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This is the story of Zofia Baginska (nee Czerwinska) as told by her niece Christina Sajewicz residing in Wellington, New Zealand. Zofia’s life seemed perfect until September 1939, when the war started. After the Germans invaded Poland from the west, the Soviets invaded eastern Poland and proceeded to break down the social structures in the community. There were mass arrests of Polish intelligentsia. Anyone holding a government job was arrested and imprisoned, including Zofia’s husband, Robert Baginski. Many were never heard of again. After about 3 months in prison Robert came home. He suspected that the Soviets were planning to deport to Siberia people who might be potential opposition, because that was what had happened during World War I. But they did not realise just how soon the deportations would take place.One very early winter’s morning in 1940, a handful of Soviet agents with guns banged on the door, burst in and ordered the family to quickly get dressed and pack, because (they were told) they were being transferred to another region. Zofia said later that their men treated them reasonably well, even suggested what they should pack. But other families had different experiences.Robert and Zofia packed their “kufer” (a large chest) and some suitcases with clothes, blankets, non-perishable food, and a few photos. They were not allowed to take any documents. Then Robert and their nine year old son, Adam were taken away, but pregnant Zofia was told to sit there and wait. She wondered later if they were giving her a chance to escape because she was pregnant. One of the men came back during the day and said something like, “Oh you’re still here”. She was then taken to the railway station and put into the wagon where Robert and Adam were. It was a cattle train with small barred windows. The wagon was full, with a number of other families already there. After a few days the train started travelling eastwards.The journey was long, cold and uncomfortable. The children cried all the time. There was a hole in the floor which served as the toilet – no privacy until some screens were improvised with blankets. The train would stop occasionally and some soup or water was distributed, but at other times it would go for days without stopping. People tried to grab snow through the barred window to quench their thirst. Eventually they arrived and disembarked in, or near, Arkhangelsk (Archangel), the most north-eastern part of Europe.From there people were taken (some had to walk many kilometres) to a clearing in a forest where there were cabins. Zofia and Robert were given a cabin; one room with bunks and a tiny stove. The stove was basically for heating as there was almost no food to cook. Almost immediately, all the men were moved deep into the forest to a slave labour camps. Their work was cutting down trees, which they then had to cut into 1 metre lengths. Life there was terrible. The work was very heavy, they used only handsaws, their accommodation was even worse than in the earlier settlement. Their clothing was inadequate in the cold winter. In summer, large mosquitoes would eat them alive. Each group was allocated so many trees to cut in a day and they had to keep working until everything was done, or they would not get any food. Their meals consisted of thin soup three times a day and a 500 gram piece of “very moist” black bread per day. Teenage boys and women were allowed to live “at home” but had to do similar work in forests closer to home. Adults, who didn’t work, like mothers with small children were given only 300 grams of the black bread per day.People made contact with the local Russians living in a nearby settlement, and those who had some cash would buy a little food; anything the Russians could spare, e.g. a small bag of onions, or potatoes.As soon as she could, Zofia wrote and to my parents and advised them of her whereabouts and their difficulties. The letter did arrive in Lipniki Kolonia and a short time later Zofia received a food parcel from her sister! What a treat that was! These parcels continued until mid 1941. Zofia too was able to send a parcel to Lipniki. Her sister wrote that there was no soap in Poland. As it happened, their little shop had lots of Polish soap (with its familiar logo). Zofia asked at the office if she could send some soap to Poland, “because they had none”. The answer was, “Yes. We have everything in the CCCP” (USSR).Robert was allowed to come home for a week or so when their baby was due. The baby was born in spring 1940. They named him Wincenty. As a breast-feeding mother, Zofia was probably given an extra daily ration of bread, but quite soon after giving birth she was told that the baby must go into a crèche because she would have to go to work, in the forest. She explained to the officer that she had never worked in a forest; that she had worked at home knitting and embroidering. She showed him samples of her work and luckily he was interested. He had probably never seen anything so pretty in that God-forsaken land. Soon a workshop was set up in the village where women would knit scarves and mittens and embroider blouses, etc. They were not paid for the work. People survived on the daily rations of soup and the black bread. In summer they would pick berries and mushrooms which were plentiful in the forest, but winters were unbearable. Many did not survive. The lucky ones who had things like nice clothes or pretty accessories would barter these with the “better off” Russians for food. Zofia said that Robert almost cried when she swapped her blue satin dress (which was his favourite) for a couple of cabbages.In the middle of 1941, Germany declared war on Russia. Suddenly, Britain and the Polish Government-in-Exile (in London) and Russia were on the same side, fighting Hitler. Soon after, people heard that the Russians had announced an amnesty, and that they were allowed to leave. At first people did not believe the news. Then the emaciated men returned from the forests. The amnesty was real; Polish slave labourers could leave, but not to return to Poland. Those who had money bought train tickets to anywhere as long as they could leave the frozen north. At the same time, the men decided to form a Polish army. Robert wanted to join too but Zofia did not want him to go. Reluctantly, Robert stayed, and with hundreds of Poles they took a train to Uzbekistan.RefugeesIt was not a straightforward journey. Before they reached Uzbekistan, they had to change trains many times, were stranded in out of the way places for weeks at a time, and crossed rivers on barges which were so packed that people were falling off and drowning. Some of the places Zofia mentioned were: Sverdlovsk, Kharkov and Tashkent.Somewhere (probably) in Uzbekistan they met the “Polish Army”. Those men looked even worse than they did when they returned from the forests. They were starving, just skin and bone, their clothes were rags just about falling off them, and they were covered in fleas and lice. When Robert saw them, he thanked Zofia for stopping his joining that army. Later, a better organised “Armia Andersa” was formed. Robert joined them, and Adam joined “Junaki” or the Cadets (Youth Corps). The Polish Army was first sent to the Middle East to protect Western Allies’ oil fields, then to North Africa and Italy.Zofia and little Wicio were coping the best they could, sometimes swapping the last of their meagre possessions for food, other times relying on the goodwill of their Uzbek neighbours. Many people died there, both from starvation and from diseases. Wicio died when he was about 2 years old. Zofia always said that none of the babies born in Russia survived.In 1942 civilian refugees were sent to Persia. They were accommodated in Tehran and Isfahan. The Shah even offered one of his palaces as a temporary home for the Poles. For the first time in over two years they had all the food they wanted. Zofia said that just seeing lots of food made her feel full; she could only eat very little. Others would be gorging themselves. Unfortunately, typhus spread through the camps and thousands of people died. For a while, Zofia worked as a nurse aide in a children’s ward but had to leave because every time a child died she would break down and cry. And there were many, many children dying every day.As the camps in Persia were only temporary, UNRA (the UN Relief Agency) made efforts to resettle these people permanently. But where? They could not be sent home because war was still raging in their homeland. Many were sent to Africa and India – British colonies. In 1944 the New Zealand Government agreed to take about 700 children “until the end of the war”. Zofia was asked if she wanted to be one of the caregivers to the children going to New Zealand. She said no, because NZ was too far away and she wished to return to Poland after the war. She chose to go to a refugee camp in India. It so happened that both the USS General Randall, the ship that the children were on, and the ship taking a group of Polish refugees to India were in Bombay at the same time. Zofia was asked again to join the New Zealand-bound children; but again she refused.Zofia’s group was settled in a camp recently vacated by the US Army in Kalhapur. The only other place (I remember her mentioning) was Karachi (now in Pakistan). She was happy there. She liked the weather, the wonderful variety of fruit and vegetables, and she had a paid job as a warden. In Kalhapur, Zofia learned that her son, Adam, had died (somewhere in the Middle East), and sometime later was advised that Robert had also died (in Egypt, I think). She was completely on her own.When the war ended and Poland was to be a communist country, she realised that she could not return home; her former home was now in Russia, anyway. Where could she go? People who had relatives anywhere in the world were assisted to join them. Zofia did not have anyone. Some people in her situation did return to Poland, but she would not. She tried to find my parents, (Kornela and Marjan Jucewicz) and other members of the family through the Red Cross, without success. One day a neighbour brought a letter from a widower in New Zealand who was looking for a wife and a mother for his 3 children. Reluctantly, Zofia agreed to correspond with him. She told me later that every time she received his letters she had the feeling that something was not right.The camp in Kalhapur closed at the beginning of 1948, and the handful of people left, including Zofia, were sent to Lebanon. They were placed in a rented accommodation, among the local Lebanese people. She lived in Lebanon about 13 months. Under pressure from the UN authorities to choose a permanent home, Zofia agreed to come to NZ and marry Stanislaw Zagrobelny, the man who had been writing to her.New ZealandShe arrived in Auckland on a flying boat, in April or May 1949, then travelled by train to Wellington. Stanislaw met her at the station and took her to Petone, to meet his three school-aged children. Some 3 days later they were married in the Sacred Heart Church in Petone. The marriage was a failure and Zofia left him some six months later.Zofia Baginska Zagrobelna died 18 February 1976 and is buried in Makara Lawn Cemetery. |
