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1939 — II WORLD WAR — GERMANY AND RUSSIA INVADE POLAND.

MY STORY — AS REMEMBERED FROM THE DISTANCE OF

64 YEARS

Chapter 1

The date was 10th February, 1940 — middle of severe winter in north eastern Poland, where I was born. My family — father Adolf Miluk, mother Anna Miluk (nee Szpula), brothers Alfons and Gustaf, sister Nadzieja and I — Helena, were just sitting down to breakfast, when there was a loud and urgent knock on the front door. I remember my father was so starlted that he dropped the loaf of bread he was slicing. Following repeatedly impatient loud knocks and shouts to open up, my father opened the front door when a group of Russian solders, with bayonets fixed to their rifles, burst in, ordered “arms up”, rounded us up and stood us against a wall with rifles pointing at us and searched us for weapons. Yes, even me — a child of under 5 years old. Other solders rushed through the house looking for hidden arms. By then we were very frightened and crying uncontrollably — my father white as a sheet. News spread like wildfire through the village, and almost everybody gathered outside our house.

Not finding any arms, the soldiers then gave us a very short time to pack what we could, arrested the whole family, put us on their sleighs and took us to the nearest railway station. Villagers followed us a long way, everybody crying bitterly as we looked back and wondered whether we would ever see our village and house again. We never did.

Having arrived at the railway station, we were brutally bundled into waiting cattle trucks, fitted out with wooden shelves/bunks in order to pack in as many people as possible, some 50 — 70 people in one truck.

To understand why my family, the only one from the whole village, were arrested, I must go back to the year l918-20 when, after the First World War, Poland regained its independence after some 123 years of being partitioned between Russia, Prussia and Austria. However, my country was still being threatened and attacked by Russia, and, faced with this renewed danger, the Head of Polish Armed Forces, Marshal Josef Pilsudski, appealed for volunteers to fight against this new aggression.My father, then 16 years old, volunteered. A decisive battle was fought on the banks of river Vistula, just outside Warsaw, when, despite being overwhelmingly outnumbered, the Polish forces completely routed and destroyed the Russian army. This was in August 1920, and ever since
then this event — called by the Poles “Miracle on the Vistula” — is celebrated each
year by Poles (wherever they are). In recognition of my father volunteering, as

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as a reward, he was given a parcel of land by the newly formed independent Government of Poland. People who were thus rewarded were called “Osadniki” which means “Settlers” on the new land given to them. And that is why my father was marked down for arrest and deportation to hard labour gulags (forced labour camps) in Russia, as he was considered to be a danger to the Russian nation and as a punishment for his volunteering.

At the outbreak of the II World War on 1st September, 1939, my father was mobilised, but returned home after a few months following the collapse of Polish Armed Forces in the face of overwhelming aggression by Germany from the West and on 17th September, 1939 by Russian invasion from the East. He was aware that he might be arrested, so he took to hiding in various places, hardly ever sleeping at home. As “luck” would have it, he was at home when the Russian soldiers burst in, which was just as well, because they would have arrested the rest of us anyway, and we would not have had him with us to take care of us.

On the date of 10th February, 1940, some 218,000 people were forcefully deported from Eastern Poland, and with further deportations during the year, this figure rose to almost 2,000,000.

As I mentioned previously,we were then crowded into almost unheated cattle trucks, and started our journey into the depths of Russia, which lasted about three weeks, as on occasions were shunted backwards and forwards, and during the course of which, a great number of people died either from exhaustion or were lost in transit. The journey was an inhuman nightmare. Because we were travelling in animal trucks, there were hardly any sanitary provisions. Just one hole in the floor for toiletary purposes. That in itself was monstrously hideous, exposing children, women and men to perform their private bodily functions openly. The stench was terrible. We were treated like animals. There was one circular cast iron stove in the middle, which did not supply anywhere near the required degree of warmth. And remember we were travelling at the height of winter.

There was no supply of water either for drinking or washing. Now and then the train would stop, and so during those stops, those who managed to pack kettles or pots, would gather snow into these containers, start up a fire, suspend these containers on hastily prepared stands to boil the resultant melting snow, which would then be used for drinking or for washing needs. During those three weeks of meandering through Russia, it was well nigh impossible to have a proper wash. The train driver never gave notice of moving off, he simply started off, when people frantically climbed on board snatching their pots at the same time. Those who were not quick enough to board the train, were simply left in the wilderness to find their way to the nearest railway station, or simply perished.

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Luckily, my mother managed to pack enough cooked food, which, with careful rationing, just about lasted long enough till we reached our destination. She would share some of our food with those who were not so lucky. The train would, from time to time, also stop at stations for coke provisions, where hot water (kipiatok) could be obtained, together with some provisions. However, this was fraught with danger of being left behind. I remember it was so cold, that my mother’s hair froze to the side of the carriage, and I caught a bad chill and infection in my left ear which resulted in a perforation of my eardrum. This was only corrected when I was in my middle 60’s. My lungs were also affected, a condition which has dogged me all my life. On one occasion when there was actually fire burning in the cast iron stove, the train moved off with such a sudden jerk, that I, standing next to it, put my hand on the hot pipe leading into the roof of the truck to steady myself, badly burning my hand.

I do not remember the names of towns we went through, but at some point we crossed southern Ural mountains into the southern Asian Russia, the beginning of Syberia. We were brought into a region called Czelabinskaja Oblosc to a place called Czepajewka posiolek — hard labour camp. Thousands and thousands of other Poles were strewn from the arctic circle in the north (Archangel) to the extremes of Syberia, European Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kirgystan, and other places, and set to work, in appalling conditions, felling forest trees, transporting and working timber, or, as my father, working in mines. The NKVD (Russian Secret Police) had the overall command of these gulags, run by a mostly brutal local administator. Families housed in communal barracks had to endure undescribable living conditions, when people were dying every day from a variety of causes.

It must be said, that ordinary Russians were, on the whole, friendly and very sympathetic to our plight, but they had to be very discreet about it.

As I have already said, my father was made to work in mines, mining mainly malachite where, on one occasion, he sustained a bad accident. While drilling in
one chamber, the ceiling collapsed on him. He was rescued by his co-workers who dug him out with their bare hands. My mother, elder brother and sister were made to work on the surface of the mines, and my brother Gustaf and I, being the youngest two, were forced to attend Russian school, where indoctrination procedure was put in hand. Young as I was, in my mind I resisted.

The over-riding feeling was that of perpetual hunger and fear. At times I was forced to chew on some bark of a tree in order to put something in my stomach.
Malnutrition was evident everywhere. It became so bad that I, owing to lack of any vitamins so essential at that time of my life, partly lost my sight and was unable to see in the dusk. From the meagre money that my family were paid, we

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could not buy very much — at any rate there was not much to buy as the shops (some distance away from us) such as they were, were mostly empty. Most of the time we survived on one slice of black bread a day. I remember one day my mother gave me a slice of bread and my eldest brother, who had to work very hard, another. Young as I was, and hungry as I was, I realised that he needed more than I, so I gave him my portion saying that I have already had my ration. I watched him eat, silent tears streaming down his face.

There are certain moments in one’s life that stay in one’s mind forever. For some reason that I cannot explain the sight of my brother’s face awash with tears has always stayed in my memory.

To say that hygienic conditions of our living quarters were less than primitive is to make a gross overstatement. They were so bad that we were continually covered in lice and bedbugs. One day I saw my father’s shirt lying on the floor actually move with crawling lice. (And that is another moment that has always stayed with me). Perhaps that is why (in adulthood), much to the annoyance of our children, I developed an absolute phobia for neatness and tidiness.

People were dying like flies. This was due to the inhuman condition in which we lived — severe frost, hunger, fear, lack of any medical attention and hard work — causing all kinds of illnesses. On top of not being able to see in the dusk, I suffered from eye infection, which caused swelling of my eyelids and heavy yellow discharge. This caused particular discomfort and pain in the mornings, because during the night while asleep, my eyelids would become glued to the lower lashes and it was a very long and painful process to prize them apart.

Hope came in July, 1941. Due to Germany attacking Russia on 22nd June, l941, a Polish-Russian treaty was signed with the exiled Polish Government in London, and a decree of “amnesty” was issued, allowing for the formation of Polish army on Russian territory with the recruiting point at Buzuluk, in the southern European Russia. Thousands of Poles took advantage of this, although not all managed to get out, because news did not reach them in time, before Stalin stoped it.

We were moved further south to Kazakhstan and accommodated in a small mud hut with another Polish family. Twelve people in total shared one small room. Again with only a cast iron round stove in the middle. Fuel for this was cows’ dried dung which we collected from fields. Because of heavy rainfall we were in constant fear of the hut collapsing around us (which in fact happened the day after we moved out). My father, brother Alfons and sister joined the newly forming military units and my mother was enlisted into women’s auxiliary force. My brother Gustaf and I were herded into what became known as

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“orphanages”, separating boys from girls. Thus we all became separated from each other, and I remember crying myself to sleep every night, as it was the first time in my life that I was apart from my mother and the rest of the family.

In an effort to improve hygienic conditions in the newly formed “orphanages”, our heads were shaved and we were de-liced in some solution. Nevertheless, red and common disentery raged. My brother Alfons, I later learned, went down with typhus, and my mother, who was then near his unit, nursed him to health. The death rate rose even higher than in the gulags. I was just a skeleton, simply skin and bones, and I lost touch with my family for quite a while. Somehow, at some point, my brother Gustaf found me and brought me a piece of bread (his ration for the day I later learned).

Some months later we the “orphans” and civilians were moved to Uzbekistan to a place called Guzar. It was here that I went down with severe dysentery and it was here that dead bodies were found in water wells. Mother’s unit was also moved to this part, she found me, and it was she who, by some miracle, cured me of dysentery. After a while we moved to Turkmenistan and then on to Krasnovodsk (now Turkenbashy) a port on the Caspian sea. There we boarded a ship where we were exposed to more appalling conditions. The ship was small and we were squizzed practically like sardines. Sanitary conditions again were almost non-existent. There were only four toilet facilities on board, so with people and children suffering from dysentery and other stomach disorders, it simply was impossible for everybody to avail themselves of toilet facilities. Some children were so weak that they could not get up and queue for the toilet. The resultant stench was horrendous. My eyes condition made things so much worse for me — and it was thus that I awoke next morning to find a body on top of me.

I cannot remember how long it took us to reach port Pahlavi in Persia (now Iran). We, the children, were formed into groups, each group had an adult looking after it. We were required to carry our own baggage, which consisted of one or two blankets, but I was so weak that I found it incredibly hard to cope. As a result, I fell further and further behind our group walking to the nearest tent shelter, and I don’t know what would have happened to me if my mother had not found me. As she was attached to the military, her unit went ahead of us, but she knew that children were being shipped in, so she looked out for every ship arriving in order to find me. This she did, and being very cross with my guardian, soundly told her off.

After settling me in, which was on a blanket spread on the sand inside a tent, she had to return to her unit. A short while later, we boarded buses and were driven
high up through Elburz Mountains, at break-neck speed (drivers often being drunk) through hairpin bends to Teheran. There were a lot of accidents, where
buses unable to take a bend simply rolled into the ravine below. I was always

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terrified of heights, so it was a nightmare journey for me. In the end unable to bear it any longer, I crawled on to the floor of the bus and stayed there until we miraculously reached Teheran. There we were accommodated in tents (after undergoing more disinfecting procedures when my eyes condition improved considerably), and as the stay prolonged, the Polish authorities in London organised schooling. That is where I went to Polish “school” for the first time in my life. Lessons were held in the open air.

Meantime, my mother, who by then was also in Teheran, found my brother Gustaf and me, and asked to be released from the women’s service in order to be with us. Her request was granted. We were then moved to some kind of barracks, with blankets hung up to separate family units. It was then that mother herself became very ill, and my brother and I had to struggle very hard to get her to the nearest hospital. I do not recall why we did not get any help from anybody.

The Polish soldiers, after evacuating from Russia to Persia (now Iran) and undergoing health rehabilitation following their ordeal in the Russian camps, entered the war in the West fighting alongisde the Allies on all fronts — land,
sea and air. And so it was that my sister Nadzieja (NB — the name means Hope) became a nurse helping to look after the sick and then wounded as she became part of the 2nd Polish Corps under General Anders. My brother Alfons also became a soldier in the 2nd Corps and fought in the North African campaign, and then the Italian campaign, taking part in the assault on Monte Cassino. My father, after joining the Polish Army in Russia, was shipped round South Africa to Dalkeith in Scotland, where the 1st Polish Armoured Division was formed under General Maczek, and fought in the Continental campaign. He was wounded in Germany. My brother Gustaf joined newly forming cadets in Teheran, and was transferred to Palestine and then Egypt. At this time, then, we were scattered over three continents and it took a long time, through the Red Cross, before we made contact with each other.

In due course, my mother and I, along with thousands of other children and their mothers, were moved to Ahvaz on the Persian Gulf. Whilst waiting for a boat to take us to India, we were housed in horse stables.

Continued in Chapter 2

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