12 R E C O L L E C T I O N S
Family Histories
KWIATKOWSKI Family
3/ News - Release, but where to?
In September, news reached us of an agreement between Polish and Soviet Governments that released us from exile. Once issued with appropriate documents, we were free to travel anywhere in the Soviet Union. The only snags were how and where. We were destitute by now yet Dad was determined somehow to get out of the country. Staying, we faced oblivion. Normal routines still continued in Darovatka while conditions relaxed but the only income was still from the same heavy work. Food supplies became worse, even more scarce with the outbreak of war. The first group of older teenagers, men and women, left on 18 October 1941. Even though we still didn't have our documents, Dad was busy preparing to leave. Mum was drying bread for the journey. Where to? Dad's idea was to head south towards India. In the first days of November we had our documents. Dad and two friends went to the Commander of the field airstrip being built at Neja and asked him for transport which would take us to the main line. The Colonel in charge willingly agreed and on 8 November an engine with two wagons came to Darovatka. Just over a hundred people decided to leave on this cloudy, cold day. Loading was quick, the journey didn't take long and we got out at the mainline station to settle in the waiting room. It was packed. No one had expected such a crowd and the militia soon appeared. We were asked to return. Dad, a fluent Russian speaker, refused and told everyone to stay put. We stayed there for almost two days before permission to travel was granted and space was found on a train (tickets purchased of course) to Sverdlovsk, east of the Urals. We were on our way.
As we neared the Urals, snow appeared in the fields. As the train was taking a long left turn, I noticed overhead wires running along the line and hadn’t realised for a long time that the railway was electrified. We travelled parallel to the mountains for quite a while. They were heavily wooded and deep in snow. It was a sunny day, the snow sparkled, I sat at the window and, at some stage, fell asleep.
When I woke the carriage was in darkness and cold. We were in a railway siding, on our own. Quite far off I could see lights and movement on the main line. We were there for a week. During this time in Sverdlovsk, Dad saw the Polish Ambassador Kot, who advised him to stay. This was the same advice that the Colonel gave, "the Soviet Union is the same everywhere". Dad ignored Kot knowing that with our limited resources we couldn't survive. The problem was that we didn't have enough money left for further travel. The solution came from an unexpected source. Although Polish Jews were allowed to travel, in practice they weren't allowed to leave the country. Such a group contacted Dad at Sverdlovsk station. We still occupied the carriage so they sneaked in when it got dark. There were ten of them, some related. With their combined finance Dad was able to rent the carriage to Tashkent. It was to be attached to any train heading in that direction, time being immaterial. A day later, in the evening, with much noise and jerking we were linked to a train and left for the next leg of our journey. As Dad recalled, we headed south then, on the next hook up, west. It was there, that while at a standstill, an enormous locomotive pulled up on the next line. It was red and green, and reeked of hot oil and smoke. Within a few minutes I was sick. It moved after a short while but I still recall that feeling on seeing that particular combination of colours. After two or three days we were hooked to another train and headed eastwards. I was asleep at this changeover, unusual for me because the jerking and buffers crashing kept me awake at such times. During the next day we crossed a very wide river that Jadwiga said was the Volga but, in retrospect, could have been the Ural. It was a sunny day, no snow in sight. Within a short while, after crossing the bridge, our train stopped. Long minutes passed before a train heading in the opposite direction came into sight. It was extremely long, mostly flatbeds, only a few wagons. It carried vehicles, tanks and aeroplanes without wings. Tadeusz counted the passing trucks stopping when he reached a hundred and thirty.
It was at one of those stops before we crossed the river that Mum traded her only head covering, a woolen scarf, for thirty pounds of flour. It worried Dad but this flour proved to be our saviour in days to come. Meanwhile, we survived on what we could afford to buy when the train made a stop not always near dwellings or stations.
We had reached Kazakhstan by this time and were heading south, it was warmer now, no snow in sight. Long before we reached the Aral Sea the train made one of it's unscheduled stops, unbroken steppe stretched in all directions. Few hundred metres away, in a grove of birches, stood a house or two. Smoke rising above one. Dad jumped off the train and ran towards it. Luckily the train hadn't moved before he came back carrying a steaming dish of food. A kind Ukrainian woman, a colonist from Kiev, gave him her freshly cooked meal. Hearing his story she replied "But we are practically neighbours, if the train stops for a while, come back, I'll find you something more". But soon as Dad climbed aboard we were off.
I can't remember any of the next day or two before we reached the Aral Sea and stopped for a long while at a station. Here, Dad went to the adjacent market and bought a reasonable amount of fish, which was plentiful and cheap. Here also Dad was asked by the Jewish group to look after sharing of their bread for they quarrelled all the time at meals.He agreed, but years later he said to me "I regretted this, for it was a mental strain being watched all the time in case a thicker slice was cut".
By this time we had been on the move for over two weeks since we left Sverdlovsk. Few days later we arrived in Tashkent, were uncoupled and put in a siding. Dad made contact with the Polish Army recruiting office to arrange onward transport for India but these plans fell apart. They told him not to leave the carriage under any circumstances without being told where to go next. The NKVD were in charge of all refugees who were arriving daily from all directions. It was they who issued Dad with a permit allowing him to buy a meal for us in the station buffet. As Tashkent couldn't cope with such an influx of refugees they dispersed them over a wide area of Uzbekistan. All were in a very poor state of health, many were ill, yet placed in very poor conditions to work in frosty weather. A large proportion died, especially the old and the young. Our group, reduced to about eighty by now, were sent on to Kyrgyzstan, still in the same carriage, attached to another train bound for Jalal-Abad.
We headed south before turning east to Jalal-Abad, arriving there the following night. In the morning we were given a meal and soon afterwards began leaving the train for the waiting Uzbek arbas - carts with two very large wheels, drawn by a single horse. It was drizzling with cold rain, the mud between the station entrance and the carts watery and deep, Dad carried me to our cart. It was barely large enough to house the five of us, the driver and our meagre possessions.
There were a number of these carts but I can't remember how many. Within a short distance the road began to climb, gently at first then steeper without changing the gradient. Soon the horse couldn't cope , Dad, Mum and the driver had to walk. We went on at this pace, always uphill, always in drizzling rain. Towards the end of the day the rain stopped but it became bitterly chilly. As darkness began to fall we stopped for the night. Here the road ran between a hill on the left and open field on the right. All the carts pulled onto the field forming a square. It was very cold, penetrating, damp, cold. We lay on the cart shivering, Dad with Mum on the outside, we three on the inside, I in the middle. From a stack in the field the Uzbeks pulled a load of straw and lit a fire. It would quickly flare up producing warmth but die in minutes into acrid, eye watering smoke. We spent a very miserable night before a pale morning arrived. At first light we went on. The road continued climbing, horses barely coped even with all adults walking. Around midday we reached a small village on the right side of the road. Here we, children, were given some warm, watery, porridge. Adults were allowed to warm themselves inside the houses. We were halfway to our destination and had to wait for different carts to take us further. These arrived in a short while. Ukrainian colonists were our drivers now. Their horses were in much better condition than our previous set. Everyone could ride now. I fell asleep quickly and don't remember this part of our journey. I woke up feeling warm to an aroma of something pleasant being roasted. On opening my eyes I saw Dad next to the bunk I was laying on. We were in a large, sunny room and Dad was roasting maize kernels on a stove. They tasted delicious. Here we waited for the people that agreed to give us shelter. I could see snow flurries in the bright sunshine outside.