蜜芽传媒

Chapter 2

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From Ahvaz we were transported to India, outside Karachi (now Islamabad part of Pakistan), and again housed in transit tents where we stayed for some six months. Hygenic conditions were much improved. Shower cubicles were erected in the open air, and, as it was very hot, I luxuriated in taking many showers a day. Mother became very ill and was taken fron me to a hospital in Karachi.

In 1943 we were shipped, through the Indian Ocean, to South East Africa arriving in Port Mombassa. During this voyage we were hit by a big storm. I remember a lot of people were crowded in a huge cabin, somewhere in the bowels of the ship, but as the storm pounded, portholes were broken and water started pouring in. Everybody was evacuated to the higher decks, but mother and I were overlooked. My mother still weak, and suffering very badly from
sea-sickness she could not stand up and walk. I did not have enough strength to support her and drag her along, and I could not leave her on her own. Mattresses and everything else were floating on the water and we honestly thought we were going to drown. Mother managed to raise her voice and kept calling for help. Eventually a steward did arrive and half carried mother with me following them.

On arriving in Mombassa, we were loaded onto barges and taken down several waterways, and then by road, ending up in Masindi, not far from lake Albert, some distance from Kampala, in Uganda. The journey on open barges, loaded with what little baggage we had, was, for me, very frightening as the waters were infested with crocodiles. Near Masindi large camps were specially built to accommodate the Polish civilians. We were housed in mud huts, divided into small compartments for each family. The sites for these camps, and many other throughout South East Africa, were chosen by representatives of the Polish Government in London, and we were to stay there until the end of the war.

When we first arrived, and before acclimatising, we were attacked by all manner of insects. Chigoes (tropical flea burrowing into skin) were especially nasty. These insects would burrow into our skins around toe nails and lay their eggs there. Those spots would become very itchy, and after a while grubs would develop inside the skin. They would then either crawl out, or be removed with a needle. I still have a deformed toe nail as a result. Other consequences were deep ulcers around feet and ankles. Very painful, and I became so badly afflicted with these, that I had to be taken to a hospital for treatment. I still have scars to show for it. We also went down with malaria and other diseases. Even after all these years, from time to time, I still have malaria attacks

There were about seven camps in all, housing about 5,000 people mostly women and children. In the middle of each camp a water pump was built, with four streets in geometrical order leading into opposite direction from the pump. As it happened our mud hut was right at the end of the street, going up hill, so it was quite hard work carrying buckets of water to our place.

As Polish Authorities in London were very anxious to establish education facilities for children of school age, very quickly schools were set up and cultural life begun to emerge. There were three primary schools, a grammar, two

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technical schools and one liceum (higher than grammar school, not quite the university level). Qualified teachers among the civilians were asked to apply for the jobs, others, suitably qualified, were sent in from the armed forces. The necessary educational materials were very rapidly printed in the Near East, and quickly despatched to wherever there were Polish civilian camps.

Looking back on it now, I must admit that the standard of education in those primitive conditions was very high. I started primary school rightaway in year three of a six-year primary school, and my teachers were so impressed with my progress, that when I reached year five, my Headmaster suggested that I should miss year six and do year five and year six in one year. That meant that I would attend year five from 08.30 鈥� 13.00 pm. and stay on for a few hours to study the year sixth course. After home-work that did not leave me much time for playing. However, I was doing fine, but my mother became concerned that I was under too much pressure and withdrew me. The Headmaster was disappointed and very upset. Of the three of us picked, one decided to stay the course and succeeded. I always regretted my mother鈥檚 decision

Other facilities, such as post office, cinema, shops, hospital were soon built and working, and we even built our own church ourselves, which I understand still stands there to this day. Naturally, there was no electricity in huts. We used parafin lamps.

After a while life settled down, and we stopped being attacked by insects, but there was always the danger of snakes crawling from under the bed. Many a times I got up in the morning and almost put my foot on one. As we had to have nets over our beds (because of mosquitoes) tucked under mattresses, we were safe from them in bed. Lions and other wild animals would invade camps during the night making terrible noises, which would make my skin crawl with fright. Rats were also ever present.

In time, our father traced us through the Red Cross as well as the rest of the family, and we were then in sporadic contact with each other. Naturally adults
followed the course of the war very eagerly, and so it was one day that mother received a telegram saying that my brother Alfons was presumed killed at the assault on Monte Cassino in Italy. She was besides herself with grief, but we later learned that he was so badly injured and showed no sign of life, that they took him for dead and transported him to a mortuary. A Polish priest who visited these mortuaries regularly, detected life in my brother, and had him taken back to a hospital where he recovered. He sustained 60% disablement.

Altogether we stayed 5 years in Uganda. They were happy years for me. I made
friends with whom I am still contact to this day. In time, in England, we were

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bridesmaids at each others鈥� weddings and godmothers to each others鈥� babies. While still in Uganda, I joined Girl Guides and enjoyed it very much. Among things we did, was going on camping expeditions during holidays. That proved very unlucky for me. We had to clear the jungle for our tents, dig up latrines, put up tents, set up cooking facilities, etc. and I was doing all this without any head cover, having lost my helmet. That was fatal and I went down with severe sun stroke. I was brought back to our camp and stayed quite a while in hospital mostly unconscious. At times it was touch and go. I never returned to Guiding.
Towards the end of our stay in Uganda, we experienced first stirrings of the terrorist 鈥淢au Mau鈥� movement. That was very frightening when crowds of natives would march through our camps armed with spears and chanting.

I must mention that after we made contact with father, he helped us enormously by sending us practically all of his army pay regularly. We could then purchase such provisions as we could, either from our shop, or from local nearby traders, mostly Asians.

The war ended in l945, and as all Polish Armed Forces on the Western Front fought under the auspices of the British Government, they were brought to the UK and accommodated in temporary camps all over England, Scotland and Wales. My father, together with a number of other soldiers, was directed to a German prisoners of war camp outside Broadway in the Cotswalds, called Springhill Hostel. But it was not until April, 1948 that mother and I were reunited with father after almost eight years of separation. On leaving our camp near Masindi, Uganda, we were taken by coaches to Kampala, from whence we travelled by train to Nairobi (having slept on the platform awaiting for a morning train), then on to Mombassa where we boarded a ship called 鈥淐aernavon Castle鈥� and via the Indian ocean, the Red Sea, Suez Canal the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, we docked at Southampton on 8th April, 1948.
From there we travelled to a transit camp in Daglingworth near Cirencester, and that is where father came to pick us up and take us to the Springhill Hostel. In time we were reunited with my brothers and sister.

In time the Armed Forces were demobilised 鈥� father ending up with 拢30. in his pocket and the clothes he stood in. He quickly found work on a nearby farm 鈥� being himself a farmer in Poland, and mother started work in a local fruit processing factory. I went back to school 鈥� a Polish boarding school, under the auspices of the Department of Education outside Cheltenham. After the Polish school I took up a secretarial course at a Cheltenham College. I lodged in Cheltenham during the week and spent week-ends with my parents at Springhill Hostel.

Father and mother debated for a long time where to settle permanently. We could not go back to Poland, which has become a satellite of the Soviet Union (as Russia was now known) and a communist regime was established in our

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Country. The regime regarded those who fought with the Allies as enemies of the State (at Moscow鈥檚 bidding), and so those who returned, almost all were arrested and deported back to the Soviet Union again. My father hated communism as much as nazism and could not contemplate going back under those circumstances. Besides, the eastern part of Poland where we come from was ceded to the Soviet Union by the three powers, i.e. United States (Roosevelt), Gt. Britain (Churchill), and the Soviet Union (Stalin), without any consultation with the Polish Government in exile. (NB 鈥� Stalin insisted that Polish servicemen were not to be invited to take part in the first Victory Parade to which the then Prime Minister of the UK, C.Attlee shamelessly and meakly agreed). So in time we bought houses and settled in the UK. In l952 I met Jan Kalicki (yes at a dance) and we married on 27th June, l953. His history is very much like mine, except that his family were sent to Archangel in the arctic circle, where they were made to work in forests felling trees waist deep in the snow.

To conclude, therefore, those of us who survived the Russian gulags can truly say that we have been to hell and back. In truth most of the time we were walking dead. I was too young (not quite 5 years old at the time of our arrest) to comprehend the enormity of it all 鈥� the inhuman conditions under which we lived, the starvation, malnutrition, diseases, unbelievable hygienic conditions, the utter despair of my parents who did not know where the next piece of bread was coming from, and above all the absolute degradation of human dignity. Perhaps that is why my parents were very reluctant to talk about it. I became aware of all this as I grew into adulthood. As I write, a thousand images keep flashing through my mind, but I am unable to put these in either chronological or territorial order. I know that at some point, after we moved to Uzbekistan, I was prepared and received my first communion, and then shortly afterwards 鈥攃onfirmation. But where and how these events took place I cannot recall. As I have already said, my parents did not want to talk very much about our ordeal in Russia. It was as if they wanted to blot it out of their minds completely. That is why my story is so sketchy.

During the war the western part of Poland was occupied by the Germans where Polish people endured terrible tortures, persecutions, on the spot executions, mass arrests and deportations to concentration camps. There was a hidden German agenda that the part of Poland under their occupation was to be reduced to slave labour.

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In all nearly 7 million Poles perished during the II World War 鈥� almost a fifth of the l939 population of Poland. It, therefore, saddens me greatly that when the word 鈥渉olocaust鈥� is mentioned, people always think of Jews. They suffered terribly, but so did people of other nations. Yet somehow this has never been recognised and acknowledged in the same way. Not powerful enough lobby.

Nowadays, when people experience any kind of traumatic event they go on and on about how it has changed their lives for ever, demand compensation and counselling. My parents, and millions like them, having gone through catastrophically tragic events 鈥� (twice First and Second World Wars), and having lost all their possessions, never complained, never asked for any hand-outs and counselling was unheard of. Having been forced to face the reality of life, they just got on with it.

So, this is my story, or as much as I can recall. At the time of writing we have two children 鈥� daughter Bozena, and son Janusz and three grandchildren, for whose benefit this story has been written. We are happily settled in England and hold British passports, although we never rescinded our Polish nationality. Our parents are dead and are buried in this country, where we too will find our final resting place. In my heart, however, I have always remained a Pole and take great pride in being one. I hope that our grandchildren will share this pride 鈥� they are, after all, half Polish.

HELENA ELZBIETA KALICKI.
1st March, 2004.

P.S. No words are adequate enough to describe the ordeal we went through. The over-riding feeling of hunger was so strong, that years and years later I hated to throw away even the tiniest crumb of food in case I needed it later.

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