Gallery – Interwar Borderlands

Mikolaj Chmielewski was born in Luck/Lutz 1891. He was a Geometrze with 7 years Gymnasium, wrote and spoke 5 languages, including Latin. Was given Crown Land after serving in the Czars Cavalry (Czars Imperial Army) during WWI, captured by Germans and escaped 1917, married Kamila Swiecicki in Plock, Poland 1918 and travelled to Zhitomirski Oblast, with entire wife’s’ family, her two sisters Jadwiga, Adela and their father (Lenarda Szymczak's great-grandfather Robert Swiecicki) who was a widower, with first daughter Cezaryna, Czesia born on the way 1919 and first son Kamilo born 1921 in a hole in the ground, covered with branches, until their log house was built from the forest, with second daughter (Lenarda's mother) Helena born in the newly built house 1924. This photo of Kamila Chmielewska z domu Swiecicki was a mandatory passport photo in 1936. This was after all their possessions were confiscated by Soviets and incorporated into Kolkhoz, Collective Farm, in Marchlewszczyzna / Failed Experiment. This was the beginning of the liquidation of the Polish People in the first wave of terror, THE GREAT TERROR. Her husband, Mikolaj Chmielewski taken by NKVD 17.12.37 and reported dead 1938.

Lenarda Szymczak

Before WWII

Russia