heard the bells and it happened that they came in a gang.  The men had axes and pitchforks in their hands and the women followed with old blankets or rags used to carry straw or to cover up with, to rob us.  Our men all got together and went out to meet them.  Our men asked, “What do you want?”  They replied, “We want you to move out of this settlement.”  Our men replied “We will make a stand to the end!”  “We will not let you in.”  They talked amongst themselves and backed away.

 

The next day they came back on horseback, with some military, and rode between the houses announcing that by December 24th there was not to be one of us left. However, on the following day, the Russians came and all was quiet.  They said nobody was to be touched but they had already planned to take us to Siberia.

 

One day, in 1940, they listed us all and that we owned.   On February 10th at about 4 a.m, someone knocked on the door.  My husband opened the door, and two military men entered our home.  They said, “Get dressed.  We are relocating you.”  They asked if we had any weapons.  My husband says “No.”  They said, “If we find any, you will be sorry.”  They also asked if we have any Polish money.  We had some.  I don’t remember how much.  They took it and said “If you have any Rubles, take them with you.” 

 

They told us to stand in the corner, with our hands up, while they searched the house for weapons.  This was in the kitchen.  Our son Jan was sleeping in the other room with little Stanislaw, who was two months old (he was born on 18 December).  They gave us one hour to dress.  We were allowed to take an axe and a saw.  I had a chicken with a broken leg that I wanted to kill and take with us but they did not allow it.  I also had some bread starter, which they threw on the floor. 

 

They spread a sheet on the floor and were throwing things they wanted into it.  We just stood there, in the corner, as if frozen.  In a while the soldier told us to take our children and go outside.  We had to go as he stood over us with a gun.  In the yard, there was a sleigh waiting for us and we had to get in. 

 

They took us through the village to Chusiatyn, to the train.  The Polish people came out of their houses, crying and the Ukrainians were happy.  The Polish people threw loaves of bread to us, as they knew we were going to a death by starvation.  In Chusiatyn, there were people from a settlement called Czabarowka.  They loaded us into cattle cars with a mix of people from our settlement and from Czabarowka.  There were 35 people to a car and then it was sealed.  There was a small window and a hole in the floor for a toilet.  The people were embarrassed so we put up a blanket for some privacy and then we felt better.

 

There was a lady from Chusiatyn who gave birth to a baby on this night. The child died and when the train stopped, a soldier took the child.  We don’t know what he did with it.

 

There was no water for washing.  There was a stench.  There was a little stove.  If anyone had anything to cook, they would put it on.  When the train started or stopped, it was very jerky and things fell off the stove. When the train would stop, we all wanted some water.  We would let a little pail down on a rope to get some snow, but the Russians would cut the rope. 

 

There were soldiers at every station. The soldiers checked to see if anyone died and took a head count.  One time a man was able to hide under a bench and the count was one short.  At that time, there was a Russian woman walking by carrying water on her shoulders.  A soldier asked her to put her water down and they threw her into the train with us.  The innocent woman traveled with us all the way to Siberia.  That is how people disappeared.  She may have left behind small children, but no one cared.  You were just put in jail.  One of the men said, “We should not hurry with our work because soon the Germans will come.”  For this statement, he got 10 years in jail because someone told on him. 

 

It took two weeks to get to Siberia.  Enroute we only got fish soup.  It was so salty it was impossible to swallow.  Once we did get some rice.  Our Stanislaw was only two months old and I did not have anything to feed him with.  I had a little sugar, so I tore up a diaper and used it to put sugar on so that he could suck on it.

 

When we got to Siberia, there were sleighs waiting for us.  They drove us four kilometers into the bush, to some barracks.  In this bush, there were more barracks, in different places, from other camps.  There were 30 families per barrack.  There were bedbugs and cockroaches.  They bit us.  It was impossible to sleep.  The bed was made of of boards.  The barracks were made of logs with moss, and some were chinked with clay.  They were disinfected once, but it did not help.

 

There was a barn for the horses.  We slept in the barn loft in the summer, so we had a rest from the bedbugs but the mosquitoes were bad.  We burned sawdust to keep the mosquitoes away. 

 

The men and young women without children, went away to work.  The women felled trees alongside the men.  We had two children, so I didn’t have to go to work.  The working got one kilo of bread and those that did not work got 400 grams.  The bread was rationed, and you had to go get it four kilometers away.  The rations were for one day.  The people who did not work never got anything else.  For the working people, the cook took soup to them.  There were 12 people in one brigade and there were only two spoons and two bowls.  These were never washed, just licked off and that was it.  The soup was very thin so that there was nothing to lick.  The people who had no money could not buy any bread.  People swelled from hunger and died. 

 

There was, with us, a family from Chabrowka.  Three children and their parents.  The oldest boy was 13 years old and the youngest girl was five.  They were not able to work because they were sick.  They had no money and could not buy any bread.  We sometimes bought them some bread, since we had rubles.  My husband worked hard so he made some money.  I went into the woods to gather mushrooms, grasses and pigweed and that is how we lived.  That family from Chabrowka died.  They swelled from hunger.  It was a terrible death.  The old died and the young died.

 

I had a nice dress and pajamas.  I exchanged them for some potatoes and milk for the baby.  The Russians owned nothing but quilted jackets and pants, but for the sake of propaganda, once a month, they had a dance to show the world that all was well.  

 

They forced the Russians to attend and to purchase clothes from whoever had them.  They even attended dances in nightshirts because they thought they were dresses.  I had a nice ballroom gown from France that a Russian lady purchased from me for 30 rubles.  A few days later, two policemen came on horseback.  They asked if I had sold my gown.  I said, “No”.  He took the gown from under his coat and asked if it was my gown. I was so scared, I said, “Yes”.  He asked me to show him the money.  He took both the money and the dress from me.  I said, “It is for milk for my child” and I started to cry.  He said, “He will become a nice soldier one day.”  “Come to the office, tomorrow.”  The following day, I went for bread and I went to the office.  I said, “I have come for my money.”  He said, “you cannot sell your gowns here under Soviet rule.”  He told me to come back tomorrow.  This went on for a week.  Then one day, the chief was there.  I started to cry very loudly.  He asked me why I was crying.  I could not speak.  The chief asked the other man why I was crying.  When he told him, the chief told him to give me my money.  The Russian lady never did get the gown.  The chief’s wife wore my gown to the dances.

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One day, two other women and I, who did not go out to work because of our small children, started out for a larger village to get some potatoes.  We had permission to go; otherwise we were not allowed to go anywhere.  We walked for 17 kilometers on the railroad tracks.  I had a shawl from France that I exchanged for a gallon of potatoes.  It was very difficult walking on the railroad with the potatoes but now we had something to eat.  That is how it was for two years.

 

We did not know what was happening out in the world until one day two men arrived on horseback.  They had some kind of papers in their hands.  They called everyone together and told us that we are free to go but only within Russia. General Sikorski made a pact with Stalin because Germans kept going further into the USSR.  General Sikorski wanted Stalin to free all the Polish people from the prisons and form a Polish army.  That is what happened.

 

They notified the prison camps to send men and women without children to go immediately to Taszkient or Gorczakowa and one other place that I don’t remember.  The women with children were left in the prison camps.  When we learned that we were free, we wanted to escape the cold winters.  We were told we could go to a prison camp near the Chinese border.  We left for the train, travelling a few days to a station.  There we found, waiting for us, wagons on two wheels called barze.  We rode on these wagons quite a way, until we got to the prison camp.

 

We were there, maybe, a month’s time. We lived in a clay cottage.  Here our children got sick.  We then moved nearer to Taszkient. In this prison camp, we dug channels where water came from the hills.  Here they gave us wheat to eat.  When we dug the channel, they gave us rice.  In this camp, all small children, up to the age of five, died in a few weeks.  There was not one child left.  There was no food for these children.  No bread, no milk, and nothing could be bought.  When Stanislaw died, there was nothing to bury him in.  My husband found some boards, and that is how we buried him. He was two years old.

 

In April 1942, the men were called into the army.  We were left in this prison camp.  We were always hungry.  Jan always cried because he was hungry and exhausted.  Sometimes, we got only one pancake and other times only a cup of barley, but the barley was not milled.  We went to the Uzbeks to borrow a pestle or stomper to mill the barley for barley gruel.  We picked and cooked grasses and added the millet to it.

 

I went to work, picking cotton.  On the way home I picked some wild horseradish that grew in the ditches when it was irrigated.  It grew so well because it was very hot in the south of Russia.  In the spring, Uzbeki sowed wheat by hand.  All of us women and the Russian women covered the wheat with wide hoes because they did not have harrows.  When we sat down to rest, we ate the wheat, all around us.  That was our dinner.  Needless to say, in this place, nothing grew.  This was farming in this unfortunate Russia.  Everyone stole what they could.

 

This was all too much for us.  We got ready to flee this camp, but how should we go?  The boss of this camp knew Russian and we could communicate.  He had a little boy.  A woman, in our camp, had given birth, in Kazakhstan and the child died when it was three months old.  They were from our region, named Sadej.  She had a wagon from Poland that the boss really liked.  We went to him and we said, “If you get us a horse and cart and free us from this camp we will give you this wagon.”  If the Soviet office allowed it then he would let us go.  We had to get this permission.

 

We walked four kilometers to the office.  We said we knew where our husbands were, in the army, and there is room for us.  We should go immediately.  Our boss agreed with this if we could get permission from the Soviet office.  When we presented this permit and the wagon, our camp boss was very happy.

 

The next morning, before sunrise, there was a camel in our yard.  Those who were not so well rode the camel.  The stronger ones walked.  But before this we asked for food, as we knew it was going to be a long journey.  People traded things they had for wheat or barley.  We went around the Uzbeks to trade for grain but how to mill it?  The boss was a kind man and told us where we could find a mill.  We went there and got our grain crushed.  I baked some pancakes.  We were ready to leave for the train station by way of the camel. 

 

We came to a place where the water came from the hills.  It was about three kilometers wide in some places.  There were hills of sand and valleys that were made by the water.  How do we cross this water?  The stronger will wait their turn.  The weaker went on and we were left waiting on the sand hill.  We waited for the camel to return but the camel did not hurry.  In some places the water came up to the camel’s stomach.  When the camel returned he took us to the train station.

 

The train station was very congested.  At the ticket window it was difficult to get in line.  A Russian lady who was fleeing the camp was able to get train tickets for us. We waited all night.  We slept on the sand next to the railroad tracks to get into the train because there were so many people.  This is the order in all of Russia, “There is no lack of thieves anywhere.”  At last, the train came and we were ready.

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When the train stopped, everyone goes for it.  No one looks out for anyone.  They just try to get in because if you don’t get in you must wait for the next train.  We got in.

 

At last, we got to Taszkient.  In Taszkient we buy tickets to go to Wrewska.  There is a Polish army camp there and a nursery for the children.  In Taszkient we stayed overnight.  We were very tired and we wanted very much to sleep.  We had some parcels with us, slippers on our feet, and pancakes in our sacks.  If we fell asleep, we would have nothing left.  One man fell asleep and when he woke up he was barefoot.  We decided some of us will sleep and others will keep guard. 

 

There were ten of us.  Three of us being stronger.  There was an older maiden, another lady, and me.  The maiden was Veesia Borea and the lady was Batoshewska.  It was good as both understood Russian and also spoke Ukrainian.  If we needed to speak Russian they were able to do it.  When we were among Polish people, they asked me to speak.  They were afraid to speak because they could make a mistake and become suspect.

 

We were able to get on the train to Wrewska.  It is very crowded.  It is almost impossible to get into the train.  I put Jan up and pushed in with all my strength.  There is no room to sit.  Jan was sitting and I was standing.  It was very noisy on the train. I had a sack with pancakes.  I told Jan to put his feet on the sack.  When we came to Wrewska, I went to get the sack, but it was gone.  The thief came under the bench and stole my sack.  Jan cried because he was very hungry.  When we got off the train, I went among the soldiers to ask for bread.  One man gave me a piece of bread.  Not much, as he did not have much himself.  The soldier asked us how we got here.  I told him.  He said his wife and three children were left in Siberia.

 

Before we got to the office, so that they would accept us here, they tell us to leave the children in the nursery, and to go back where we came from (Uzbekistan).  I said, “We will not go back!”  I showed them the letter that my husband had left saying that they were here, somewhere.  They spoke amongst themselves and asked us to follow them.

 

One of the soldiers took us to the bathhouse, where we had a good bath.  Then we went to the barbers, where they shaved our heads with the exception of me.  They left a little on the top of my head.  Why they did this, I don’t know.  Others were jealous of me.  That’s how it was.  They gave us a piece of bread and told us that it wasn’t far to the collective farm where there was a vegetable garden.  If they accept us there it will be good.  We go with a soldier and there they take us in.

 

I do not remember how much they were supposed to pay us.  We could buy one kilo of bread every day.  We were happy.  They gave us a few rubles so we could buy this bread.  We went to work in these large gardens where they grew melons, beets, carrots and tobacco and so, it was good. 

 

We slept on the ground, in a building.  We had something to cover up with and a pillow.  In the camp they disinfected our clothes.  People who worked by the melons got sick with dysentery and went to the hospital.  My friends and I worked by the beets and we did not get sick. 

 

Jan gained a little strength at the nursery.  One day I came to him and he was sitting and crying.  I asked him, “why are you crying?”  He told me that someone had stolen his pillow and he never found it.  I returned to work.  I had some clothes and I took them to him.

 

A stream flowed near where we worked, and some trees grew there.  We got to know the Polish priest.  He came to where we worked and said the rosary.  He sang “kiedy rane wstaja zorze” and “wszystkie nasze dziene sprawy” and then we would part. The priest always encouraged us that in not too long a time we would leave Russia.  Our children will leave before us.

 

We worked there for six weeks.  One day, the same priest came to us.  He told us we should not worry because on such a day we will meet in the garrison.  They will have a list of the people that are leaving.  If your name was called, we would gather by the chapel.  Everyone waited for that time.  We went to the building quietly and waited.  At last, a few officers arrived and read off the list.  The list consisted of Polish people.  There were many Jews and Ukrainians, but they were not on the list.

 

We got on the train and those that were not on the list remained behind. The officers had to push them away from the train.  They gave us conserves and chocolates for the journey.  We got across the desert.  We saw two men being thrown from the train.  They had hidden under the benches and no one had noticed them. 

 

We arrived at Krasnowodsk.  There were soldiers there as this was a temporary prison camp.  When we got to this camp, they told us to put all our belongings on a pile.  They brought us each a blanket and a long shirt.  All our belongings were burnt.  We were there only a few days.  It was six kilometers to the port.  It was very hot as we walked, barefoot, all night.  We boarded the ship.  The soldiers were below and we were on the deck.  We traveled 24 hours across the Caspian Sea to Pahlevi, Persia (now Iran).  When we were crossing the Caspian Sea, a soldier stood guard.  He must not have been well.  At night he collapsed and died.  They wrapped him in a blanket, tied a stone to it, and let him down into the sea.  This sight was very sad for us.  We sang funeral hymns.

 

In Pahlevi, they fed us lamb and rice.  The rice was very greasy.  We all suffered stomach trouble because we had been so hungry.  The hospitals were filled.  People lay by the toilets because they couldn’t make it back to their huts.  I was also sick.  Someone told me to go to the kitchen and ask for plain rice.  I went and they gave me some rice.  That helped me. 

 

In that camp, we bathed, were disinfected, and they gave us one more blanket each.   We traveled, in our nightshirts all the way to Tehran, in army wagons.  There were huge mountains and gullies.  The drivers were Persians.  They were used to this travel.  In the camp, there were many oranges - we were not allowed to buy them from the Persians.  In Tehran, we were housed in some huts.  The Polish army was there with many soldiers.  They fed us well and gave us army boots, blankets, and some clothes which were donated by the United States and England.  Transports came with food and supplies.

 

My husband learned, through the Red Cross, that I was in Tehran.  He was in Palestine and he came to Tehran on military leave.  Jan was in the nursery in Tehran.  In other camps there were many children that had died.

 

After his leave, my husband returned to Palestine.  There were many of us in Tehran and many soldiers.  After two months, we left for Ahwaz.  It was a big camp with big buildings.  The buildings, built by the Germans, were not very high, just one story.  There were wide sidewalks.  We slept on a cement floor.  It was warm.  It was December, Christmas Day.  We made an altar, beside one building.  One lady and a doctor led us in hymns.  The same priest who was with us in the other camp, said midnight mass.  We sang, but everyone cried because it reminded them of Poland.

 

After Christmas, a female doctor examined everyone.  Many people had a rash, especially the children.  In Ahwaz, we were reunited with our children.  Later, we moved further away to a place closer to the port.  We were taken to Karachi.  This was a temporary camp near the port of Bombay.  We stayed in tents for a week until it was time for our departure.  While we were there, our neighbor collapsed and died.  The jackals probably devoured his body because there were so many of them.  At night they came for food, right into our tents.  I had a cream for Jan’s rash.  The jackals stole it out of the tent.  Once again we went in wagons to the port. 

 

We sailed on the Indian Ocean, with a bad storm, for three days.  Many people were seasick as the storm rocked the ship and the water poured in one end of the ship and out the other.  It was terrible.  People vomited. The hospital was full and there is no one to help.  A few ladies and I offered to work at the ship’s hospital.  We changed beds and helped with whatever was needed.  We did not get sick because we had some pills that they gave us.  How long we traveled, I don’t remember.

 

We came to Rhodesia, South Africa, to a Polish settlement at Rusape.  Civilians ran it, not military.  The army stayed in Tehran.  Everyone said, “Now we will have a rest.” 

 

There were 300 people in the settlement.  In a few months, another transport arrived with 300 more people.  Now we were 600.  There came a few Jews with Polish names.  After some time, it was announced if anyone wants to go to Palestine that they could maybe get an airplane and leave.  That is what happened.  The Jews probably had families in Palestine.

 

The settlement at Rusape was not bad.  We all had something to do.  Some worked in the kitchens, cleaned washrooms, or worked in the hospital. We even made hats from a weed that came from the sea.  There were also a few cows, pigs, chickens, and geese.  The children went to a Polish school.  There was also a separate kitchen for the teachers, the commander of the camp, and an Englishman, about 20 in all.  There were a few nurses, and a doctor.  He drove a few women to their graves. 

 

A young mother had three children.  She could not work because of varicose veins.  She went into surgery and died.  She left three orphaned children.  A lady who taught secondary school took care of the children. 

 

I worked where the “more well to do” were.  I was a barmaid.  Another lady cooked and another cleaned and washed the dishes.  I served at the tables and laundered the serviettes.  I got tired of this and left the job.  The colonel, an older gentleman of 70 years, who ran this camp needed someone to milk the cows.  He wanted someone to teach the young how to milk the cows and work in the garden.  I taught them how to do these things and the colonel paid me for this.  I worked after hours making hats.  We were paid 2 shillings per hat.  They sold them for eight shillings.  This went on for four years at Rusape.

 

After four years we were moved to a camp at Gatoma.  They took the cows and sold them to the English.  The chickens and ducks were slaughtered for meat. In Gatoma, there were a lot of us because they joined two camps.  The other camp was called Narandelas.  Altogether, there were 1,500 people.  We were here almost a year.  I do not remember, exactly.

 

The colonel here was English.  He told us that the king and his family would be passing near the camp because there was a railway nearby.  The school children went ahead to greet the king and his family.  The rest of us went after the children.  We knew the hour that the king was to arrive.  The children had bread and salt and a bouquet to greet the royals.  We were all there to see the royal family.  They arrived in a grand train, moving very slowly.  In the window, there stood the king.  In another window, the queen and her daughters were standing.  The Queen was single but engaged to be married.

 

Soon after this, we got word that our families would be reunited in England.  We departed on a very large Italian ship that carried about 2,000 people.  We traveled for about a month to reach Egypt.  When we arrived, the ship could not reach shore because the water was too shallow.  We got to shore on a barge.  We traveled in army vehicles to a temporary camp.  We stayed in tents.  At night it snowed.  The snow was gone by the following day.  We were in Egypt for one week.  We were transported to Alexandria and there we boarded army wagons, which took us by the Suez Canal. 

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In the Alexandria port, we stayed only a few hours.  Then we board a French ship called Franconia. It was a very nice, clean ship.  The dining hall has mirrors all around and tables for four.  Everyone had a number for a table.  We sailed by Gibraltar and we saw the Gibraltar Mountains through the little windows. Gibraltar is where we lost our guardian, the one who saved us from a death by hunger, General Sikorski.  After his tragic death, his position of Chief of Staff of the Polish Army was taken over by General Anders.

 

We reach the port of Liverpool, England.  They took us, by train, to Sussex.  We stayed in a large building for one day.  The next day they took us to a camp at Chiltington.  It snowed and it was cold.  We lived in Nissan huts.  They looked like barrels that were cut in half.  They each housed three families.  There was a stove in the middle, for heating, but there was no fuel.  We gathered wood in the forests and they gave us some coal.  We had our meals in the army kitchen.  Life was not too bad in the barrel.  We were here only a week.

 

I was in England from March to July 1948.  My husband worked in a brick factory.  He would come home on Saturday evenings after work. 

 

In July 1948, we left for Canada.  We arrived July 19th in Davis, Saskatchewan.  At the train station, our nephew, Jozef, met us with a little truck.  At his farm, my brother Wojciech and his wife welcomed us very kindly.  We were very happy and maybe our vagabond days are over.

 

My husband went to work at a neighbor’s farm.  The harvest was just beginning. We had a small home for the three of us. I worked around the yard.  Jan went to school.   In the fall, we found work at a farm that had a lot of cattle.  I helped milk the cows.  It was hard work.  Our hands ached.  On December 17th, I had a son, Wladyslaw.  We spent one year here.

 

The next year, we went to live at my brother Wojciech’s place until we found new work.  We got work at a farm four kilometers outside the village.  The farmer lived in the village and we lived in the farmhouse.  The farmer was French, so I could communicate with him.  We were there for three years.  I raised chickens and ducks.  The farmer let us milk a few cows.  Our life was almost ours.  We saved $5,000 over this time.  This farmer got sick and had to sell his farm.  We had to leave because the new owner did not require a helper.  Thus, we went back to my brother’s farm for the winter.

 

My husband, Blazej, and son, Jan, went to the forests to work.  Wladyslaw and I stayed at brother’s home.  At the beginning of March, Blazej and Jan returned from the forest.  Nearby, there was a farm for sale.  We bought this farm for $5,050.  There was an old, two-story home on the property.  It was a cold house but we were happy that it was our own place.

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The first year, we rented out the house because we had no equipment for the farm.  Blazej got a job in town.  He walked 7 kilometers, along the railroad track, to get to work.  Slowly, we got started.  At first it was hard.  In May, we had a third son, Rajmond.  We moved into the house at the farm.

 

The boys grew up and went to school.  They walked two kilometers to the school because we didn’t have a car.  We were without a car for ten years.  We purchased a truck in 1958.  So, this was good.

 

In 1962, we built a barn.  In 1963, we built a new house.  We had no money saved, so we borrowed it from the bank.  Every year we saved a little and it went to the bank.  We had one quarter of land.  Then, Blazej rented another quarter.  A few years later that property went up for sale.  We bought it and now we have two quarters (129 hectares).  When the boys grew up, we had it better.  They helped in the fields.

 

We are both old.  Blazej was 87 on February 1, 1992.  I will be 77 on April 29.  We live alone, but on the same property as Rajmond, who took over the farm.  Jan lives in Calgary.  Wladyslaw works in town. The boys are married now and we have five grandchildren. So, life is good.

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Zofia Chriscicka-Iskra

 

 

Note:  Blazej Iskra died in 1993 at the age of 87 years.  Zofia Chriscicka-Iskra died in 1998 at the age of 82 years.  They are buried at the Prince Albert Memorial Gardens. The family still lives in Saskatchewan.

 

 

 

Copyright: Iskra family

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