Z Kresow Wschodnich R.P. Wspomnienia z osad wojskowych 1921-1940 (From The Eastern Borderlands of Poland, Memories of military settlements 1921-1940)
Kacperek, Bronia and Whittle, Eric J. (translators).  Association of the Families of the Borderland Settlers, London, 2000.
ISBN 1 872286 33 X
Available through Veritas Bookshop, 63 Jeddo Road, London W12 9EE, UK
Website: http://www.veritas-london.co.uk
Tel: +44 20 8749 4957, Fax: +44 20 8749 4965
For selected translations of the above book, click on the list of settlements: Osada Krechowiecka

Z Kresow Wschodnich R.P. Na Wygnanie. Opowiesci Zeslancow 1940-1946 (From The Eastern Borderlands of Poland, Tales of the Deported 1940-1946)
Kacperek, Bronia and Whittle, Eric J. (translators).  Association of the Families of the Borderland Settlers, London, 2000.
Available through Veritas Bookshop, 63 Jeddo Road, London W12 9EE, UK
Website: http://www.veritas-london.co.uk
Tel: +44 20 8749 4957, Fax: +44 20 8749 4965

Stalin’s Ethnic Cleansing in Eastern Poland. Tales of the Deported, 1940-1946
Kacperek, Bronia and Whittle, Eric J. (translators).  Association of the Families of the Borderland Settlers, London, 2000
(This is basically a translation of the above book, with additional articles)
ISBN 1872286887.  LC Catalog #D810 D5
Website: http://www.StalinsEthnicCleansing.com
Available through Veritas Bookshop, 63 Jeddo Road, London W12 9EE, UK
Website: http://www.veritas-london.co.uk
Tel: +44 20 8749 4957, Fax: +44 20 8749 4965

Kresowe osadnictwo wojskowe 1920-1945 (Military colonization of Kresy 1920-1945)
Janina Stobniak-Smogorzewska. Warsaw, RYTM, 2003.
ISBN8373990062.
Available through Oficyna Wydawnicza RYTM, ul. Gorczewska 8, 01-180, Warszawa, Poland
Tel/fax: +48 22 631-77-92, 632-02-21 ext. 155   email: dzial.handlowy@rytm-wydawnictwo.pl
Website: http://www.rytm-wydawnictwo.pl

From Siberia to America: A Story of Survival and Success
Frusztajer, Boruch (Bronek) University of Scranton Press (February 1, 2008)
ISBN-10: 1589661559, ISBN-13: 978-1589661554

The General Langfitt story – Polish refugees recount their experiences of exile, dispersal, and resettlement
Albrook, Maryan. Canberra, Australian Govt. Pub. Serv., 1995.
ISBN   0644357819.  LC Catalog #D810  D5
Website: http://www.immi.gov.au/media/publications/refugee/langfitt/index.htm

Man is Wolf to Man
Bardach, Janusz. University of California Press.
ISBN 0520221524

The Persian Blanket – The Life of Janina Milek
Born in Poland in 1921 Janina Milek was transported with her family to Siberia in the freezing winter of 1940. She worked hard in the labour camps for nearly two years until the changing fortunes of the war offered relative freedom. There followed eight years as a refugee, in camps in Uzbekistan, Persia, Northern Rhodesia and Tanganyika. At every stage of the journey members of her family fell away, perished, were left behind, took other roads. In 1950 Janina arrived in Western Australia, alone. When Janina entered Tim Chappell’s young life they formed an instant bond. Tim has interwoven Janina’s extraordinary story with poignant, often amusing, cameos of the Janine he knew as he was growing up. This is a true story of courage and determination, of the will to survive and the value of freedom.

Chappell, Tim. Fremantle Arts Centre Press, published in 2004
ISBN111 92073 144 X | ISBN13 9 781920 731441
HB/PB

The Inhuman Land
Czapski, Joseph. London, Polish Cultural Foundation, 1987. Reprint of 1951 Edition.
ISBN 0850651646

Bronia – the memoirs of Bronia ‘Bernice’ Polakowska Czarnoski
Czarnoski, Bernice.  (as told by Mary O’Brien Tyrrell).   St Paul, Minn., Memoirs, 2000.
LC Catalog #  F605.1 C99

Seeds in the Storm (NZ)
In August 1939 Stanislaw Dabrowski was a 19 year old accounting student working part time in his family bakery business in Lwow, Poland.  Within a few weeks the Germans had occupied half of Poland and the Soviet Union invaded the rest, including Lwow. The family discovered the reality of life in comrade Stalin’s empire: destitution, arrest, imprisonment, beatings, show trials on false charges, deportation to slave labour camps and executions.

After enduring months of slave labour in the gold mines of Kolyma in Siberia, Stanislaw was among the small percentage to survive: in 1941 Germany invaded the Soviet Union and Polish prisoners were released to join a Polish army to fight the Germans.  He fought in the battle of Monte Cassino in Italy after which he met his wife, a veteran of the Warsaw uprising.

Following the end of the war they moved to Britain and from there they migrated to New Zealand to join other family members who had been sent out in 1944.

Initially, Stanislaw worked in a car assembly factory in Petone, but upon deciding to resume accounting studies, got a job in the Department of Industries and Commerce in Wellington, the boss of which was the notorious Moscow-aligned William Sutch.  After years of no promotion, Stanislaw decided to change employers and went to the Totalisator Agency Board or TAB, eventually working his way to the top position of General Manager.

The story of the Dabrowski family, scattered by the storm of war, eventually establishing new roots on the other side of the world, is both fascinating and inspiring.

Dabrowski, Stanislaw. Published 2011 Transpress NZ
ISBN 978-1-877443-02-2
Website: http://www.transpressnz.com/SeedsInTheStorm.html

Beyond the Urals
Dangerfield, E.  London, British League for European Freedom, 1946.  Facsimile. 1993 Reprint by Ormskirk, Lanc., T. Lyster.
ISBN 1871482127

Drawings from the Gulag
Featuring over 130 drawings and texts by Danzig Baldaev – author of the acclaimed Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia Volume I, II, III – this book describes the history, horror and peculiarities of the Gulag system from its inception in 1918.

Baldaev’s work as a prison guard allowed him to travel across the former USSR where he witnessed scenes of everyday life in the Gulag first-hand, chronicling this previously closed world from both sides of the wire. The drawings, made during the Communist period, form a devastating document, a haunting echo of the works of Varlam Shalamov and Alexandr Solzhenitsyn.

With every vignette, Baldaev brings his characters to vivid life: from the lowest zek (inmate) to the most violent tattooed vor (thief), the practises and inhabitants of the Gulag system are revealed in incredible and shocking detail. He documents the contempt shown by the authorities to those imprisoned, and the transformation of these citizens into survivors or victims. This graphic depiction exposes the systematic methods of torture and mass murder of millions undertaken by the administration, as well as the atrocities committed by criminals on their fellow inmates.

Danzig, Baldaev. Published 2010 FUEL Publishing
ISBN: 9780956356246

Janek, a story of survival
Dowling, Alick.  Letchworth, Ringpress, 1989.
ISBN  0-948955-45-7.
Online review: http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~sarmatia/494/hutchins.html

Konwoj strzela bez uprzedzenia, Polski w wiezieniach i lagrach sowieckich 1944- 1956
Dziewulska -Losiowa, Aniela.  Towarzstwo Literackie imienia Adama Mickiewicza, Oddzial Bialostocki, Bialystok 1994
ISSN 0867-7875, ISBN 83- 86188-03-0
Description:  This book includes detailed lists of 1000 women arrested by the NKWD or serving their  sentences from July 1944 to December 1955 and their stories.  It is a very good source of information. The author of the book  was a liaison officer of  AK (Armia Krajowa), region Wilno, arrested in October 1944 and sentenced  for 10 years. (submitted by Elzbieta Gurtler-Krawczynska)

And God Was Our Witness
Edwards, A. Bloomington, 1st Books, 2002.
ISBN  0759673152
Availability: 1st Books Library, 2595 Vernal Pike Rd., Bloomington, IN 47404  tel: 1-800-839-8640 website: www.authorhouse.com

After Long Silence – A Memoir
Fremont, Helen. New York, Delacorte Press, 1999.
ISBN 1550591452.  LC Catalog #D810 D5

Crater’s Edge: A Family’s Epic Journey Through Wartime Russia
Michal, Giedroyc. Published 2010 Bene Factum Publishing Ltd
ISBN 1903071240
Website: http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/184227/Mel-Giedroyc-Dad-s-tragic-childhood-has-made-me-a-better-person

Gdyby nie Opatrzność Boża
Grabski O. Ryszard Czesław
Written by a priest O. Ryszard Czesław Grabski who was first imprisoned in a work camp and then after joining Polish Army traveled back to Archangielsk to help people out of gulags.

War through children’s eyes – The Soviet Occupation of Poland and the Deportations
Grudzinska, I. and Gross, J. ed.  Stanford, Calif., Hoover Institution Press, 1981.

Paying Guest in Siberia
Hadow, M.  London, Maidstone, 1978, 1959.
ISBN 0906264014  pbk.  LC Catalog #  LC 810  D5
Availability: Publishers address,  24 Week Street, Maidstone, Kent, UK
Maria Hadow was a young married woman in September 1939. Her husband, an army officer, was taken prisoner by the Soviets and later shot. She describes her forced settlement with her mother and their efforts after the ‘amnesty’ to find the Polish forces. They travelled by rail –two weeks of ‘a nightmare journey’ – and in late August or September of 1942 reached Ashkhabad, the capital of Turkmenistan, where they found the Polish Army. By then the last trains carrying soldiers and civilians heading to board ships at the Caspian port of Krasnovodsk had left.  She left Ashkhabad on the last convoy to take Poles out that way over the mountains to Meshed in Persia (Iran).
She wound up marrying the British vice-consul who was posted in Meshed in 1942. She never gives his name, nor does she say where she lived in Poland. But, being part of the Soviets forced resettlement, we can assume her home was in Eastern Poland.

The Endless Steppe: a girl in exile.
Hautzig, E. New York, Scholastic Book Services, 1968, 1970
Description: A book aimed at children.

Exiled to Siberia, A Polish child’s WW II journey
Hergt, Klaus. (with a Forward by Tadeusz Piotrowski).  Cheboygan, Michigan, Crescent Lake Publishing, 2001.
LC # D810  D5H47 2001.  ISBN 0970043201
Reading list: http://www.wings.buffalo.edu/info-poland/KH1.html
Availability:  Crescent Lake Publishing, 404 North Ball, Cheboygan, Michigan  49721  tel: 231-627-9748.  email: creslkpub@straitsarea.com
Online review: http://www.polishlibrary.org/review/exiled_to_siberia.htm
Sample chapter: http://wings.buffalo.edu/info-poland/KH.html

A World Apart
Herling, Gustav. Heineman, 1986.

Lost Between Worlds: A World War II Journey of Survival
Lost Between Worlds is based on a journal written between 1940 and 1945 when Edward H Herzbaum was in his twenties. It is a first-hand account of his horrendous wartime experiences, both physical and psychological, published for the first time: the journal had been lying in a suitcase for 65 years until it was discovered and translated.

The book spans a period of history from the German invasion of Poland in 1939 to the end of the Italian Campaign in 1945. It recounts how Edward was arrested and interned by the Germans but escaped. He travelled to eastern Poland to avoid being recaptured, but there he was arrested by the Russians and deported to a Gulag, where he suffered starvation, brutality and horrific working and living conditions. After Germany’s attack on Russia, Edward and the other Polish prisoners were amnestied and released to join a newly-formed Polish army, under British command. They travelled through Middle Asia, Iraq, Iran, British Palestine and Egypt, eventually fighting in the Italian Campaign. Edward writes at times with humour and irony and at other times with desperation, about his arduous journey and the awful psychological after-effects of the experiences which he and the other Poles had endured. The loss of family, friends and country and the feelings of loneliness at finding themselves completely displaced from their ‘old world’, with no knowledge of what their ‘new world’ might look like, even if they survived the war. This book will appeal to fans of history and those interested in the Second World War.

Herzbaum, Edward H.Published 2010
ISBN: 9781848766037
Website: http://www.lostbetweenworlds-herzbaum.com/

The Unsettled Account – An Autobiography
Huntington, Eugenia. London, Severn House, 1986.
ISBN  0727820850.  LC Catalog #D810  D5

From Siberia to Italy
Iksander, A. World War Investigator (UK), 1988.

I Remember and Remember Not – Memories of Childhood and Adolescent Years, 1940-1950
Jasionowicz, Maria. (Sister Maria Teresa CSFN) Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth, 1997.
LC Catalog #DK4420  J36

Kazachstan
Januszkiewicz, Maria. Paris, Instytut Literacki,  1981.
LC Catalog #D811.5
Availability:  Biblioteka Kultury, Paris

The Life of a Young Pole in Russia 1939-46
Karol, K.S.Henry Holt & Co., New York, 1987
ISBN 0-8050-0099-2

Journey without a ticket, to England from Siberia
Kawecka, Z. Krystyna. Nottingham, 1994.  4th ed.
ISBN  0951588303

Marynia, Don’t Cry: Memoir of two Polish-Canadian families
Kojder, A.M. and Glogowska, B.  Toronto, Multicultural History Society of Ontario, 1995.
ISBN 0919045650.  LC Catalog #  CT309 K65
Availability: University of Toronto Press

Wedrowniczki z Kidugali (AU)
Kondratowicz-Kordas, Leokadia.  Published 1990 Description Kurier Press Perth, W.A.
ISBN 0646020471
Available from Courier Press, C/- Unit 1, 128 Edward St, Osborne Park WA 6017.

My first survival or My Life in Poland and in the USSR
Kowal, J.S.  Ann Arbor, n.d.

Straws in the Wind
Krajewski, Eugene. London, Cromwell Publishers, 2002.
ISBN 1-903930-02-2
Website: www.strawsinthewind.com
Read newspaper article about the book here

Refugee’s trails
Kramek, J.  St. Clair Shores, Michigan, Refugee Trails Fund, Inc., 1990.
LC #DK440.5 K7 Other Publisher: Shelby Twp., Michigan, Refugee Trails Fund, Inc. 1990.

Stolen Childhood–A Saga of Polish War Children
Krolikowski,Lucjan. Lincoln.iUniverse, 2001.
ISBN 0595168639
Availability: www.iUniverse.com, 62205 16th Street, Suite 200, Lincoln, NE  68512  tel: 1-877-823-9235. email: custservice@iuniverse.com
Description: Stolen Childhood is the story of what happened to some 380,000 Polish children who, with their families, were rounded up by Stalin’s orders in 1939 and deported into Asiatic Russia. Lucjan Krolikowski, a young seminarian also deported there, shared and witnessed the suffering of his fellow Poles.
Freed by an “amnesty,” he joined the Polish Army, and when it moved to the Middle East, Lucjan resumed his theology studies, pronounced his vows, and became a chaplain to a Polish military hospital in Egypt. Reassigned to refugee camps in East Africa, Fr. Lucjan and the wandering Polish children met again in 1947; a meeting that began a long and loving relationship.
In 1949 when the Warsaw Communists claimed guardianship of the Polish orphans in Africa and demanded their repatriation, Fr. Lucjan was forced into a world of international intrigue. Called by the Communists “a kidnapper on an international scale,” to his orphans, he was the good shepherd who led them to Canada, where he helped his charges overcome the theft of their childhood and become secure adults in a new world. Stolen Childhood is the book of memories he wrote for them, and a cautionary history for people of good will.

Shallow Graves in Siberia
Krupa, Michael. London, Minerva Press, 1995.
ISBN 1858635713  pbk.  LC Catalog #D805  R9

Dying, We Live
Kulski, Julian Eugeniusz. Holt Reinhart and Winston, New York, 1979.
Description: The personal chronicle of a young freedom fighter in Warsaw (1939-45). He was the son of the Catholic Mayor of Warsaw. Just 10 when the country was invaded, he joined the Freedom Fighters at 12, was arrested by the Gestapo, selected to go to Auschwitz and then released. He fought in the 1944 uprising and after surrender was shipped to a POW camp in Germany. He was liberated by the Americans in 1945.Through his father, he met and was present for many of the meetings with other Polish leaders. – Review by Sherry Roan

No Return
Lachocki, E.
New Smyrna Beach, Florida, Luthers, 1996.
ISBN 1877633356.  LC Catalog #D810  D5L23
Availability:  Eugene Lachocki, 2014 Pine Tree Drive, Edgewater, FL, 32141, tel: 386-423-8639,
or email: Ab4uz@aol.com.

Goodbye, Tomorrow.
Lachocki, Gryzelda. Availability: tel: 386-423-8639, email: Ab4uz@aol.com, or direct address: Gryzelda Niziol Lachocki, 2014 Pine Tree Drive, Edgewater, FL 32141.
ISBN 1556181817 (alk. paper), ISBN 1556181833 (pbk).  LC Catalog #D810  D5
Description: A beautifully written book that takes you from her village on the Polesie to Archangielsk, then on to Kazakstan, Iran, Lebanon, and her final settlement in the US. Once I started reading, I couldn’t putthe book down, and just read on through the night until I’d finished it. Review by Halina Szulakowska

For two and a half years under and with the Soviets
Lantner, Henry. New York, Vantage Press, 1992.
ISBN  0533101913
Availability: Out of Print

 Jesli Zapomne o Nich…
Lipinska, Grazyna. Publication director is Piotr Jeglinski. “Edition Spotkania” 64 Av. Jean Moulin, 75014 Paris. 1988

Siberian Odyssey, the song of the cornucopia
Lysakowski, Richard. New York, Vantage Press, 1990.
ISBN 0533083869  LC Catalog #D811   L92

Six Years Til Spring
Mikosz-Hintzke, Teresa. San Jose, Ca., Author’s Choice Press, 2001.
ISBN 0595177204.
Availability: www.iUniversity.com

The Long Bridge
This book is about the events, most of them quite unpredictable, in my life; and my observations and memories from the day of the unforgettable Autumn in 1939, the day Poland was invaded by Germany, till my arrival in London in the spring of 1957.

These include two years deportation to Kazakhstan (as a ‘particularly dangerous social element’) to do forced labour, ten years as a political prisoner in the Soviet labour camps, and four years ‘eternal exile’ in Siberia.

http://www.hiddenglen.co.uk/long_bridge.htm

Review by Irene Tomaszewski – The Long Bridge is a wonderful book, much more than another retelling of the horrors of the gulag. It is, of course, a historical document, but it is also a psychological study, a development of a philosophy, and an inspiration. I recommend it highly.

http://cosmopolitanreview.com/articles/41-reviews/333-the-long-bridge-review

Muskus, Urszula. Published Sandstone Press 2010
ISBN: 978-1-905207-55-8
Website: http://www.sandstonepress.com/title/the_long_bridge/

Remember: Helen’s story
Oancia, Sandra.Calgary, Detselig Enterprises Ltd., 1997.
ISBN  1550591452.  LC Catalog #D810  D5
Availability website: http://www.grahamsanders.com/HelensStory.htm
Description:  Sixteen-year-old Helen was arrested by Russian soldiers as she walked to school in her native Poland during World War II. The journey took her to a labor camp in Siberia, an orphanage in India, a refugee camp in England, and finally to Assiniboia, Saskatchewan.

Krystyna’s Story
Ogonowska-Coates, Halina. Shoal Bay Press.
ISBN 0908704852.
Availability: website: www.pacificislandbooks.com/nzhistbiog.htm
Description: “As a child I loved my mother but she seemed different from other mothers. She didn’t know how old she was. She couldn’t remember where she was born. I wondered what had happened to her that she could have forgotten such important things. It had something to do with the Second World War.”
Krystyna is one of 732 ‘Polish children’ who survived forced deportation to the Soviet Union and was given a home in New Zealand in 1944. Her remarkable story, a composite portrait drawn from interviews with Polish survivors, begins in a peaceful Polish village and follows her family’s harrowing journey to a labor camp in Siberia, the terrible flight to freedom, and Krystyna’s lonely voyage to a safe refuge in New Zealand.
This is a beautifully evoked account of a child’s journey through Europe at war, and a young woman’s bewildering encounter with rural New Zealand.
Halina Ogonowska-Coates is an oral historian, writer and filmmaker of Polish descent. In Krystyna’s Story she has recorded the experiences of many Poles who came to New Zealand after the Second World War. She has also presented their story in a television film, Exiles – The Story of a Polish Journey

My flight to freedom, an autobiography
Paschwa-Kozicka, A. Chicago, Panorama Publishing Co., 1996.

 Pamiec Golgoty Wschodu (Golgotha of the East)
Fr. Peszkowski, Zdzislaw J. Warsaw, Soli Deo, 2000.
ISBN 83-88202-01-4
Availability: Wydawnictwo im. Stefana Kardynala Wyszynskiego “Soli Deo”, ul. Dziekania 1, 00-279 Warszawa, Poland
Description: Father Peszkowski is a survivor of the Kozielsk Camp. It was from that camp that Polish officers were transported to their place of execution in Katyn. His book deals with the whole subject of the Russian Invasion of Poland and Crimes committed by the Soviet Union upon the Polish Nation. It contains some interesting documents and photographs. Amongst others, there is a very good picture of the Katyn Monument erected in the year 2000 in Baltimore, USA. – Review by Eugeniusz Krajewski

My Siberian Experience
Piotrowski, Henryk. Toronto, 1996.
LC Catalog #   D810  D5

Genocide and Rescue in Wolyn: Recollections of the Ukrainian Nationalist Ethnic Cleansing Campaign Against the Poles During World War II
Piotrowski, Tadeusz. (Editor) McFarland & Company, April, 2000.
ISBN: 0786407735
After the 1939 Soviet and 1941 Nazi invasions, the people of Southeast Poland underwent a third and even more terrible ordeal when they were subjected to mass genocide by the Ukrainian Nationalists. Tens of thousands of Poles were tortured and murdered, not by foreign invaders, but by their fellow citizens, who sometimes turned out out be their neighbours, relatives, and former friends. Other Ukrainians took terrible risks to protect Poles from the slaughter, and often paid for their compassion with their lives.
The children who survived them vividly remember these atrocities and now, many decades later, tell their tragic tales. These accounts, never before published in English, describe the brutal murders these children witnessed, their own miraculous survival, and the heroic rescues that saved them. Demographic and other statistical information on the area is provided. Also included are appendices listing the Ukrainian victims and providing additional stories from other provinces, as well as ample Ukrainian, Polish, Soviet, German, and Jewish documentation and a comprehensive chronology. An index and bibliography are also included.

Vengeance of the Swallows: Memoir of a Polish Family’s Ordeal Under Soviet Aggression, Ukrainian Ethnic Cleansing and Nazi Enslavement, and Their Emigration to America
Piotrowski, Tadeusz. McFarland & Company
ISBN: 0786400013

The Battles for Monte Cassino Then and Now
Jeffrey Plowman, Perry Rowe. Published 2011 After the Battle
ISBN 9 781870 067737
Website: http://www.afterthebattle.com/osCommerce/product_info.php?products_id=286

The Horror Trains: A Polish Woman Veteran’s Memoir of World War II
Pomykalski, Wanda E. MINERVA Center, Inc.
ISBN: 0-9634895-4-2
Availability: website: http://www.minervacenter.com/minervas-bookshelf

From the Steppes to the Savannah
Porajska, B. London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1988, 1990.
ISBN 0340515899. Original edition. Port Erin, Ham Publ. Co., 1988.

Freedom Lost and Found
Przysiezniak, Roman. Printed by University of Toronto Press Incorporated
SBN-13: 9780973627305 – ISBN-10: 0973627301

Sunshine and Shadows (Moje Zycie)
Pruzanski, Keila. Australia, K. Pruzanski.
LC Catalog #DS135  P63

The Long Walk
Rawicz, Slawomir. New York, Lyons Press, 1956.
ISBN 1558216847  (pbk),  ISBN 1558216340 (cloth).  LC Catalog #D805 S65
Contains one map with his journey from Moscow toSiberia then via the Himalayas out to Pakistan. A story of a man that was arrested and sent to the Gulags to die, but escaped to tell his story.

Gold from Tears
Roman, Dorothy. Upper Fenntree, Vic., Rex Thompson and Family Publ., Ltd., 1993.
ISBN 0646189506

From Russian Gulag to Alberta Prairies
Romanko, Maria Alina,
Availability:online book

 W Sowieckim Osaczeniu (In Soviet Surroundings)
Siemaszko, Zbigniew S. London, Polska Fundacja Kulturalna, 1991.
Availability: From author – 64, Twyford Avenue, London W3 9QB, Tel: (020) 8992 8489
Description: Anybody wanting to find out more about the deportations to Siberia, about the conditions facing the deportees, and about the 1939-1943 situation in the Kresy area occupied by the Russians, should read this book. The book is in Polish. For further detaisl, you can write to the author. – Review by Romuald Lipinski

Anathema
Sierpinska, Zofia. Privately Published. Book One (248 pages); Book Two (183 pages)
Translation of Anatema; refugee camps in India.

Unforgettable Memoirs – Memories of Polish Exiles in the Soviet Union, 1940-1945
Simenda, Nina. Perth, Polish Siberian Group, 1996.
ISBN 0646298437 LC Catalog #DK34  P6

The Mass Deportation of Poles to Siberia : Polish Siberian Society of USA
ISBN 978-1-61584-811-9

This book is a collection of individual stories written by survivors of the Polish genocide during the Second World War.  It has been seventy years since as many as 2 million Poles were deported against their will to some of the most inhospitable regions in the world: Siberia, Kazakhstan, and parts of Soviet Asia.  More than one million Poles died a slow death in the gulags of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin or on their long and desperate journeys to and from the camps.

While the Soviets used mass shootings, overwork and starvation, the Nazi Germans used assembly-style gassing and cremation — methods that received far greater attention in the history books.

This book is dedicated to the hundreds of thousands who perished and to those who survived to give testimony to the truth. Â

The Invited – The story of 733 Polish children who grew up in New Zealand
Skwarko, K. Wellington, 1974.
Available on-line: http://www.polishheritage.co.nz/theinvited/

The Soviet Counterinsurgency in the Western Borderlands
Alexander Statiev, C. Published by University of Waterloo, Ontario
ISBN-13: 9780521768337

The Soviet Counterinsurgency in the Western Borderlands investigates the Soviet response to nationalist insurgencies that occurred between 1944 and 1953 in the regions the Soviet Union annexed after the Nazi-Soviet pact: Eastern Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. Based on new archival data, Alexander Statiev presents the first comprehensive study of Soviet counterinsurgency that ties together the security tools and populist policies intended to attract the local populations. The book traces the origins of the Soviet pacification doctrine and then presents a comparative analysis of the rural societies in Eastern Poland and the Baltic States on the eve of the Soviet invasion. This analysis is followed by a description of the anti-communist resistance movements. Subsequently, the author shows how ideology affected the Soviet pacification doctrine and examines the major means to enforce the doctrine: agrarian reforms, deportations, amnesties, informant networks, covert operations, and local militias. The book also demonstrates how the Soviet atheist regime used the church in its struggle against guerrillas and explains why this regime could not curb the random violence of its police. The final chapter discusses the Soviet experience in the global context.

Polish Orphans of Tengeru: The Dramatic Story of Their Long Journey to Canada 1941-49
Taylor, Lynne. Published 2009 Dunburn Press
ISBN: 978-1554880041

Red Snow – A young Poles epic search for his family in Stalinist Russia
Sobierajski, Telesfor. London, L. Cooper, 1996.
ISBN 0850525004.  LC Catalog #D810.5

The fulfilment of Visionary Return
Synowiec-Tobis, S.H. Northbrook, Illinois, Artpol Publ., 1998.
ISBN  0-965548872
Availability: Filip Ozarowski, 1019 Longaker Rd., Northbrook, IL  60062  tel: 1-847-272-6156.

The Gehenna of Polish children in the USSR
Szkoda, E. London, CY, 1993.
Availability: POSK Bookshop, London
Description: Gives a detailed account of the state of Polish orphans in the Middle East after the ‘Amnesty’ and the schools and other facilities that were established by the Polish authorities to rehabilitate and educate them after their ordeal in the Soviet Union. There are also many good photographs from the period. – Review by George Neisser

World War II through Polish Eyes – In Nazi-Soviet Grip
Szonert-Binienda, Maria. East European Monographs, 2002.
ISBN: 0-88033-502-5

Deportation into the Unknown
Teczarowska, Danuta. Braunton Devon, Merline Books, 1985. (translation from 1981 Polish edition).
ISBN  0863032672

Without Vodka –
Adventures in Wartime Russia
Topolski, Aleksander. McArthur and Co. (Canada)
ISBN  1-552786-121-6; Steerfurth (USA) ISBN  1-58642-012-7
Availability: website: www.withoutvodka.com, book review

The Silver Madonna
Wasilewska, E.  New York, John Day Co., 1971.
LC Catalog #D805 R9

The Ice Road: An Epic Journey From Stalinist Labour Camps to Freedom
Waydenfeld, Stefan. Mainstream Publishing, Edinburgh. March 22, 1999.
Availability: Paperback may be ordered directly from the publisher on a print-on-demand basis through most book shops.
Description:  It is very well written, easy to read and brings to life many of the stories we have all heard from our families about the deportations. It’s start is a little different from a lot of our stories as Stefan originates from Otwock, 30 km south of Warsaw. It is his story of how he and his parents ended up in Pinsk and unable to return to their home, they were deported as undesirables by the Soviets. A lot of things that happened to them mirrors the tragedies of many other deportees. However, probably because of his father’s profession, and the fact that they managed to have money for bribing, one or two of their journeys were more comfortable than the cattle trucks they otherwise found themselves on. Stefan’s destination near Kotlas and life on the settlement at Kvasha sounds very similar to the life my uncle described, and I feel  Stefan has made it even easier for me to picture the hardships they endured. His journey to freedom is certainly a ‘mystery tour’ where he and his parents had to be very resourceful to survive the many dilemmas they met on their long journey to Pahlavi.- Review by Dianne Custance

Website: http://www.polandww2.com/ice-road/the-ice-road

Waiting to be Heard
Dr. Bogusia, Wojciechowska. AuthorHouse

BOSTON, MA–(Marketwire – September 22, 2009) – “Waiting To Be Heard (The Polish Christian Experience Under Nazi and Stalinist Oppression 1939-1955)” deals with the disruption caused by the war that tore apart Poland in 1939. With Hitler’s vow to annihilate an eastern neighbor “for German expansion,” followed immediately by Stalin’s thrust westward and the mass deportation to Siberia of whole societies, thus causing the death of millions, those who survived could not, or would not, speak of their ordeal.

This book gives voice to those who, in fear of their lives or in anticipation of an eventual and triumphant return, found themselves exiled across the world. Dr. Bogusia Wojciechowska, the daughter of a couple that found refuge in a camp outside Oxford, England, and now Dean at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston, MA, had an incomplete picture of her family’s plight until she chanced upon some letters written by her grandfather. Her training as a historian gave her the confidence and the methodology to conduct over one hundred interviews with a rapidly decreasing population that had first-hand experience of both Nazi and Stalinist oppression. In the majority of cases it was the first time this diaspora had spoken at length about their suffering and their shattered dream of freedom for their homeland.

Presented as a series of vignettes, “Waiting to Be Heard” is a chronology punctuated by the poetry of a subsequent generation that includes Martin Stepek, John Guzlowski, and Hania Kaczanowska, each of whom pay respectful and heart-rending homage to the dignity of their parents. This 400-page book contains many photographs and artifacts, and has a foreword by Ryszard Kaczorowski, former president of the Polish Government-in-Exile in London who, in 1990, was finally able to hand over the safeguarded State Insignia to the newly and democratically-elected president, Lech Walesa, in Warszawa.

Published in October by AuthorHouse, “Waiting To Be Heard” is printed to order, so wait times may vary. Please order through Amazon or Barnes & Noble websites, or through your local bookstore. Meanwhile, one can get a feel for the content by visiting www.PolishDiaspora.net.

ISBN 978-1-4490-1370-7.

Lying Down with Dogs – A Personal Portrait of a Polish Exile
Zygadlo, M.  Fife, Lyux, 2001.
ISBN 0953541371

Joe’s War: My Father Decoded
Kobak, Annette and Knopf, Alfred A. Knopf Publishing, March 2004
ISBN: 0375411844
Part biography, part memoir, part history — the story of her father’s journey beginning in
Lwow, then eastern Poland in 1939, then south and west and eventually joining Polish Army units in France that were evacuated to Britain.

Providence Watching: Memories of Polish War Combatants from the Second World War
Collected by Patalas, Kazimierz translated by Izydorczyk, Zbigniew. University of Manitoba Press, November, 2003
Paper 0-88755-674-4
After the war, Canada accepted over 4000 Polish immigrant soldiers and their families who did not want to return to a communist regime in their country. This book is a moving oral history of the experiences of forty-five individuals during that transition period between the outbreak of war and their eventual relocation in Canada.

Janusz Zurakowski: Legend in the Skies
Zuk, Bill, Vanwell Publishing Limited, March 2004
ISBN:1551250837
Available at:www.chapters.indigo.ca

Tajkury- wioska ktora byla miastem
Romuald Wernik.
The publisher was: Caldra House, London, published 1997.
ISBN: 1872286429.

Book is available from him at the price £5.00 + postage
His address MR.R.Wernik,
19,Atherton Heights,Wembley,London,HAO 1XD.

Polish Spirit
Wojcik, Wladek, Smoczna Jama Press, 1996
ISBN: 095447760X
Available at:www.grahamsanders.com/polishspirithome.htm
In September 1939, a young Polish Airman was captured by Soviet Troops whilst his unit weas on the run from the invading Germans. The Soviets took him first into the Ukraine and subsequently into the Gulag camps of the Arctic. He escaped, was recaptured, and eventually amnestied when Stalin eventually worked out he’d been on the wrong side all along.
Wojcik came out of the Soviet Union via Turkestan and across the Caspian Sea into Persia. Eventually, after a long journey via India and South Africa, he ended up serving in the Polish Air Force in England, where he was to spend the rest of his life, since returning to a Communist Poland was not an option for him.
Avaialble also: http://www.keapublishing.com/history.php

“With Great Sacrifice and Bravery”: The Career of Polish Ace Waclaw Lapkowski, 1939-41
Knoblock, Glenn, A Merriam Press Original Publication, Monograph 86
Illustrated with Official RAF Combat Reports
See:www.merriam-press.com/withgreatsacrificeandbravery.aspx
It is the author’s hope that, in some small way, this book will help preserve the memory of a little known pilot who fought, not only for his own country, but also for France and England during the early, dark days of World War II. While Waclaw Lapkowski was an experienced pilot who became one of Poland’s aces during the war, his early demise, like that of so many others, has relegated his achievements to the back pages of history, making them nearly forgotten. However, in referring to pilots such as Lapkowski, the great British ace Robert Stanford-Tuck cites the many men “who were credited with six, seven, or eight victories”, pilots that “formed the bulk and guts of our fighter force.”

A Strange Outcome
Roy-Wojciechowski, John, Penguin Books, New Zealand
ISBN 0 14 301904 X
Order a copy from Polish Heritage Trust Museum. Email : phtmuseum@outlook.com

Freely I Served
Major General Stanislaw Sosabowski, Battery Press, 1982
ISBN: 0898390613
An account of his escape from his arrest in WWII Poland, his escape via Italy to be in England and lead the Polish Parachute Division. A 203 page hard cover book with
pictures and maps.
Available at:www.batterypresss.com

W cieniu Katynia
Swianiewicz, Stanislaw

He was one of the officers who survived Katyn thanks to being taken from Kozielsk and brought to Moscow to a prison as he was accused of being a spy (he wrote a book about Soviet Economy while he worked at the university in Lwow). He then joined Polish Army and worked for the Embassy in Kujbyszew. The book was published by Instytut Literacki in Paris in 1976.

English Translation: In the Shadow of Katyn: Available: http://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Katyn-Stalins-Terror/dp/189425516X

 Przezylem, Pamietam, Swiadcze (I survived, I remember, I witness)
Zimmermann, Henryk Zvi
The story of Zimmermann’s life, with special attention to the war years when he fought as a member of the Jewish Armed Combatant’s Organization (Zydowska Organizacja Bojownicza) in Krakow, and also with the Polish underground.

Essence
Tomaszyk, Krystine, Dunmore Press, 2004
ISBN 0-86469-475-X, 135x210mm, 235pp,
Availability: This book can be ordered  from: Dunmore Press, PO Box 5115, Palmerston North, NZ.
ph: 05 358 7169, fax: 06 357 9242
Email:books@dunmore.co.nz
In this Memoir, Krystine Tomaszyk reflects on her life, the earliest memories of which take place as her world, and that of all around her, shatters with the invasion of Poland by the German and then the Soviet army and her deportation to Siberia. This poignant narrative is, at the same time, both a dramatic physical journey, by a very long route to New Zealand, and an exploration of the mind of a child, coping with and making meaning of the events she is caught up in. Essence is a thoughtful exploration of being and becoming, an experience the reader can participate in and be challenged by. Essence is a mosaic of emotional colours, pieced together with honesty and artistry.

Krzak Burzanu
Solinska, Jadwiga
Available at: solinska.republika.pl/krzakburzanu.htm
Author’s link:solinska.republika.pl
Email:wiadlok@interia.pl
Telephone: +48 85 716 33 34

New Zealand’s First Refugees: Pahiatua’s Polish Children
Polish Children’s Reunion Committee, New Zealand, 2004
Available through Trade Me (NZ)  and eBay (Rest of World) and as an ebook on Amazon.
Contributors: former children, their children, New Zealanders, who were in some way associated with them.
Photographs, maps, list of names, material taken from archives, 2003 Survey of Polish Refugee Children.
100 personal stories of the former refugees, their guardians, the first and second-generations, and New Zealanders who had contact with them in those early years. 416 pages, with 48-page glossy photo section, history, background, facts, statistics and a complete list of all the refugees’ names. Not only will it be useful for historians, educators and sociologists as a document to enrich New Zealand’s historical heritage, but a fascinating and poignant personal history told by the former refugees, which read like non-fiction short stories.

A Priest’s Odyssey
Dr Andrzej Chibowski

1st English-language edition: Published by Future Publishing, Wellington, New Zealand,2013
Available through Trade Me (NZ)  and eBay (Rest of World) and as an ebook on Amazon

The story of Fr Michał Wilniewczyc, survivor of Siberian forced-labour camps and a chaplain in the Polish army-in-exile. He accompanied the 733 Polish orphan refugee children to Pahiatua, New Zealand.

Noble Flight – Escape and Survival During World War II
Gniewosz, Teresa Bisping with Christopher Gniewosz. Chrisco Trading, Publication Division
ISBN 0-9711628-2-4
Available at: www.nobleyouth.com
Available through CHRISCO Publications, PO Box 25190, Portland, OR 97298, Fax: 503-297-1208
Grace, Exuberance, And Optimism are tested by the horrors of World War II as youthful Terenia with her family are forced to abandon their Polish estate and flee through Europe. Along the way they endure uncertainty, loss, and hope. They are helped–or hindered–by local peasants, the elite of nobility, royalty, and all echelons of the Church. Surrounded by global forces exposing the depths of inhumanity, each family member’s strengths and frailties are ruthlessly exposed. As they seek refuge amidst shifting battle lines and national boundaries, Terenia’s personal journey leads her to womanhood and a life beyond.

Noble Youth – Adventures of Fourteen Siblings Growing Up on a Polish Estate 1919-1939
Gniewosz, Teresa Bisping with Christopher Gniewosz. Chrisco Trading, Publication Division (2001)
ISBN 0971162867
Available at: www.nobleyouth.com
Cozy up to a tale of family mischief and adventure when times were good in free and affluent Poland. High spirited Terenia explores her interaction with manor house staff, cooks, nannies, governesses, foremen, teamsters, dairymen, foresters, a fish keeper, gardener, gatekeeper and numerous regular and seasonal helpers, field hands and exciting visitors to the estate. Each season offered unique tasks and opportunities on the self-sufficient noble estate. Laugh and cry with Terenia in her experiences with family, at school and as she broke out to explore the world.

Born and raised under a straw roof: A true legacy of the human spirit.
Drzewiecki, Mary Anna.
ISBN 0968745806

Worlds Apart
Pavlovich, Henry
ISBN 978-1-84728-226-2
www.henrypavlovich.com
Worlds Apart is a novel about survival and a search for identity through memory. It looks at the choices forced on us and those we avoid making. It begins and ends with a fairy story told to the young David Wilenski by his mother in a refugee camp in England. The adult David looks back at life in that camp, realising its taboos hide a story and pose a question over identities and the past. The protagonists are his parents: Jadwiga, transported to the Soviet Gulag under Stalin, and Wladek, taken as a slave labourer to Hitler’s Reich. Dogged by guilt, through archives and accounts prised from his reluctant parents, David reassembles the shattered smithereens of their lives. A remarkable picture emerges of ordinary people struggling through war, love, and growing up, one in the “Jerusalem of the North” – riven by antagonistic nations – the other on an idyllic rural stage that is a military colony. These are the borderlands of 20th century Eastern Europe and a refugee camp in the borderlands of the UK.