Soviet Mass Deportations – February 1940

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The February deportation covered mainly the Polish population. Military settlers (mostly former participants in the 1920 war) and forest service were sent there, as well as refugees from Russia after the civil war and the Bolshevik takeover of power. Numerous peasant families who received land as part of the parcelling of estates or purchased it for money and had nothing to do with the settlement policy of the Polish government were also treated as settlers. Among the deportees there was a small percentage of the Belarusian and Ukrainian population, mainly due to the fact that men – “heads of families” – served in forest management: forester, forest guard, etc. According to data from June 1941, Poles in the above-mentioned group accounted for 81.68%, Ukrainians 8.76%, Belarusians 8.08%, Germans 0.11%, others 1.37%.

The deported population was distributed in 115 special settlements, in Komi ASSR, in the northern districts of the Russian Federative SSR: Arkhangelsk, Chelyabinsk, Chkalov, Gorkiv, Irkutsk, Ivanovo, Yaroslavl, Kirov, Molotov, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Sverdlovsk and Vologda, in the Yakut and Bashkir ASSR and Krasnoyarsk and Altai Krai. The largest number of people were placed in the Komi ASSR (2,191 families), Vologda Oblast (1,586 families), Molotov Oblast (1,773 families), Sverdlovsk Oblast (2,809 families), Omsk Oblast (1,422 families), Arkhangelsk Oblast (8,084 families) and Irkutsk Oblast ( 2,114 families) and in Krasnoyarsk and Altai Krai (3,279 and 1,250 families, respectively). There were no less than 58,000 children under the age of 16, i.e. almost half of them. The displaced contingent was defined in the terminology of the NKVD as spiecpieriesielency-settlers.

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Michalina Ziubrzyńska, deported from Kolonia Pustomycka in the province of Lviv:

After the Stalinist army entered, after five months, on February 10, 1940, in the morning, they surrounded our buildings. They entered the house armed, one Russian captain shouted to his father: “Hands up!” They searched my father, but he had nothing on him. They read the whole family. The two oldest brothers were not at home, one was at their uncle’s, the other ran away when he noticed the army entering our yard on a sleigh. We were all ordered to get dressed and get on one sleigh. Mom had to tell where and with whom the eldest son is. The house was locked up and we were taken to one big house where the most well-to-do, like us, were already there.

When they drove everyone to this house, they began to load us on sleighs and drove us to the railway and freight station. I look – there are freight cars with fireplaces and I thought that we will be loaded there. We enter the car, there is an iron stove in the middle of the car, half the car is occupied by shelves made of boards, a hole has been cut in one of the walls of the car, a piece of plank sticking out… I didn’t realize what it was for.

When the whole car was loaded, the doors were slid shut. I heard our carriage locked. There were a lot of these wagons. After a while, the door opens – they brought my eldest brother. One military man asks mum if this is the son, when mum said yes, they threw him into the wagon and locked him up again. In about an hour, both of our aunts collected bread from all the neighbors and brought us a whole big sack to the wagon.

In the evening the train started. Winter, frost, the wheels creak, you can’t say a word or sit still, you can’t sleep because of the grinding of the wheels and the cold. We didn’t know where they were taking us. We found out when on the Ruthenian border [on the supposed Polish-Soviet border] they reloaded us into Ruthenian wagons [with a wide wheelbase], the so-called pullmans, where the device was like in the previous wagons, only there were 176 of us.

They took us to our destination for two months. The wagons had cattle windows, barred. They had designated stations where we received a little bit of the so-called. chai – hot tea, bread. At one station – I remember – they gave us frozen potatoes ground with some smelly oil. And as we were starving, no one could eat it. Lice, dirt, we were thirsty for water.

Once they brought us in, I realized that we were at a large station called Sverdlovsk. They herded us into a large barrack, gave us hot tea, bricks of bread; I haven’t seen another. I went out into the yard, saw a line of waiting trucks. They immediately loaded us into these cars, they drove us for a long time, then they loaded us from the cars onto horse-drawn sleighs and we drove all day, and we saw nothing but huge forests, snow and frost.

Pustomycka Colony; Sverdlovsk region, Russian SFSR, February 1940

Source: Memoirs of Sybiraków vol.2, Warsaw 1990

Maria Zielińska-Kwiatkowska, deported from the vicinity of Mokran in the province of Polesian:

On the frosty (-30 0 C) early morning of February 10, 1940, several men with guns at the ready entered our house. If I recall, there were four of them: an NKVD officer, a soldier, and two locals with armbands. I was stunned with horror. The following was read out: “Pereselajem you in Rosiju”, a search was carried out and an order was made to prepare to leave the house at the appointed time.

Soon, two horse-drawn carriages arrived, on which we were to load. The officer turned out to be quite a human being. He told the mother to milk the cow and feed the children, telling the frightened and confused woman what to take, what we would need. The road to the railway station (I think Porzerzyn) was quite long, about 20 km. The frost was bitter. We were in a relatively good situation, because we covered ourselves with quilts. This officer was running behind the sleigh, reminding us to cover ourselves and cover us himself. Our mother, terrified of the fate that had befallen us and the unknown that was still waiting, sat indifferent and numb to the cold and admonitions to dress warmer. She asked about her father – she received the answer: “We will give you your husband.” After arriving at the railway station, we loaded ourselves into freight cars “adapted” to transport “living goods”. There were family bunks made of planks. We got a place on the top bunk, by the entrance. The transport was guarded by armed escorts. There was a stove in the Pullman wagon, which eased the chill a bit. [When we set off] everyone looked with fear and curiosity in which direction they were taking us. The train was rushing inexorably to the East.

Mokran area, February 1940

Source: Memoirs of Sybiraków vol.2, Warsaw 1990

Eugenia Rutkowska-Wiśniewska, deported from the military settlement of Czerwiszcze in the province of Polesian:

It was on the night of February 10, 1940 in Polesie. The frost at that time was forty degrees. There were seven of us with my parents, my mother was pregnant […].

At night, local Ukrainians arrived […], we had to pack within half an hour, we were allowed to take things up to 30 kilograms in weight. We took bedding and our modest clothes. We got on the sleigh and they took us to the commune in Pniewo, 16 km away. People had frostbitten ears, hands, legs, some went mad, screamed, screamed at the top of their voices. I remember that one young woman was staying with her parents, and her two small children and her husband stayed at home. She ran barefoot, and the frost was forty degrees. They caught her, water was dripping from her feet, she was screaming terribly. I don’t know if she survived, they didn’t want to let her go, they were watching us. The Russian soldiers had no mercy on us, worse than the Germans. They didn’t want to let this woman go because she was the daughter of a gamekeeper, and a Ukrainian at that. From Pniewo, by narrow-gauge railway, they took us standing up, stuffed like herrings in a barrel, to Kamień Koszyrski. They loaded us into freight cars, it was terribly cold. Four families were loaded into one wagon. In this way, they deported the entire military settlement of Czerwiszcze – about 30 families.

In the wagons there were already bunk bunks made of planks, so that some were downstairs and others were upstairs; in the center was an iron stove. Our fathers were on duty and we had to smoke all the time so as not to freeze to the bone and to cook something to live. We cooked together for four families to take turns. There was also a drainpipe.

They drove us at night so that we wouldn’t see where they were taking us. We stood on side tracks for days. They let out two men, assisted by the NKVD, for wood and water, sometimes they gave four people a loaf of bread. And so they brought us to Arkhangelsk on the left bank of the Dvina.

Czerwiszcze, Pniewo, Kamień Koszyrski; Arkhangelsk, Russian SFSR, February 1940

Source: Memoirs of Sybiraków vol.2, Warsaw 1989

Teresa Gwiazda-Dłuska, deported from Sarny in the province of Volyn:

On the night of February 10, militiamen burst into our apartment and read a formula that “pursuant to the decision of the Supreme Council, we are resettled to another region [district-province of the USSR]”. We were left with 20 minutes to wake up, dress the children and pack the most necessary things. We hurriedly packed everything into bags. Nerves and haste precluded any systematicity, as well as consideration of the usefulness of various items. During the journey, several bags were stolen, as a result, we had numerous mismatched shoes, lids without pots, etc. Packed things and children were loaded onto wagons and taken to the railway siding, where a whole line of similar wagons was already standing, from which children were crying and wailing women.

Freight wagons began to be systematically filled. It was the first great deportation [from Kresy]. The loading of the wagons lasted until the morning. In the morning the whole transport was ready to go, all cars sealed and full of people. Eight families were loaded into our wagon (two for each of the four bunks), a total of over 40 people. There was an iron stove in the center of the car, and a hole had been cut in the side to serve as a toilet. The youngest passenger was our Janusz. Bathing Janusz, as well as washing and drying diapers, was a real feat throughout the journey and almost an acrobatics in which many fellow travelers participated.

The news of the night deportation spread quickly thanks to the Polish railwaymen, who had notes thrown out of the windows. In the morning, many people tried to reach the transport and give various things – mostly food – to their relatives and friends. The militiamen defended access to the wagons, but some managed to tie the packages they had brought to the strings dropped through the small windows. In the same way, we also received a few loaves of bread from Uncle Józef. This bread helped us survive the two-week journey. For almost the whole day, the transport stood at the siding, and a large group of militiamen fought with people getting into the windows of the wagons. We left at dusk. Prayers, tears, church and patriotic songs were heard from all the cars.

Deer, February 1940

Source: Memoirs of Sybiraków vol.1, Warsaw 1989

Teresa Gwiazda-Dłuska, deported from Sarny in the province of Volyn:

The journey was very hard, [it took place] in biting frost, and coal was not always thrown at us at the stops. One day, for fear of freezing, people chopped up and burned two bunks. At the stops, two buckets of water were given per wagon once a day, and a bucket of soup and some bread were also given several times throughout the journey. Most often, we obtained water by lowering dishes on strings through the windows during stops; local workers and railway workers filled them with snow at our request. The wagons were locked from the outside and sealed, leaving them was impossible.

Stops were frequent and long, usually the train stopped somewhere on a siding or in the forest. Inspections (the so-called proof of documents) were often carried out at that time. It looked like this: several NKVD men entered the wagons, everyone, except for the car’s starost, was ordered to lie down, the NKVD soldier read out the surnames and first names, and the starost pointed out who these people were. For the first two days of our journey, we were listed several times on the basis of documents and “inspection” of each person. Another type of checks was the sudden entry into the wagon and the checking of one or two people, most often men. All these checks were very annoying; a dozen men were taken from their families and possibly imprisoned. […]

After the first shock related to the departure of the transport from Sarny, for the first few days, no one could believe in the very possibility of taking us deep into Russia. It was said that they were taking us to Moscow, where they would check our documents and return with us to Sarny. Others said that they just wanted to intimidate us, they would drive some and unload in Sarny. There was no end to such speculations. Thanks to them, everyone was cordial to each other, and those who managed to take a little more food shared it with the poorer ones, counting on a quick return home. As the journey lengthened, the landscape changed a lot, through the windows you could see first empty huge fields covered with snow, and then forests, forests, forests. The mood was more and more minor, at first quiet, and then the terrible word “Sibir” repeated louder and louder. Many times they tried to ask our guards where they were taking us. The answers were the same: “None of my business, “Don’t ask questions”, and finally the most human – “I don’t know”.

Ukrainian SRS, Russian SFRS, February 1940

Source: Memoirs of Sybiraków vol.1, Warsaw 1989

Ludwina Maśnica-Noculak, deported from the vicinity of Uhryńkowice in the province of Ternopil:

About 2-3 days before February 10, my father dreamed that the Russians came looking for weapons. In the morning, in consultation with his mother, secretly from the children, he went to the attic, where he had a rifle hidden, took it away from the house and buried it. When the NKVD came to take us on February 10, 1940, they took my father and went to the attic where the rifle was hidden, but they did not find him. They started a revision. At home there was my father’s trunk brought from the war, all covered with plaques. The Russian, throwing the contents out of it, found a bundle in which there were cartridges for the rifle. The NKVD man took one of them in his mouth and asked what it was. Dad said they were baby memorabilia from the first war. In this way, he saved his life, because they would have shot him for sure.

When they told mum to dress the children, and there were seven of us – the youngest brother was two years old – mum said that she didn’t have enough shoes. The Russian took a highlander’s handkerchief from the chest with a bayonet and ordered it to be wrapped around the children’s legs. Mom had spasms and threw herself on the ground with the youngest [child]. The Russian picked her up, saying that this must not be done, that he would put her in prison.

We were allowed to take food for three days, but they didn’t control it and you could take more because they were busy packing all the colony families. Father took flour and a sack of corncobs. Packing took about five hours.

Podolia, February 1940

Source: Memoirs of Sybiraków vol.8, Warsaw 1994

Edward Ziomek, deported from Kulawa in the province of Lviv:

On February 10, 1940, at two in the morning, someone knocked on our door. When my father opened it, we heard: “Hands up!”. We thought that our house had been attacked by bandits, because my father entered the room with his hands up. Two Russian soldiers and four Ukrainian militiamen followed the father. The father was placed in the corner of the room with his hands up. It was guarded by a soldier with a rifle at the ready. The rest carried out searches in the apartment and the cowshed. We were ordered to get dressed and told that we would go to Zhovkva. We were not allowed to take anything but clothes. Mum begged for milk for the children (the younger sisters were four and five years old) and bread, which was finally allowed by the officer.

With great tears from parents and siblings, we – parents and five children – were loaded onto a Ukrainian cart and taken to Żółkiew to the station, where we were put into freight cars. There were as many people as could be crammed in them. Our wagon had three-story bunks, wired with barbed wire and tightly closed windows. There was a hole in the middle of the wagon where you could do your necessities.

Despite the very harsh winter, the wagon was not heated. In the evening the train started. We drove without knowing where. The train stopped only for water and coal, and only at freight stations. After five or six days of driving at one of the stations, we were given hot water for the first time, and an iron stove and a bucket of coal were put in. We were told that we were going deep into Russia.

The train was very long, it was pulled by two locomotives. There were many such trains. At the stations we met transports with people going in the same direction as us. When we were approaching the Urals, we were already getting a loaf of bread for the family once a day and a bucket of hot water for the whole car. People got sick and died. The dead rode with us for a few more days. Sometimes soldiers would come and throw out the dead, and the train would go on. The families of the deceased never found out where they could look for the graves of their relatives.

 

Kulava, Zhovkva; Russian SFRS, February 1940

Source: Memoirs of Sybiraków vol.8, Warsaw 1994

Jadwiga Bortnik-Pytlarzowa, deported from the village of Horodziec in the province of Volyn:

On the night of February 10, I woke up from a terrible dream. I dreamed that our house was on fire. We were awakened by pounding on doors and windows. Two uniformed and armed men and several civilians entered the house. There were two pairs of sleighs in front of the house. We were told to dress quickly and stand together because they wanted to talk to us. The composition of our family was read, except for me. Since father was not there, they said they would find him and join us. Then the verdict was read out to us: “We are resettling you to another oblast [a district-province of the USSR] as a politically harmful element.”

We were told to pack immediately, giving us 20 minutes to do so. We rushed to grab what we could. We were so scared that we didn’t really know what to take on such a trip. The militia recommended taking as much food as possible because, as they said, “You’ll have a long journey, so make sure you don’t starve to death.” One of the militiamen advised me to tear off the curtains from the doors and curtains from the windows – they will be useful to wrap my legs against the frost, because I won’t last long in such shoes. Marysia wanted to take her favorite dog Szkandryk with her, she held him in her arms and cried. The policeman snatched the dog from her and kicked it in the corner.

We were taken from the village of Horodziec, Antonówka commune, Sarny district, province. Wołyńskie [until 1930 – Voivodeship Polesie]. We took a sleigh to Antonówka about six kilometers from our house. It was already dawn. As we drove through the village, the peasants bade us farewell. Some pitied us, others shouted something.

The frost reached 30 degrees and it was snowing. In Antonówka, we were accommodated in the commune building. Many families have already arrived before us. I met families of gamekeepers and several military settlers from the area. The militia who were guarding us ordered everyone to sit on their luggage. It was not allowed to move. Anyone who stood up was approached by a soldier with a rifle and forced to sit down. When the sisters went to the toilet, they were escorted by a militiaman with a gun. The rooms were getting more and more crowded, people were coming.

Since my feet were very cold, I started to walk. Then a guard came up to me and, pointing his rifle at me, shouted for me to sit down. I said I was very cold and I would walk. Since he couldn’t handle me, he called an NKVD officer who took me to his office. He asked me for my name, and started checking the lists. After a while, almost screaming, he says: “What are you doing here, you’re not on the lists, go home so I don’t see you here again.” He said he’d give me a cart to take me back. Mom told me to go, take advantage of the opportunity, take the necessary things from home and come back. I received a sleigh, a coachman and went. At home, the village commission and the militia were already in office, dividing our possessions. […]

Throughout the day and night of February 10 and 11, 1940, we crowded into the commune’s rooms on our bundles. The atmosphere was indescribable. Crying of children, mothers, shouting outside the windows of deported family members who came to say goodbye to their loved ones on this tragic journey. Constant interventions of the militia against people who did not want to comply with their recommendations and bringing more and more people resulted in an indescribable situation.

Horodziec, Antonówka, February 10-11, 1940

Source: Memoirs of Sybiraków vol.8, Warsaw 1994

Jadwiga Bortnik-Pytlarzowa, deported from the village of Horodziec in the province of Volyn:

In the afternoon of February 11, a train was provided and we were escorted by the militia and army from the commune building to wagons prepared to transport people. Two-story bunks, a stove in the middle, and a hole in the floor that was supposed to be a toilet. We were told to load up with families. By evening we were ready to leave. The militia surrounded the wagons and no one was allowed in. From Antonówka, five or six wagons, each containing about 60 people, left in a transport. Other wagons were attached in Sarny.

We stood at the station in Sarny all day on February 12. Here the NKVD brought my father to our wagon. He was very haggard and hungry. He was arrested and imprisoned in Brest.

On February 13, in the afternoon, we crossed the [former] Polish-Soviet border in Ostki. Now everyone knew where fate was leading us and in which direction we were going.

The wagons were tightly locked. Small barred windows. Snow outside and frost up to 30 degrees. The small stove could not heat the wagon. It was very cold in the car, despite the crowds and stuffiness. The men were putting blankets and planks together to create a screen over the toilet hole, which allowed for more discreet bowel movements, and it was a little warmer, it wasn’t blowing so much from that hole in the floor. At some stations, the escorts released several men from each car so that they could, under escort, load coal, wood and “kipiatok” [hot water]. After two days, we were given soup and a piece of bread once a day. They were also ordered to make a list of children under three years old, who were given a few decagrams of sugar each. […]

A family of military settlers, Mr. and Mrs. Dzięcioł, rode in our wagon. It was a married couple with four little children. My father was seriously ill with heart disease and we had trouble with him in the carriage, and his wife Jadwiga was pregnant. Before Bryansk station, she got labor pains and went into labor. The train was in full gear, it was impossible to call for help. The woman screamed in pain. All the children started to cry. The men made a screen of blankets. I had access to the window and I used my hand to pull snow from the roof, which we melted in a pot on the stove, because there was no water. A few women gave birth while everyone else prayed. After hours of torment in a shivering cold carriage, a baby boy was born. Later, on a meal, I baptized him with water, giving him the name Stanisław.[…]

On February 27 – after two weeks of driving – with increasingly stronger frosts and snowstorms, we reached the Punduga station. Five wagons were stopped here, and the rest went somewhere else. In the morning, in biting frost, we were ordered to unload and continue our journey on foot. We were supposed to travel about 60 kilometers in the taiga through snow and drifts up to five meters. With our bundles, tired and hungry, we set off. Several horse-drawn carriages, sleighs, so-called Wołokusze. We put some luggage, elderly people and small children on them. The rest of the luggage had to be carried. There was a terrible blizzard, you just couldn’t walk. We were lightly dressed, not prepared for such a journey. People were falling, drowning in a few meters of snowdrifts. On the way, several times the NKVD convoy stopped us in hamlets or villages. We entered inns, where we received kipiatok and soup with a piece of bread. The people we met (formerly “kulaks” or resistant to the Soviet rule) asked why they were taking us here. They said we’re all going to die here because it’s not a place for us. Despite the intervention of the NKVD, the women brought sugar and milk to our children. I remember that on the way we spent the night in some sheds with a tree, and in an Orthodox church. After three days of strenuous march, we arrived at Katroma’s Spiets Poselek, Uczastok No. 17 [Kharów region – between Punduga and Vologda]. We were about 60 families, almost three hundred people. that on the way we spent the night in some sheds where a tree was lying, and in an Orthodox church. After three days of strenuous march, we arrived at Katroma’s Spiets Poselek, Uczastok No. 17 [Kharów region – between Punduga and Vologda]. We were about 60 families, almost three hundred people. that on the way we spent the night in some sheds where a tree was lying, and in an Orthodox church. After three days of strenuous march, we arrived at Katroma’s Spiets Poselek, Uczastok No. 17 [Kharów region – between Punduga and Vologda]. We were about 60 families, almost three hundred people.

Antonówka, Deer; Vologda, Russian SFSR, February 1940

Source: Memoirs of Sybiraków vol.8, Warsaw 1994

Eugeniusz Szwajkowski, deported from the town of Litwa in the province of Volyn:

We slept soundly. On February 10, 1940, there was a knock on the door. It was in the morning, 6.00. I opened the door and the chairman of the Commune Committee, Gołębiowski, and the commander of the NKVD in [nearby] Torczyn entered with a revolver pointed at me. I was put against the wall in my pajamas. The NKVD commander read a letter from the Central Committee of the [VKP(b)] of the USSR, which [as announced] decided to relocate us to the other voivodship, because we are in danger from the local population – the fault of our government, which incompetently cooperated and managed the Ukrainian population. We had half an hour to pack the most important things. Frightened and crying, the wife did not know what to do. I, standing on the side, told her what to bring: bedding, clothes, coats, dresses, kitchen utensils. Things that Gołębiowski liked he took them out of the bags and told them to leave. He said to take religious paintings and old out-of-fashion hats for this place. From the food they allowed me to take: half a sack of flour, some groats, bacon (there wasn’t much of it, because only in those days I was supposed to slaughter the pig). […] At that time, the militiamen harnessed the horses to the sleigh. Only then did they let us get dressed for the road. When everything was in the sleigh, they made me drive the horses. On the sleigh sat his wife, behind her the commander of the NKVD, and on the other sleigh militiamen and chairman Gołębiowski. And thus the whole farm with livestock and deadstock was lost on the spot. […] At that time, the militiamen harnessed the horses to the sleigh. Only then did they let us get dressed for the road. When everything was in the sleigh, they made me drive the horses. On the sleigh sat his wife, behind her the commander of the NKVD, and on the other sleigh militiamen and chairman Gołębiowski. And thus the whole farm with livestock and deadstock was lost on the spot. […] At that time, the militiamen harnessed the horses to the sleigh. Only then did they let us get dressed for the road. When everything was in the sleigh, they made me drive the horses. On the sleigh sat his wife, behind her the commander of the NKVD, and on the other sleigh militiamen and chairman Gołębiowski. And thus the whole farm with livestock and deadstock was lost on the spot.

Lithuania in Volhynia, February 10, 1940

Source: Memoirs of Sybiraków vol.4, Warsaw 1991

Eugeniusz Szwajkowski, deported from the town of Litwa in the province of Volyn:

On Saturday, February 17, the [transport] crossed the [former] Polish-Soviet border and headed north. Only then did we see with our own eyes what “order and prosperity” reigns here. Human settlements were far from the tracks. There were agricultural machines in the field, the houses looked dilapidated, abandoned threshing machines stood by the broken haystacks. Everything was covered with snow. On the way, we met brigades of workers (all women) who worked at shoveling snow from the tracks. Their clothes were they had no waders, shoes or boots, on their feet stockings made of fabric and cotton wool and shallow men’s galoshes. After 10 days of being locked in a car – I don’t remember which station – the train stopped. We were told to grab buckets and go get food. Only pearl barley without seasoning was transferred. Each of us expected that eventually there will be some possible soup. No one even touched this porridge. There was no way to cook anything in the car. After all, no one had vegetables, potatoes, milk, rice or cream. We only had flour, grits and pork fat. There was a queue at the stove 24/7. People baked cakes, cooked mash on water and tea. The stove was so small that it could only hold one pot or pan. My wife hung an old quilt near the hole in the floor. This way the hole looked like a toilet. The women tried to use it only at night, the poor women were embarrassing us. There were no hygiene conditions. Lice multiplied rapidly. In a word, hunger, stench, cold and poverty. In Bryansk, after 20 days of driving, they ordered to go for food. We thought maybe there would be bread, possibly soup, after all it was the Russian Republic. We were disappointed. They gave the same food – pearl barley.

After four weeks of torment, on Saturday, March 9, 1940, in the evening, they brought us to the hamlet of Kopytowo [near Kotłas on the Wyczegda River]. In the Kopytowo hamlet there were several newly built barracks and a few old houses. It made a very bad impression. As we were unpacking, a few locals were watching us. When we asked how to live here, when there is nothing here, they answered us: “You will live, you will not love.”

Ukrainian SRS, Kopytowo near Kotlas, Russian FSRS, February-March 1940

Source: Memoirs of Sybiraków vol.4, Warsaw 1991

Józefa Białowąs-Śnieżawska, deported from Stójło in the province of Volyn:

They came in the night, banged on the door with rifle butts, told me to get up, get dressed, said they were taking me to my father. In view of my mother’s refusal that we would not go, the NKVD officer shouted that he would kill us. He put us up against the wall, he put the revolver to our heads, I still feel the revolver on my forehead and hear our loud cries. They told us to go where we are. Mom managed to take what was at hand, and that night turned into noon. Neighbors rushed to our aid, bringing bread and other products.

Our despair knew no bounds. We were loaded onto wagons and taken to the station [in nearby] Zdołbunów, and pushed into cattle cars. There were already a lot of people here and they brought new ones all the time. The wagons were cramped and crowded, everyone was crying. Around the wagons there were a lot of Red Army soldiers in those hats with stumps. I was so afraid of them…

The windows of the cattle car were barred, the doors locked and wired. A Red Army soldier in a long greatcoat stood by each. The train was very long. Physiological matters were taken care of through a hole cut in the floor of the wagon. There was an incredible stench and stuffiness. I remember my mother crying constantly.

We drove for a very long time, a month, maybe more. On the way, people died, they were thrown out the doors of the wagon. Mom tried to distract us so that we wouldn’t see such horrible sights, but still, somewhere through the gap between people, I saw dead people.

 

Stójło, Zdołbunów, February 1940

Source: Memoirs of Sybiraków vol.5, Warsaw 1991

Jadwiga Borowik-Szaden, deported from the village of Mejszule in the province of Vilnius:

It was a beautiful, very frosty morning on February 10, 1940. My father was busy with the farm, my mother was preparing dough for baking bread, my older sister, Gienia, was cleaning the apartment, my older brother, Włodek, was smoking in the stove and carrying wood, and my younger brother, Bernard, was running around the yard. Suddenly the dog Wilczek started to bark terribly, we saw approaching carts surrounded by Russian armed soldiers. They stopped in front of the house. A young man and a woman were brought into the house with two children, one maybe four years old and the other maybe one year old. They put the family in the corner of the apartment and we were not allowed near. The soldier told mom to give hot milk to the children.

There were four ordinary soldiers and a politruk [Soviet political officer]. They also sat down to eat without asking us for anything. After finishing breakfast, the politruk asked his father if the whole family was at home. We were all told to sit down. Politruk unrolled the paper and read the resettlement decree, adding that we would never come back here again, and whatever we could take within half an hour would be ours. He told us to take saws and axes, because we were going to the forest. A soldier stood by his father and did not let him move. And the politruk said: “You escaped from the Soviet power, but we found you here too, give back the gold.” Father had no gold. Before the revolution, he lived in Leningrad and […] in 1918 he returned to Poland and stayed in his sister’s barn for two weeks until the border [a temporary border between Poland and Soviet Russia] was established.

Mejszule, February 10, 1940

Source: Memoirs of Sybiraków vol.4, Warsaw 1991

Irena Biber-Krasa, deported from Ciecierowka in the province of Bialystok:

They took us away like birds from a nest, because there was no question of us taking anything. We left all our possessions. They gave us a pair of sleds, but no one had the head to pack, because this scene, what was happening, and this despair cannot be described. Mommy was fainting, my father and brother were arrested and couldn’t move, my three sisters were crying at the top of their voices. I was more conscious and was allowed to take something, which was very useful in such a cruel journey for us.

They drove us to the train station, fortunately only two kilometers away. Our neighbors were taken with us – father’s very close friend Józef Zaniewski with his wife Stefania and children: Helena and Jadwiga. We were put into cattle cars, and more unfortunates were brought in throughout the day. At night, when the wagons were stuffed like herring barrels, our desperate weeping was joined by the howling of dogs that came to say goodbye to us, and in the morning our transport set off for the [former Polish-Soviet] border, where we had been traveling for four days. “We traveled on Polish soil for four days, although we only bid farewell to it through the bars, on the fifth day the Soviet machine roared and pierced everyone as if with a dagger” – this is a fragment from the composed song.

After reloading us to Russian wagons, they took us for a whole month, and we used hunger, cold, thirst, and finally dirt, lack of water – lice, and scabies, which bothered us a lot. These wagons were drenched with our tears every day.

Almost after a month, on March 7, our locomotive stopped, because there were no tracks, and unloading began. It was scary to look at us emaciated, with frostbitten limbs and dirty. And again the sleigh and ride to the “paradise” they promised us.

chickpeas; Russian SFRS, February-March 1940

Source: Memoirs of Sybiraków vol.4, Warsaw 1991

Aniela Kamińska-Zięba, deported from Majdan in the province of Lviv:

After a few days on the [former Polish-Soviet] border, the Russians reloaded us into Russian wagons, dirty, smeared with tar and tar. Their windows were also barred and covered. Once a day, and even less often, the men under guard could bring some water and a few loaves of bread. The bread was black and oozed out in small portions. The transport usually stopped in the field or outside the station.

People starved and got sick, including my sister Stefania, who later died and was buried in the forest. Dysentery reigned. Children died, and then adults too. To remove the corpses, it was necessary to wait for the transport to stop, and then knock on the door so that the escorts would open it and take the corpses. I don’t remember how long we drove. We had the impression that the journey lasts forever, especially since it was always dark in the carriages. Through the toilet hole, you could only see when it was day.

Ukrainian SRS, Russian SFRS, February 1940

Source: Memoirs of Sybiraków vol.6, Warsaw 1992

An anonymous man deported from Bukaczowce in the province of Stanisławowski:

On February 10, at 4.00 in the morning, they knocked on the door and told us to open it, because we have weapons. After searching the apartment and the attic and finding nothing, they said to my father: “You are a supporter of Piłsudski, you fought against us in 1920 and for that you will go to Siberia.” The commander of the NKVD took part in our arrest, his surname and first name was Tikhonov Nikolai, a Ukrainian from Komora, I do not know his surname, and a Jew, Sztajer Mojsie. They ordered the horses to be harnessed to the sleigh and some bedding and clothes to be loaded, even an NKVD officer ordered my sister to kill 10 hens and load a vessel into the sack. […]

At the station there were cattle cars with stoves and wooden bunks. In the evening, they took us from our Bukaczowce station to the Halicz station, attaching other wagons with people along the way. We stood at the Halicz station all day again, and in the evening again through Bukaczowce, Chodorów to Lwów. On Monday evening we set off again and on Tuesday we arrived at the Strumiłłowa stone station. The first time they gave us bread and let us fetch water, on this occasion our neighbor Skowron Antonina escaped. On Wednesday we reached Lutsk station, and from there to Kovel station, via Sarny station on Friday we reached Shepietówka station and there we were loaded onto Russian wagons.

 

Bukachowce, Ukrainian SRS, February 1940

Source: Displacements, expulsions and escapes 1939-1959. Atlas of Polish lands, Warsaw 2008

Karolina Lanckorońska, a resident of Lviv:

On the second day, February 12, panic fell on Lwów. More and more trains appeared at all stations, long rows of cattle cars stopped on the tracks. Singing resounded. “Bitter regrets” was sung most often, because it was Lent. The trains were guarded by the army. The urban and suburban population spontaneously rushed to the railway stations. If the wagons were guarded by Kyrgyz or Kalmyks, there was no council; if a Muscovite was standing there, he pretended not to see anything, sometimes he even administered water or food, milk or medicine himself through a tiny barred upper window. It was terribly cold. So desperate were those uninterrupted frosts then, so desperate was the uninterrupted weather in September. There were more and more trains at the stations. The wagons were locked, and only – and not always – the dumping of corpses was allowed. They were collected in the evening on the tracks. Many of them were frozen children. […] Finally, the first trains moved east. Always without exception, at that most terrible moment, the same singing resounded, or rather always the same two songs: “Rota” or “Boże cos Polska…”.

Lviv, February 1940

Source: K. Lanckorońska, War memories, September 22, 1939 – April 5, 1945, Kraków 2001

Wiesław Czermak, deported from Łęczówka in the province of Ternopil:

On a frosty night, February 10, 1940, the silence of the night is disturbed by the barking of a dog… A horse-drawn sleigh arrives in front of our buildings. The loud clatter of military boots and orders in Russian wake us up from sleep. The confusion, fear and crying of children distract maternal thoughts. In a hurry, the brothers and sisters dress in what they have at hand. I am the youngest of my siblings. I’m ten days short of two years. It is very cold outside, so warm clothing is the most important thing… Within a dozen or so minutes, all the possessions of an exemplary farm and breeding farm are left to their fate. At the last moment, with the consent of the “czubaryks”, my mother takes, ironically, half a sack of potatoes on the sleigh. The meat in the chamber and the leavened bread dough stay at home. They escort us to a distant train station. Children and old people ride sleighs, the others wade waist-deep in snow. The convoy, initially consisting of a dozen teams, increases hour by hour. After all-day hardships, cold and hungry, we reach the train station late at night, where we are loaded into waiting freight cars.

Łęczówka, February 10, 1940

Source: Siberian No. 8, Bialystok 1993

Janina Wiszniewska, deported from the province of Bialystok:

Bitter frost. The mercury on the thermometer read minus 40 degrees. The last sixth lesson was around 5 pm. I didn’t feel right, bad. I asked to be excused from class. Driven by a bad feeling, I hurried to the boarding house where I lived with my younger brothers. I was 18 years old. Entering the kitchen, I saw the hostess – Mrs. Górska, who managed to say with difficulty: “There is a boy waiting for you in the dining room”. I entered. “I’m Janina Wiszniewska, you to me?” “Yes, to you.” He looked at some list, stood up and recited: “By order of the Supreme Council, we are transferring you to the second circuit as an undesirable element. Get together.” He gave him one hour to pack. I replied that I would not go anywhere, that I had two younger brothers and cousins ​​here, all of whom were still at school. He checked names, ages (one was 11, the other 13) and said, “We’ll wait.” Then I saw two armed soldiers in the corner watching me intently. As I was coming from the brothers’ school, I heard the magic clause “The Supreme Council – Verkhovnogo Soviet” twice more, then, having packed only books, we went in a motorcade to the train station, where, according to the “boycs”, our parents were supposed to be waiting for us. For naive faith We paid a heavy price for the reliability of the promises of representatives of the “Soviet power”. No trace of parents. At the station, a cousin, born in 1923, and a sister, born in 1924, were joined. At dawn, everyone was loaded onto a freight car, where we survived 48 hours, cold and hungry as eternity. Our separation from our parents was hard to bear.

Bialystok Voivodeship, February 10, 1940

Source: Siberian No. 8, Bialystok 1993

Janina Wiszniewska, deported from the province of Bialystok:

After a few days, at night, the train shuddered, began to maneuver, and then set off into the blue distance … From the spot someone chanted “Under Your Protection”, then “Serdeczna Mother”, “God something Poland”. In the middle of the night, the song of the Poles resounded in a loud chorus. The song of the crowd on the speeding train was a great experience, something I can’t even describe. Another three days passed. In a snow-covered field, the train stopped. The door of the wagon was opened and the armed “fighter” shouted: “The Wiszniewskis go out!”. Poles, as one man, stood in a cordon. “We will not give up the children!” they cried. “Get out or I’ll shoot!” shouted the fighter. In this situation, the brother took the stand: “Ladies and gentlemen, please let us through. Even if we are shot, maybe at least you will be saved.” We left. Two soldiers led us through the blizzard along the wagons. Suddenly the escorts stopped and opened the door of a wagon. There were our parents, the oldest 22-year-old brother and uncle with a family of three. It turned out that father and uncle, at each station, were determinedly banging on the door of the car, shouting: “Where are our children, give us the children!”. As a result of such an intervention, the family was reunited.

“Even if we die, it will be together.” our father said when he saw us. The joy was great. Determination subsided, calmness returned, we gained mental comfort. I was given a place on the top bunk by the window.

Byelorussian SRS, February 1940

Source: Siberian No. 8, Bialystok 1993

Maria Bednarz née Kulczycki, deported from Sztabin in the province of Bialystok:

On February 10, 1940, in the morning, when it was still dark, a sleigh with NKVD soldiers arrived in the yard and read to my mother the decision to deport her to the depths of the Soviet Union with her husband and daughter. It was a very harsh winter then. On that day, the thermometer showed -40 0C. Perhaps it was happiness in this tragic misfortune, because we had to dress very warmly, wrap ourselves in eiderdowns and blankets. Collect sheepskin coats, fur coats, sweaters, etc., and the ladies with whom we stayed loaded all their food supplies, including biscuits, into the sleigh. On the way to the Kamienna station, we were joined by new sleighs with exiles under the “protection” of soldiers with bayonets. At the Kamienna station, female prisoners were already waiting, i.e. barred lorries with bunks, an iron stove, and a toilet hole. We were crammed into one wagon by several dozen. Father wasn’t there yet. We were convinced of the [Soviet] lie that he would be deported together with his family. Meanwhile, just before departure, he was escorted along with several other prisoners. Despite the great tragedy of the situation, there was a moment of joyful welcome, because we’re going together. Father by profession engineer. the forester was qualified for deportation in the same way as all foresters on state jobs. Probably the stolen watch during the search during the arrest at home eased the conduct of the chief investigator, who during the investigation was quite gentle with his father and persuaded him to testify in the direction of practicing only this profession of a forester, and not the property of the Count. Karol Brzostowski. Otherwise, [father] would have been sentenced to a gulag, and we would also have been deported, as was the case with the next subsequent transports of exiles. who during the investigation was quite gentle with his father and persuaded him to testify in the direction of practicing only this profession of a forester, and not the hr. Karol Brzostowski. Otherwise, [father] would have been sentenced to a gulag, and we would also have been deported, as was the case with the next subsequent transports of exiles. who during the investigation was quite gentle with his father and persuaded him to testify in the direction of practicing only this profession of a forester, and not the hr. Karol Brzostowski. Otherwise, [father] would have been sentenced to a gulag, and we would also have been deported, as was the case with the next subsequent transports of exiles.

Sztabin, Kamienna, February 10, 1940

Source: Siberian No. 10, Bialystok 1994

Maria Bednarz née Kulczycki, deported from Sztabin in the province of Bialystok:

Our transport moves towards Grodno and further east. The NKVD guards do not provide information where they are taking us. Once a day at a larger station, we receive a ration of bread, hot food, mostly millet or oat porridge with a spoonful of melted margarine, and plenty of “kipiatok” [boiling water]. We are also released onto the tracks in front of the wagon, where, under the escort of guards, we take care of our physiological needs. We are increasingly troubled by terrible sanitary conditions. Superficial washing, pouring a pot of hot water in an iron stove above the toilet opening does not allow long to wait for the effects of the terrible conditions. Crowded on the bunks, we begin to feel the burning sensation of the body. There are old people and children among us. During the day, we follow the route: “Where are they taking us?”. We pass Minsk, Smolensk, Ufa, where my father manages to buy a Polish-Russian dictionary printed in 1939 before the occupation [by the Red Army] of eastern Poland. Then the whole transport goes towards the Urals through Chelyabinsk, Sverdlovsk to the last station in the north of the Urals called Solikamsk. Here we are unloaded and placed in the local prison in cold, dirty cells with insects on the walls. The next day, at dawn, a one-horse sleigh, here called “wołok with ears”, with short, wide skids adapted to deep snow, arrives in the prison yard. Our group of over 300 people is loaded into these sleds. A whole line of kibitki exiles moves along the forest roads further north. This monstrous ride lasts three days. We also spend two nights in prison chambers. Finally, after this backbreaking journey, about 150 km from the last railway station, Solikamsk, and after a month’s journey, we are taken to the “meal” of Churochnaya in the Krasnovysher region. […]

Immediately after our arrival, we took off our clothes for the first time after a month-long backbreaking journey. I was wearing a knitted wool white vest. After removing it, it turned out that all the grooves of the stitch were infested with lice. Hence the terrible burning of the body. All the clothes were soaked in kerosene by my mother, which killed the insects, and after some time aired out at 40 0 ​​C frost, it was suitable for further wear.

Belarusian SRS, Russian FSRS, February-March 1940

Source: Siberian No. 10, Bialystok 1994.