R E C O L L E C T I O N S
Jaroslaw (Jerry) Kubica was born in 1939 in what was then Poland, and is now Belarus. In April 1940, he, his mother and two sisters were deported by the Soviets to Kazakhstan; his father was sent to GULAG camps near Murmansk.
I HAD A DREAM… I woke up with a start… 03.30, still dark outside…
I remember my Dad leaving us on that big white horse…he ordered his huge police Alsation – Max - to guard the family! Suddenly a hell of a noise broke out as if someone was trying to smash the entrance door. It must have been a pistol or gunshot almost right next to my ear that woke me up. Max, lay bleeding and motionless by my cot. A man in uniform stood over him with a pistol in his hand, two other men with big guns and bayonets stood by the door! Mom was up against the wall and so was my uncle and granddad, all white as ghosts. Mircia was clutching Mom’s skirt… couldn’t see Ala… I heard constant shouting: WHERE’S YOUR HUSBAND? WHERE’S YOUR HUSBAND? WHERE’S THAT POLICEMAN!? And then: PACK and OUT! You and your three kids! OUT! OUT! Into the sledge waiting for you outside! One of the men with a gun looked at me and Ala and I could hear him say quietly to my Mom – take lots of warm clothes, take food….
And then another scene –
“Three boys lay dead-quiet hidden in the shrubs, their heads barely poking above the snowdrift; shivering in the cold of -30˚C, almost frozen into the dirty snow, their eyes were riveted to the scene unfolding in front of them. They had never seen anything like it at the railway station: long lines of railcars, masses of people… soldiers with rifles and bayonets and those funny peaked caps with a big red star on the front, and those men with red armbands! And people… masses of people… old men, women, children… and more and more arriving in sledges and trucks… so much shouting, crying, weeping, lamenting. Some women carrying wrappings or loaves of bread were trying to get through the line of soldiers, even some boys were trying too, but all were being driven back by vicious snarling dogs, or driven back with rifle butts… and those other soldiers… papers in their hand… shoving people into the waiting wagons!
“Tom, Tom, look!” The eldest boy jabbed his elbow into his mate as a sledge pulled up almost right in front of their noses. “Tom, I know them! It’s that family of that policeman… you know… the one from Wileńska Street… they had a baby boy just a few months ago; my sister plays with that bigger girl, Mircia, and that smaller one is Ala… can’t see the baby… must be somewhere there… in the shawl probably. And look… their mother… she’s not crying… look at her face – she’s as white as snow; must be freezing in that open sledge.”
“But the show had to come to an end; the time had come for the real tragedy to begin. The young mother and her two small daughters and the one-year-old Jarosław were manhandled onto the train, as were two thousand other old men, women, children and babies. Sliding doors slammed shut, bolts shot in place, the wagon sealed, and the long train pulled slowly away to… where?
The boys knew “to… where” they had to go. They had to run back home, tell their moms what they had seen, and tell the world – when the world will listen – what took place in Postawy on the night of 12th/13th April 1940….”
OH LORD – this wasn’t a dream, it really did happen exactly EIGHTY years ago!
click on images to enlarge
similar to Max - Dad's police dog
Dad on his "white" horse