12 R E C O L L E C T I O N S
Family Histories
KWIATKOWSKI Family
2/ Life Was Shattered - Deportation
I am the last of my family remaining who knows what happened to us in just eight years of upheaval. 1939 began well for us, a family of five.
It was very cold on the way, the large room we were put into felt warm by comparison. We sat down on the floor. In time, other people were brought in. It became quite crowded. In the morning even more people joined us. Then, mid morning, Jadwiga and Tadeusz appeared, brought by their teacher.
There were people milling about, a guard on the door. I sat with my back against the wall, still confused having been woken in the night, uncomprehending. We stayed in that room the whole day and the following night. During the night, Grandma slipped out unnoticed by the distracted guard. In the morning we were taken out, loaded onto sledges, our own, driven by Bendyk, a neighbour. It was cold, cloudy sky, flurries of snow carried by the slight breeze. We travelled across the country, the road invisible under deep snow. The journey to the railway. station at Rokitno took all day. There was a goods train waiting for us. We had the last glimpse of our horse and dogs who followed us before being loaded onto the train and doors locked. There was no light inside the wagon until someone lit a candle. It wasn't until the evening of the following day that the train with a jerking and clashing of buffers began its journey. It travelled with very few, brief stops until 22 February before stopping. The doors clanged open and we were told to get out. The sun shone brightly onto deep snow too deep for my legs. So Dad carried me to a sledge in a line of others that were waiting to take us further. Before we left the wagon Dad wrote our details and date of arrival, 22 February 1940, on the wall of the wagon.
This place, where the railway sideline stopped, was Szabrycha. We had another 6km, before reaching the place of exile in Darovatka.
Here we were put into a large, wooden barrack that stood close to a dense line of trees. There were three of them initially, later two more were built. Subdivided into three, they each housed about 60 people to a "room". Our new "home" consisted of three wooden shelves and the floor space beneath. Within days, adults were sent to log trees in the woods with the assistance of older teenagers. Children of Jadwiga's age went to school whilst small fry like I stayed at home.
Darovatka lay in open land, the east of which was abounded by dense, old woods. To the north a small river, Czerniawka; south, a much smaller stream Kuzniecówka. These two flowed west to Darovatka before flowing south. At the junction of Darovatka and Kuzniecówka there was a mill. At the time of our arrival the railway line was being extended to Połdniewica to the north where another exile settlement existed. Even during that first winter deaths occurred amongst us. The oldest and the very youngest could not cope with the conditions of the new life.
The weather was cold, deep snow covered the ground and the temperature dropped as low as minus 60 celsius.Work in the woods was suspended once it reached below 50. Each worker had a daily allocation of work to achieve to be sure of being able to buy a portion of poor quality rationed bread. Adults when working were allowed 600 gm. Children and unable to work 200 gm. per day. The whole area was desperately poor, still feeling the effects of the Civil War.
Within a short time the food we brought with us began to run out and hunger became constant. When spring came, Dad managed to contact our relations at home and they responded with food parcels which, though taking a long time to reach us, became our salvation. Long weeks passed before winter turned into spring.
It was May. Earlier some of the workers in the woods were redirected to continue extending the railway from Szabrycha onwards. Most of the women, Mum included, and older girls loaded and unloaded ballast transported on open platforms along the existing embankment from Szabrycha to the site of the proposed bridge over Czerniawka. It was heavy work, six and half days weekly regardless of the weather. Apart from the ballast platforms there weren't any machines. Leveling ballast, laying sleepers and rails was done by hand. At the same time an area for the settlement was being cleared of tree stumps.
Darovatka was first used to house exiled Ukrainians in the early thirties. About 400 of them were dumped in virgin forest and they had cleared the site, building the barracks we now occupied. By 1939, they were all dead except for one who was allowed to move into a nearby village. That is what we were told by the locals. Also, building began of two extra barracks to be ready before next winter. A brief, hot summer followed the slightly longer spring. Wild raspberries grew in profusion where the trees had been cleared in previous years. One day Tadeusz took me to see Dad where he was working inside a building. We walked a "road" formed by the dragging of logs. Barefoot, I climbed a steep bank where this house stood. Dad was planing long boards and the floor was covered by sweet smelling shavings. Quickly summer turned into autumn and the nights became cold. The ground started to freeze towards the end of the month.
"relocated" from another area. That winter dragged on. Dad and Mum went to work after feeding us whilst Jadwiga and Tadeusz went to school. I, not being well, spent my time inside, mostly gazing out of the window. Jadwiga, returning from school at midday, fed me again. It was a long wait for our parents to come home in the early evening. Eventually, as I wasn't showing signs of improvement, Mum was allowed a day off work so she could take me to the nearest hospital. This was in Chmielówka, about 20 km. from Darovatka. It was a trip to remember. We went by rail (the line now reached Darovatka) to Neja the previous evening. Neja is a station on the sideline leading north from the main west-east route to Siberia where there is another Neja. We spent the night sleeping in a warehouse having been met by a friend who worked there. It was a chilly but quite comfortable night on large bags, full of something. In the morning we set off in a small, one horse sledge, driven by a young woman. The hospital in Chmielówka was about 2km away. off. Across the wide plain, covered in deep snow, the early sun sparkled. In a while we reached the small wood and the hospital beyond. We waited awhile in a long corridor full of people.
Our turn came and we were called into a room at the corridor's end. A young woman doctor diagnosed my illness as yellow jaundice, regretfully saying "but I can't help you, we don't have the drugs to treat it".
There wasn't anything to be done and we set off for the warehouse in Neja. Halfway there, the horse spooked and began a mad dash for home, the driver vainly trying to regain control. Soon she fell out - we were on our own in the back of the sledge Mum clutching me to her chest. The sledge overturned and we fell out but fortunately the snow was very deep. It was so deep that we were stuck as the surface wasn't firm enough to walk on. Way behind us was the helpless driver. In the distance several people appeared and began making their way towards us. It wasn't very long before we were rescued and back at the station.
On the return journey, a fellow woman passenger asked Mum what was wrong with me. Finding out she said "Go and see my mother, but don't mention it to anyone. She will help you". Years later I was told this by Mum. The old lady Mum went to see still practised home medicine, (strictly forbidden by law with a three month jail sentence if convicted) it was she who gave Mum a concoction based on wormwood. I remember it as a very bitter liquid.
By early spring I was fit enough to play outside. During that winter at the beginning of 1941, Dad was stricken by severe internal pains. Szatudowa, the settlement nurse, obtained a pass and referral to a clinic in Kirov, 200 km. east. He was away several days before returning. He wasn't treated but diagnosed with pleurisy. Nevertheless, he was pleased having had a tooth root removed without an appointment at a dentist he passed on the way to the clinic. As he was unable to work in the woods owing to this condition, he was moved to building maintenance. In his new job he walked 6 km. to Szabrycha each day, returning early in the evening. There, he was assisted by a teenage brother and sister who, really, were too young to work. This was Mielnikov's idea (NKVD Commandant) helping them to survive. Their father had been called up into the army and their mother was ill. Sometimes Tadeusz went with him. Because of this change, Mum was sent to work in the vegetable gardens. When the days warmed she would, often, take me with her.
We would walk along the right bank of Kuzniecówka, where the opposite bank was fragrant with bird cherry scent, turn left at the railway line, then after crossing the stream on the line's log bridge, left again. Cabbages and gherkins were the main crop as I recall. A road to Katarynówka led past the garden which I think began at the mill on Darovatka. Further on lay the cemetery. At the beginning of our second summer there the railway had reached Czerniawka where the bridge piles were almost complete. In a hollow surrounded by birches, near the barracks, children gathered in the evenings to tell stories, sing and try to pedal a home made, wooden cart up its slope. The very young of us played on the line making small, clay briquettes. Each time the train with building materials came we tumbled down the embankment's slope like large frogs. This was to the north of the settlement's rail stop which still existed in 2014. It was at this time that, playing on the banks of Czerniawka , I witnessed the crash of this supply train. Overloaded, unable to stop, the driver was first to jump off, followed by the women and girls of the workforce. All jumped clear except one, she fell with the wagons into the water below the unfinished bridge. Badly injured, she spent weeks in hospital but survived.
One day Tadeusz caught a small fish, using a bent pin as a hook. The fishing line was a long hair from a horse's tail. Mum fried it and we all had a tiny piece each, it was delicious. This summer there weren't so many raspberries in the long grass between the barracks and the forest. Between the place where clothes were washed in the Czerniawka and the bridge, planks were laid across and we could search the woods on the opposite side for mushrooms. There were very few to be found. There was also a practically total absence of birds. One hot Sunday, Jadwiga took me there for several hours. We searched for a long time before finding one, even longer for another small specimen. Coming back along the unfinished line was very painful walking barefoot on the coarse, hot ballast. The sun, still high in the sky shone directly into our faces, we were thirsty. It seemed an age before we reached Czerniawka's cool water flowing over the planks. The last of the bridge piles had been driven in during that week by the time honoured method of manual vertical lifting and dropping of a heavy log. Cross bracing sleepers began to be laid which was fun to watch for small boys. This railway reached the next exile settlement by early autumn.
Now a brief return to the previous winter. At Christmas, Tadeusz made me a tiny, clay horse. He laid it on the top of the communal stove to bake and I spotted it. In my excitement, I picked it up breaking one of its legs. My three legged horse went with me everywhere until I lost it on the way to Kyrgyzstan.
At the beginning of this summer we were still surviving on a mix of Dad's and Mum's wages augmented by food from Aunt Bronislawa, and Aleksander Prokopczuk, Dad's long time Ukrainian friend. The previous autumn we had a letter from Grandma Aniela and a photograph. The invasion of the Soviet Union by Germany broke this contact and our existence took a downwards turn.
As autumn turned colder Dad and Mum became very worried about our footwear, especially Jadwiga's. Her boots were worn out, we didn't have the money for the Russian felt, winter boots that were only briefly available in Darowatka. It was now that Russian kindness came to our rescue. Dad was having a break at work when one of two Russians warming by the same fire offered him a baked potato and said "I've seen you worried and guessed why, take this note and go to my home. My wife will give you a hundred roubles". He added, "right now". Dad, dumbstruck, thanked him and set off for Duza Katarynówka where this man, Nikita Nagibin, lived. There Nagibin's wife, Larissa read the note and handed Dad the money. The following day he was able to buy these "walonki" and Jadwiga had her winter footwear. They cost 90 roubles. Dad could never have been able to clear this debt out of our parents' meager wages. Returning the residue of the money, he gave Nikita his gold pocket watch. Valuable in other places, here it was just a bauble. Nikita Nagibin and Larissa became close friends of our family, often visiting us on Sundays, the only day free from work. When he was called up the following year Larissa moved to Darovatka. They were childless and had
In August, Dad was summoned to serve at the police station of Bystrzyce, 12 km from home and close to the border with the Soviet Union. The Soviet invasion on 17 September meant his unit was ordered to disperse and he returned home a day later. On the day before, I'd stood with mum, grandma and a neighbour in our yard listening to the sound of distant guns. After father’s return, life seemed to flow as before until the beginning of winter when Jadwiga and Tadeusz, beginning a new school, went to board with aunt Bronisława. The snow was deep, frost severe, Bronisława with husband Felicjan lived very much nearer the school. They came home for Christmas. On Christmas Eve we all sat by the open fire roasting skewered pieces of pork. Jadwiga and Tadeusz went back, life for me went on as usual. Yet things didn't feel quite the same due to our parents’ mood. Our life was shattered a few weeks later. On 10 February 1940, I was woken by mum and hurriedly dressed into warm clothes. There were armed men in the room. Dad was standing facing the wall, hands above his head. Mum scurried across the room frantically packing large bundles. I, bemused, couldn't understand what was happening. After a while we were taken outside, grandma Aniela with us, loaded into our waiting sledge and taken to the primary school of the nearest village, Białaszówka.