In the first months of World War II, Poles were displaced from their native sides and taken to distant corners of Soviet Russia. Resettled to small villages, they were engaged in forced labor. They lived in kolkhozes deprived of basic conveniences and livelihoods, without the possibility of returning to the country. Under the agreement of General Władysław Sikorski and Ivan Mayski of July 30, 1941, Poles could return to Poland or voluntarily leave the USSR and seek refuge outside of Russia. This is how a long journey of thousands of Poles began in search of a way to a new home.
The Siberians who left the USSR were accompanied by General Anders’ army evacuating from Russia. Thousands of Poles went to the Middle East. They had to look for food and shelter on their own. In the port of Pahlavi, in the north of Persia, on the initiative of the Red Cross, a camp was set up, where the Poles could find medical and financial help. Healthy persons were redirected to Tehran and Isfahan. There, schools for children and youth were opened, and scouting teams were established. The authorities organized Polish children’s trips to historic Isfahan buildings, provided visits to traditional baths and pool classes. Children, exhausted by nightmare of war and exile, were to be provided at least a scrap of a normal childhood in the Middle East.
It is estimated that from 1942, 20,000 Polish children left the Soviet Union. They were transported as far as possible from the outbreak of war and were sent to Mexico, Lebanon, Tanzania and India in transports organized by the Polish government in exile and Allied authorities. 733 Polish children were also sent to Pahiatua in New Zealand.
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Leaving Russia and the temporary camp in Pahlevi
They were happy that we were leaving. It was one of the first civilian transports from Russia, from Uzbekistan. We arrived in Persia, it was really a group of gnarled, ruined, sickly wrecks. I only remember people getting off the ship, and some women, both children and adults actually, dropping on their knees, raising their hands towards the sky and thanking God for finally escaping that hell, that they were free again. There was this one woman holding her hands raised who burst into tears, it is a sight I cannot forget. Naturally, the first thing we had to go through in Pahlevi was disinfection. There were those huge tents there, you would go inside, everything we had would be burnt, and the Red Cross ladies would give us clothes and some really poor shoes, after we had taken our first shower in three months.
Travelling across the Zagros Mountains to the camp in Tehran
We crossed the Zagros Mountains to Tehran on trucks, quite small ones. It was a terrible journey, you know, it was a mountain route, very narrow, the trucks were so small because it was easy to fall off on turns. One of the trucks in front of us did actually fall off. Afterwards, before we got to Tehran, I mean our camp there, it was in the evening, all lights were on and all those trucks, the entire cavalcade entered Tehran, and it was the first time I had seen such a city. It looked like Ali Baba’s cave, the shops, they had everything, jewellery, ladies wearing beautiful, western clothing, and it was difficult to believe that... that across the Caspian Sea, in Russia, there was a terrible war going on, and that the entire world was at war and that people were dying by the thousands and starving to death. And in Iran, all shops had plenty of food. And those stands. After experiencing hunger in Uzbekistan, it was difficult to believe that there is so much food in the world.
The fate of Polish orphans in the Near East
In Tehran, we lived in a civilian camp, some five kilometres away from Tehran. Lots of children became orphans there, because their starved, ailing mothers, who would give their children all the food they had in Russia, died. Even in Tehran, lots of people died. My mother was one of those people. She was ill for one and a half years in Russia, and there was no health care, no nothing. She died eighteen days after coming to Tehran. That’s why I did not feel like a little child anymore, but they did send me to a children’s shelter. After some time, after two months, orphans like me became more numerous, and they would gradually send us to Isfahan, which was later dubbed Isfahan – the city of Polish children. There were many facilities there, and that’s where we could slowly return to living normal lives. There weren’t any psychologists, nobody talked to us, nobody explained the deaths of our parents to us, nobody... We would often talk with our friends about it while lying in bed at night, crying and healing our wounds. Excuse me.
Pahiatua scouts
They formed a scouting organisation back in Tehran. But I did not join them, it did not apply to the orphanage, but in... Mrs Figulanka formed the first team in Isfahan, and it only lasted eight months, because the entire Isfahan orphanage went to South Africa. I was supposed to be one of them, but I was very sick with malaria, that’s why I stayed, but our Mrs Figulanka and her girl scouts all left. And eventually, Aleksandra Jarmulska, in consultation with the scouting authorities from the Middle East, formed a detachment, a few all-female teams, and Józwa formed all-male teams, and that’s how the detachment was formed. Yes, we could blow off steam as scouts, that was the most important thing... our greatest pleasure. We would go to meetings, sing a little, then there were drills and some marching, marching and acquiring various, what is it?
Person 1: Badges.
Badges, yes. And the scout’s oath, evening bonfires. It was wonderful. I’ll never forget it. It was a very, very important treatment for us mentally scarred children.
This interview is part of the film “Wygrać z przeznaczeniem”, directed by Marek Lechowicz.
Arkhangelsk kolkhoz
I was deported to Russia when I was 11, taken with my family to Arkhangelsk in Siberia. The conditions were terrible in the camp where we lived. First of all, it was crowded, cold, we were famished, we subsisted on bread and a bowl of soup. Bread... Children were given 400 grams of bread a day. Hard-working adults were given 600 grams of bread to last a whole day. We would also receive 2-3 small ladles of thin soup, with only a small potato or sometimes a piece of cabbage floating in it, but it was very little. No wonder that so many fell ill in Siberia. So many people died in our camp due to hunger, freezing cold, and hard work, hard work. We were also surveilled at all times. Russian police officers watched us work so that nobody would try to escape.
Leaving the camp in 1941
Many people died there. We left quite a graveyard behind. Or... when we were leaving, after amnesty was proclaimed and we became free, they told us that... we could go wherever we wanted. But they also tried to make us stay, just think about it: Where will you go? There is war raging in Europe and Poland, you have a home here, you have a job here, you have food here. But nobody stayed in the camp. Everyone who was still alive and could walk – left. My father took... he organised it all. Everyone who had any money or valuables, jewellery, they sold it to Russian women to scrounge up enough money to pay for our journey from Kotlas, because Kotlas was the place in which we could get on a train, and it was far away. We walked. We walked with our bundles, trying to make it to Kotlas. With the money... we had people from all kinds of places, not only our camp, we gathered up and paid for our tickets. We had been brought to Russia after all. At Stalin’s expense, everything had been free for us up until then. This time we had to pay our travel expenses ourselves. Where are we going? We’re going south. South, to Tashkent in Kazakhstan, where the Polish army is stationed. Where Sikorski and Anders are. My father was an old soldier. Well, not old, he was 49 when he died. So he knew that we had to get closer to the Polish army.
Nightmarish escape from the USSR
It took us six weeks to get from Kotlas near Arkhangels to Tashkent. And that’s, my dear listeners, when the nightmare began. Overcrowded trains. It was warm back then. The south is of course warmer than up north. The trains were so overcrowded that people would just curl up or stand, just so that they could ride. We weren’t getting any bread anymore, like we had been on the way from Poland to Russia, we were given loves of bread every day back then. We had to buy, steal, or beg for meals, whatever we could get, just not to die of hunger. That’s when people started to get seriously ill. Typhus, dysentery, all kinds of diseases which I can’t even remember the names of anymore. And the lice, oh God, the lice. Siberia was full of bedbugs, because they thrive in peat, in moss, because the buildings, the spaces between the logs were stuffed with moss and it had bedbugs. They would bite us like crazy, and we were all crawling with them.
Father’s illness
Another tragedy in the family. Father had always had heart-related issues, and he fell ill, got swollen like a balloon suddenly, as though his body was full of water. Mother rushed to a little hospital nearby and begged on her knees so that they would admit him. And they did. She visited him every day, but he wasn’t getting better. She went there one morning and he said that he felt a little better, they had given him an injection and he felt better. She came back all happy “Children, everything’s going to be fine. Father is a little better now”. But when she went to see him next morning, he was no longer in the ward, he was in the morgue. And she came back home and said “But he was getting better. He recovered, he could almost come back home”. They gave him that injection, and I am sure that my mum passed away convinced that the injection they had given him was supposed to kill him. He was an old man to them after all, he looked very sick. My father fought in the first war, he was a settler, a Pole, a patriot – and he died such an ignoble death back there. And there wasn’t even any room for him in the cemetery. They did not let us bury father in the cemetery where our uncle was. And an old lady, an old Russian lady helped mum. She brought a two-wheel wagon pulled by a donkey, a little donkey. We loaded father’s body onto it, wrapped in our last blanket, and the old lady had had someone dig a very poor grave, perhaps half a kilometre away, maybe more, in the desert. And my mother Jadwiga, my sister, my little brother, the Russian lady and me buried father in that hole, which was only deep enough so that no jackals could dig him up. And that’s the worst thing, to think that father ended up like that.
Ashgabat orphanage
God is very good, because slowly, slowly, we recovered somehow, but mum knew that we had to... That she had to do something, else we would die of hunger. She heard somewhere that there was an orphanage for Polish children in Ashgabat, supported by the governments of Poland and Great Britain. And the Polish government was located in London at the time. It was Sikorski, Władysław Sikorski, who was prime minister of the government in exile. And mum gathered us all up... Yep. She initially had my big sister take a train to Ashgabat to find out if the orphanage was actually there, and if it would accept more children. She travelled there and back without a ticket. But she was eventually caught. And she told mum that they could take in more children, but not adults, because they had enough people to look after the children. So they could... My sister could stay there and bring my brother Czesław and me. But we knew that we could not leave mum alone. Mother didn’t speak a word of Russian. And we could speak Russian like it was our native language. So Jadwiga took it upon herself. She was only 18, but she came back to mum, and they decided that Czesław and me would go to the orphanage. Somehow, I don’t know how, they were able to buy tickets for us children for half the price. But you have to keep in mind that, at the time, you needed a travel permit in Russia, us Poles and Russians as well. Everyone needed an NKVD permit to go from village to village. And mother was afraid that they would not let us go if she went to obtain it. Ultimately, she said: Children, you’re going. Unfortunately, you must go. We have the ticket, but we do not have a permit. Mum took us to the station, it was very close, its name was Pristan Farabul, and she told us... I was 13 at the time. And she told us: Remember where you’re from, children. Never forget who you are. Remember, there might be a church in the place where you are going to. You must go there and pray, for us as well. And she turned to face me and said: Always keep an eye on him. A 9-year-old boy being sent to an orphanage by his mother, because he is starving.
From Isfahan to Wellington
In 1943, after Sikorski’s death, it was... The entire orphanage went to Iran, crossing the mountains. It was the last transport of Poles from Russia, and we crossed the mountains, first to Mashhad, then from Mashhad to Tehran. It was full of Poles. We spent a few months there. We then went to Isfahan, there was a school there. We attended that school. We stayed in Isfahan until we left for New Zealand. And they selected the children, the houses that would go to New Zealand. And we went from Isfahan to Afhaz, still in Iran. And then... they told us that we would be sailing off from Bazra, and some were saying that from a small port in Iran. Anyway, we were loaded up on a small British ship, which took us to Bombay in India. We arrived in Bombay, a lot of things happened in the meantime but that’s beside the point, we got off our small ship in Bombay and boarded an American ship, GM Federal Randall, which was transporting military personnel. And there were New Zealand soldiers on the ship. They were going back home to rest, Australians as well. And there were 732 or 733 of us children and 100 caregivers there, bunched up on that ship. And we were going to New Zealand. We were accompanied by two warships as far as Melbourne in Australia. We spent a day in Melbourne. We sailed across the Tasman Sea alone, no warships anymore. And we arrived in New Zealand. When we were on our way, we encountered a Japanese warship. It even launched a torpedo at us, but our ship had a radar, they knew that it was coming and made a huge turn, it was a near miss. And when we landed in Wellington on 1 November 1944, reverend Michał did a thanksgiving mass on board and told us: Children, let us thank God today that we are here. Let us thank God for being alive in particular, as we could’ve been lying at the bottom of the Tasman Sea.
Polish expatriates in Auckland
So we are in New Zealand. And I am still in New Zealand. And I often tell the Kiwis that I am a very good Kiwi, but I am still a Polish patriot. I first came to Auckland and stayed, that’s where I went to school, to college, it’s where I founded our Auckland Polish Association, I brought over some priests to have a Polish church, and I am still very active in the Polish community. I even received a cross from the Polish government, signed by the president... Signed by Kwaśniewski. I’m sure you’ve heard, I received it for being so active connecting the Polish community and the new Polish expats, the new arrivals. Those people are completely different. We are old-school here. [laugh] And they are well-educated at Polish universities, so... And yet, they come to New Zealand and stay here. I helped a few of such families obtain permanent residence. It’s not easy to become a permanent resident now.
This interview is part of the film “Wygrać z przeznaczeniem”, directed by Marek Lechowicz.
Bożena Terlecka
Saying goodbye to parents
We lived in Poland, just like everyone else. One night, the Russians came. They took mum and dad, put one of them in one corner and the other in another one in the dining room, ordered them to sit in silence with their hands behind their heads. They had to sit cross-legged. I had been at my friend’s place and I came home late. It was nine o’clock in the evening. I was perplexed, seeing mum and dad sitting in the corners of our dining room. They were sitting cross-legged with their hands up and they had to stay quiet. They couldn’t even say a word to me. So I came in and wanted to say hello to them, but the Russians pulled me away and ordered me to go to the dining room, sit at the table in silence and listen to what they had to say. And I had to do as they said. I sat down. My Russian wasn’t great, but I understood enough to know that I had to be quiet and listen to what they were saying. They told me to stay quiet, gestured to me. One of the Russians put a finger to his mouth to signal that I should be quiet. Then one of the Russians approached dad, ordered him to get up, and led him out of the room. I had no idea what it was all about at the time. They led him outside and straight to prison, that was the last time I saw dad. He just turned around and waved at me, and I waved back, but I didn’t know where he was going. They took him to prison. Then they took mum and laid me on the bed, I was crying, and apparently I fell asleep because I can’t remember anything after that. I woke up the next morning. They were still there with mum, she was unconscious, they had been interrogating her all night and I don’t know, asking her about things, and I have no idea what exactly that was all about. I never got to see dad again. Mum was taken to prison too, so I became alone.
Boarding life
I came to New Zealand alone, like all other children here, and I was raised in the fifth building. We were being looked after by Ursuline nuns, who had boarding houses... there was one in Electone, it was called the Polish Hostel Bursa. We had... the house we got was very nice. Many rich New Zealanders lived there. It was called Hob Gibbons House. It was beautiful. And we had a beautiful room there. Boys and girls lived in separate buildings. And the Ursulines only looked after girls. And there were Polish schools there, and we were divided into grades. We had to pass exams there, third grade exams, and I was a good student, life was really nice back there. We could eat whatever we wanted, we could learn how to sing and read and dance in Polish. So we were educated by Poles and everything was in Polish. So it was all very nice. We were very satisfied and happy that we had friends, that we could live somewhat normal lives. And the sisters looked after us as though we were their own children. And I am grateful to this day to everyone who took care of us. The teachers were also very nice. We also had a Polish priest looking after us. Reverend Sulejewczyc and reverend Plater. So we were very happy because of that, that we had all those people looking after us, enabling us to live as Poles.
Shared fate
I am still grateful that I was able to grow up as part of that. It was my family, it still is. The boys and girls I know from those times... I see myself as their sister, not a blood sister, but a foster sister. It was so nice. We are still in touch and love one another, so if anyone is in need, the others never hesitate to lend a hand. This is our story, written down with words, not in newspapers or books. Everyone is telling the truth and not making anything up. We have all experienced this... such a life. More of a gypsy life, to be honest, a vagabond life. This fate given to us by God, not knowing where our grave is.
This interview is part of the film “Wygrać z przeznaczeniem”, directed by Marek Lechowicz.
Adela Jasionowicz-Merrilees
Deportation and the way to the USSR
My name’s Adela Jesionowicz, I am 11 years old. They woke my father up at two in the morning. They ordered him to stand in the corner and us to pack our things. They gave us 30 minutes to get dressed, take one suitcase and pack what we could, and then they put us on a sled and told us “you’re going to the station”. It was 10 February 1940. We didn’t know where we were going. They threatened us not to ask any questions or else there would be trouble. We have this rifle here, we’ll shoot you and your father and that will be your end. They took us to the station, we saw the train, it had... cattle wagons attached to it. Every wagon had bunks inside, and they ordered us to get on, fifty people on one wagon. They locked it, and I think that there was one person guarding the wagon, making sure nobody could escape. How could anyone escape if everything was sealed shut anyway? The wagon had a hole inside, that was our toilet. It had one barred window, we could only watch what was happening. We asked them where we were going. “Keep it down. You’ll see where we’re going”. It took three days. The wagon... The train stopped, we had no idea where we were. They told us they would give us tea in a second. They brought us a couple of buckets of hot water, that was our tea. And also a couple of bread loaves. One of the women in our wagon gave birth to a baby. They took it, threw it out into the snow, and the wagon started moving soon after. It took us one month in total to get to our destination.
Life in the kolkhoz
We arrived, it was a forest, and there were these small houses made of wood, and that was our home. One family had a tiny house, another family had one as well. The police came soon after. They registered everyone who was in the house, how old they were. My family was my father, mother and six children. Mother was expecting another baby. They told us that if we didn’t work, we didn’t eat. It went like this: “Kto ne rabotae, ten ne kushae”. Those were the first Russian words that we learnt. They also told us that the adults would chop down trees, and children younger than 12 would cut off twigs and put them onto piles. Every day, 12 hours a day. At night they would go to the sawmill to cut the trees, and little children had to collect the small pieces. They told us that if you did not have a fever, you weren’t ill. If you had a fever, you were given a day off. But if you were in huge pain and did not have a fever, you had to go to work. There was a time that my father was in great pain and told them “I can’t go to work I can’t go to the gate ask them...” A doctor came to the house, but didn’t give him a sick note. Father got better the day after and returned to work, but when the day came that he should receive his pittance, which was only enough to buy a tiny piece of bread for the family and children, they deducted some rubles from his pay. He got angry and said “What the..., you want my children to starve to death? I can’t even buy a tiny piece of bread with this!” And they told him: “If you don’t want it... if you’d rather get angry than take what we’re giving you, we’ll take you to the gulag. And they took him to the gulag.
Hunger
When the weather got nicer and spring began, we went to the forest with my brother and I said “Maybe there are some berries here, something, anything”. I looked around and saw a bird lying there, almost dead. I took the bird and brought it home. I, an eleven-year-old, instantly started skinning the bird, the smell was wonderful, I tell you. Mum and dad came home from work. I told them “I’m making soup”. But what did I put in it? Some leaves from... when I was in the forest, I added some leaves and it was a really good dish.
Searching for food
We were let out when the Polish Army started to form, the Russians told us “You’re free now. You can go wherever you want”. But how? Those starved... we were starved, had no energy, no money, no nothing. My mother still had her wedding ring, so she sold it to someone. They gave us a few rubles for it. It was in the evening that we saw a train coming, so we jumped on it. That’s how we got to Uzbekistan. Life in Uzbekistan was very tough. Terrible heat, typhus, cholera, dysentery. Those who were not strong enough, died. It was difficult to find work there. But I said to my brother “You know what? There’s this... They want us to bring the... the dirt over from that river to their garden, and they say we’ll get a few scoops of flour for it”. So we took the... the dirt... from the river and brought it to the other side, and they gave us 2 scoops of flour each for that when we were done. We would gather grass and make soup with it and the flour, and it was okay. And then cotton, how do you say cotton in Polish?
Interviewer: Bawełna.
Adela Jesionowicz: Bawełna. There was cotton to pick. And again, my big brother and me, the little sister. And my brother says “You know what, Adela? We’re gonna put the cotton in one sack”. And then they weighed the cotton and gave us something in return. And Adam says “You know what, Adela? I have this large stone here”. How do you say stone in Polish?
Interviewer: Kamień.
Adela Jesionowicz: Kamień. “I’ll put it in the sack, and then we’re gonna cover it with cotton and let them weigh it. They weighed it and wanted to pour it out, and he says “No, no, I’ll pour it out myself”. [laugh] And we also got two scoops of flour for that. So we did what we could. We cheated a little, but what else could we do, right? That’s how it was.
The road to Persia
Things became very tough again, the army began to form and move closer to where we were. So our neighbour says to my mum “Know what? I’ll take Adela and her little brother to the orphanage”. So they took us to the orphanage and said “We don’t know where the parents of these children are, but we brought them here so that you could take care of them”. My brother was wearing a long coat and the priest thought that he was a girl. Because it was only for girls. But in the evening, when everyone had to shower, the supervisor said “This one is a boy, not a girl”. And the priest said “He’s little, it’s not a problem. He’ll be my altar boy”. So he was with us, and they later took us to Persia together with all the soldiers, we were in a huge building, like a palace or something, and we saw soldiers going to eat. And I said to my brother “You know what? Maybe my father or brother is here?” And I actually saw my big brother on our third day, but I only saw him once before he went to Palestine or... the Middle East, yes. But I did not see father. The last time I saw him was when he joined the army. That was the last time, he died in Palestine.
Two years in Isfahan and finding family
From there, we went to Pahlevi. They burned everything we had. They took our clothes and things, fearing that the disease would spread. So we slept tightly packed, like sardines. Cuddled against one another. And it was not surprising to wake up and see that someone was dead. And so... It was tough, but I’m still alive, thank God, right? And they told us that we were going to go from Tehran to Isfahan. And I say, a priest in Isfahan... Pius XII said that he would pay for one hundred girls and one hundred boys, so we lived with the Grey Nuns, in order number two. And the boys lived in number three, and they were really nice to us, and would dress us, and they said that we could stay with them for two years, and so that’s what we did. And then we had to move to another building and I would always think to myself “I wonder if mum is still alive. If my two sisters are still alive”. We would write letters to the capital, to Tehran, and they would post those letters on a large board. [coughing] Excuse me. And my mum found my letter there, and said she wanted to come and reunite with me and my brother. My oldest brother was already in the army, and my younger brother joined the junior labour detachment. After the war, they came to New Zealand and we met again. When we arrived in New Zealand, it was like paradise. But still, whenever there was bread left over, all of us would take it and hide it under our pillows, because there might not be any tomorrow.
Welcoming Polish children in New Zealand
When we arrived in the port of Wellington, we were greeted by Janet and Maria, wife of the Prime Minister, Peter Fraser. And Janet and Wodzicki... Wodzicka, yes. So we were wondering, how did that happen, how did we get here, to New Zealand, why are we in New Zealand. That was when they told us that, one year prior, when they came to the port and saw a ship with lots of children on board, bound for South Africa, they saw that none of the children were smiling or saying anything because they didn’t know where they were being taken. Janet and Maria could not bear that sight, so much so that they went to Prime Minister Fraser and asked him to go talk to the government, perhaps New Zealand could somehow take a few children from Persia, or Iran, as it is known today. And after some time, Prime Minister Peter Fraser agreed and said “Okay, we’ll take in up to... almost a thousand children, and a few adults to watch over them”. So when we were... when we arrived in Wellington, we looked around, the buildings were so beautiful, colourful roofs, it felt so nice to be there, and, at every station along the way to the Polish camp in Pahiatua, there were school children who had come to greet us... at every station. And they would give us chocolate or candy, even some money, and we eventually arrived in the Polish camp. Girls and boys lived in separate buildings. And our caregivers had to tell us where we had to go. Every room had beautiful beds, standing next to one another, with flowers and a pack of biscuits on a really pretty table... And then the camp was... The New Zealand army manned the kitchen, cooking for us and taking care of us, they would cook every meal for us.
This interview is part of the film “Wygrać z przeznaczeniem”, directed by Marek Lechowicz.
Józef Zawada
Deportation to Siberia
I was born in 1933 in Volyn, in a town called Horochów. It was the county town, the settlement’s name was Oszczów, my father was a settler there. On 10 February 1940, we were deported to... near Arkhangelsk, I mean to... the White Sea area. We spent more than ten months there as far as I know, then the amnesty came, when Germany invaded Russia, and Poland, England and Russia were on the same side against Germany. And when that happened, my father enlisted in the Polish Army and went to Buzuluk to... I mean he was on his way to the southern part of the Soviet Union to join the Polish armed forces, but he died along the way because he got off the train to buy something, but the train had left by the time he came back. he barely managed to climb onto the buffers between the wagons, and after a few hours, when the train stopped in Kazylorda in Kazakhstan, they brought him inside, but he was only lying in a bunk, with mum, my two brothers and me crying around him, because he was dead. Just froze to death.
Inhuman deportation
I don’t know how it happened, but a few weeks later, we left that place, following along Amu Darya, I mean we sailed up or downstream, don’t know exactly, but we made it to Guzar. The Polish army was stationed there, and there was this huge plaza with tents, and we lived there. And one day, mother just fell to the floor and never woke up. They loaded her onto a carriage and took her to a hospital in Guzar, but she died almost instantly. They loaded us three brothers onto another carriage and took us to Kermine, to a children’s shelter staffed by Poles, and from there, we made it to Krasnogorsk, because the shelter was eventually moved to Pahlevi, I mean to Persia and... the moment we arrived in Pahlevi, I contracted malaria, seeing as almost everyone had malaria, and we were eventually taken to Tehran. The roads were very narrow, we rode in small trucks. In Tehran, we were admitted to a hospital, in which my brother died almost right away, I never heard anything about him anymore. We were then sent to the fifth civilian camp in Tehran. It was a place where they fed malnourished children. We got back in form a little bit there, and we were eventually sent to Isfahan. We got back in form in Isfahan. We spent a total of two years and four months in Persia, and we had spent two, two and a half years in Russia. And they started taking children from Isfahan to various parts of the world, and we were taken to New Zealand.
Good life in New Zealand
We arrived in New Zealand, and we lived in a camp in Pahiatua. It was such a huge change for us, it’s difficult to imagine. From the barbaric country that was Russia, Uzbekistan, Persia and all the other backwater countries, we ended up in one of the best countries in the world, which... I believe New Zealand was the second best place to live in the world at the time, according to some statistics and what not. So we really got back in form here. The government treated us like its own children, and we had a chance here. The initial idea was that we would go back to Poland. But the older people had to know that wouldn’t happen, and so they prepared us to live in New Zealand. They would slowly send us on vacation, introduce us to New Zealander families and send us to New Zealand schools, catholic schools, there was a couple of us at first, then more than ten. There were more of us in large cities. Girls were sent to English schools, and the youngest children were held in special boarding houses, where they were able to study in Polish and graduate from a six-year Polish school. Just like in the camp. We were allowed to finish grade six in the Polish camp. And then it was a bit different, because in Polish schools, the school year ends on a completely different day, and here it ends in December, and the seasons were all different and so on. They eventually evened that out. They sent us to English schools, what was their name... Everyone had a chance there – if their grades were good and they behaved, they could graduate and make something of themselves. But when people are young, they are usually irresponsible, and lots of them wanted to drop out as fast as possible, because they had to attend every class, and young people do not like studying, right? At the school I attended, there were a few of us, and we all stayed till the end and graduated. We could go to university if we wanted, or learn some kind of trade. And really, from the point of view of the New Zealand government, they really did look after us, as if we were their own children. I have to admit, they made everything easier for us, and the chance they gave us was better than if we had still had our mothers and fathers, really, everything was paid for. All those who were alone were treated really well.
Difficult assimilation
The worst part was when we left the camp, graduated and entered the public life, we had no families or anyone older than us, my big brother had been sent to England... back in Persia, the oldest boys were sent to [unintelligible], to study at a marine school and stuff, so that they would return to Poland one day and rebuild the Polish trade fleet. And I don’t know, it just didn’t work out. Most of them went to work in England. And we in the camp, whoever did not want to study, they could drop out and then... the worst thing was that when you were to become part of society here, it was one of two things – you either became part of the Polish community, where the older people didn’t particularly care about the children, because they were considered to be of lower status than other Poles, so to speak, and if you were alone back then, it was very difficult to start living on your own. Get married, things like that, it was very difficult for those children. Most of the children from the camp, the boys, they ended up in a very bad way. That’s because they became part of New Zealand’s society, in which they just... they often couldn’t make it in the foreign environment. It was tragic, I think. I look at various statistics and see that most of them die young of cancer and so on. Their life expectancy is shorter than ours, I don’t know, I am 80 now. But I see that a lot of them have already died, the youngest ones that were in the camp.
The ones from my class mostly became teachers. Many became workers, in ports and so on, there was good money to be made there, everyone was hungry for money, you could make a lot of it there. They used to pay a lot for overtime and so on, double or one and a half of the regular rate. It was very interesting, a lot of the children went to work in the port or at the butcher’s – the butcher’s was also a very popular job, you could quickly make a lot of money, buy yourself a bike and ride it around and so on. It was appealing to young people. Many became plumbers, carpenters and builders. Those were also very popular professions. And... some of them became pharmacists and teachers and whatnot, but to get a better job, you had to study hard in middle school and so on. That’s how it was. I mean... but everyone had a chance. If you wanted to make it, you could make it big.
Return to Isfahan after 60 years
Word came through that they were organising a trip to Iran. Isfahanians and the Lebanese, I mean the children who attended school in Isfahan and Lebanon. They wanted to go to Isfahan after 60 or 70 years. From 1942 to 2002, that’s 60 years, right? So after 60 years. So I tell my wife “Let’s go to Iran”. And it was right after that event when two planes hit the skyscrapers in New York, and my wife said “No, it’s too dangerous to go there”. So... But we reached a compromise eventually and decided to go. We went there, and of course we found the cemetery in Teheran. The cemetery was being consecrated. 60 people from Poland had come, general Głódź, some military person, the chaplain, or some bishop, some orthodox bishop, some protestant bishop and of course a rabbi. And we were in Tehran at the time. We attended the mass. We went to the cemetery the next day, and could take a look at the graves, so we took a look and I saw: Szadkowski, Walczak, Gemborzewska, Magierowska, hey... those are all surnames from the camp. And I started filming everything, taking photos of the gravestones, because they had been renovated for the occasion. There’s nearly two thousand corpses there, and it so happened that there were people from the Netherlands and Romania there as well, you know? Oh well. From there, we went to another cemetery. It was a British cemetery, but it had a large group of Polish soldiers’ graves, those who had died somewhere in Iran and so on. And then we went to a Jewish cemetery, which also had Poles lying in it, those who came with us from Russia but died, they were buried in that cemetery. And the rabbi did a mass there and so on, so it was a very interesting experience. When we were done with the cemeteries, we got on a plane and flew to Pahlevi. We arrived in Pahlevi a few hours early, and what happens then? We see that the weather isn’t very good, but we decide to go to the port to see what it’s like. But everything was different, obviously, large cranes and so on, so we went there and saw a group of Persians cooking fish, or frying something. So we... I approach them and say “Tourist, tourist”. „Lechistan, Lechistan”. And one of them could speak some English, and we started to talk. I asked him “How do you know all this?” and he said “My father told me that Poles used to come here”. And he knew about everything, [unintelligible] written that Poles stayed in Iran, and he knew everything about us. That was interesting. Afterwards, we took a plane to Isfahan. There is a Polish cemetery in Isfahan as well, dedicated to the exiled and what not. And we visited it as well.
This interview is part of the film “Wygrać z przeznaczeniem”, directed by Marek Lechowicz.
Stefania Sondej-Zawada
The road to New Zealand
Our family was deported across the Ural Mountains, to the Sverdlovsk Oblast. That’s where my parents worked. Mum worked in the forest, daddy was a locksmith. They talk like all was great there, but I will skip this because everyone’s already talked about this. So we left after the amnesty... and I went to Persia with the rest of the orphanage. I should mention a bit about how we got to Persia. Our parents were still alive, but there were other cases like us, parents realising that there was no chance anymore for the children. They would send their children to the children’s shelter, and they would leave together with the orphans. That’s how our family – my brother Leon, sister Mila and I, reached Persia. First through Pahlevi to Tehran, to the temporary camps there, and then to the facility in Isfahan. They were selecting children to go to various parts of the world, and we were initially supposed to go to South Africa. But my sister and I contracted trachoma, and were isolated in one of the shelters. In one of those... One of those shelters. We stayed for longer and were sent to New Zealand.
Camp in Pahiatua
We arrived in the port on 31 October, and reached the camp in Pahiatua, which was called the Polish Children’s Camp, on 1 November 1944. I would like to mention what the camp looked like. There were 733 children and 105 staff, Polish staff, to be precise. Who were the children? People usually say that they were mostly orphans. That’s true, yes, there were orphans, but not all of them were orphans. Some were half-orphans. In many cases, their mothers had died in Russia, and their fathers would send them to children’s shelters before joining the Polish army. That’s how the children were able to reach various places, or parts of the world, actually, like Africa, Mexico or India, for example. Many such children came to New Zealand. There were also children like us, our parents were alive, maybe they were still in Poland... Not Poland, what am I saying, who were still in Russia. In Russia. But they simply wanted to save their children. It was impossible for them to leave, so they sent their children to shelters. It was a... sizeable group. Now the staff. Many of the ladies there were military wives. They came as caregivers or teachers, did the laundry and cooked, worked in libraries or offices. Doesn’t matter. But they brought their children with them, and their husbands would rejoin them after the war. The same goes for the children who... who still had their parents, or their fathers in the military, so the fathers would most likely come. Cases where the father had the child come to him, because he had settled in another country, like England or other part of Europe, those were rare. Not many went to Europe, almost all of the fathers came here. Besides, a lot of the children had sisters or brothers in the Polish army. And they would all reunite after the war.
Bitter secret
So, about that, what was it like? I still had my parents, right? They sent me to a shelter. It’s interesting how children react to such situations. It was simply a secret that had to be kept, and I was not... I didn’t even know that others... that other children were the same. And it was always like... When they sent me to the shelter, they told me that on the next station... that mum would be there waiting for me at the next station or something... that never happened. And then you realise that your parents are no longer there. What does it feel like to be among orphans? You still have yourparents, but don’t at the same time. I will never forget the moment one of my teachers said: All orphans, who... All orphans, raise your hand. And I slowly, slowly raised my hand as well. I really considered myself to be an orphan. How did the children who still had their parents feel? Nobody talked about that if they still had their parents somewhere in Russia. Other children would never talk about that, actually. Just like me. But later, when I spoke to the other children, one of my female friends, whom I would never suspect, said she had visited her mother after many years. She visited her mother in Poland. And she asked me “How did you feel?” I will tell you about myself in a second. “How did you feel?”. She said... She said “I felt terrible”. “I arrived and found the house. Some old woman was sitting there, just watching me”. She said “I felt so uncomfortable”. It was so strange. They... She just... saw her mother and returned to New Zealand.
Reuniting with parents
But in my case, when I was 25, it was after graduation, it was my big brother who would first exchange mail with my our parents. Then it was my sister doing most of it, and then me. And mum wrote to me, saying that they wanted to come to New Zealand. It was after the changes in Poland. It was around that time. And it was possible to leave. And I began to... Interestingly, my first reaction was... everyone’s reaction was very positive. And my first reaction was fear, obligation, I thought to myself about where they had been before. My first thought. But only for a second. But it went away, and it was really the feeling of obligation that caused me to work toward it. It took a long time, they didn’t want to let them into New Zealand. They were fifty at the time. And actually... But everything turned out just fine. My parents arrived in New Zealand in 1959. They both survived. They survived the Russian prison, then returned to Poland in 1946. They found us in New Zealand, we would write letters, they came here and I really had to... I admired them, because they really assimilated. I expected having to take care of them, because I was 25 and they were 50, it’s a huge difference, I thought they weren’t going to work and that we would have to look after them. We weren’t that well-off either at the time. We didn’t have our own flat. We lived in different... My brother lived separately, my sister was married, I lived separately too. But brother and I managed to save up... we talked about it and we rented them a flat. Our parents arrived, we brought them there and we really were able to live in peace together, it was nice... I really respect my parents. They really understood the situation. Mum less so than dad, perhaps. Mum was a little disappointed. She left little children, and she was greeted by adults. And I don’t think she ever... she could not get used to that until the very end. She felt that something was off, something was wrong. She would almost let on that she felt that way on more than one occasion. But they really... a week passed, we visited various places, introduced them to people, took them to a Polish mass, and daddy said “Where can I find a job here?” I was really surprised. He found a job on his own. Dad talked to the people in the church and found a job, became involved, he worked in Petone, not far from here.
Family life
How I met my husband? We had actually known each other for a long time. I knew him back from the camp, I think, but I got to know him better when he came here after graduating from middle school. He came to Wellington and settled here. He lived close by. We would see each other in the Polish House, but it was always from a distance. It was around the time when my parents arrived in New Zealand and we bought the house together, my brother was a hunter. He was a... he worked for nearly four years in the southern Alps, hunting deer. It was very, very hard work. He loved it. He would take us on all kinds of trips, and we would be joined by mostly young people. And it’s interesting how much in common we had. We just had that predilection... They would all call my mum “Grandma Sunday”. And that’s when we started going on trips together and became a couple. I don’t know, it just happened. We were a couple. Took us a while. We had children really fast, I was actually 28 when I got married. And Józef was 29, so our first child was born when I was 30. 30, right, Józef? Yes. Yes. I was 30 years old. And then we had four children in five years. Almost one after another. It was a tough time, but everything went well somehow. We built our own house in Korokoro. We lived there for some time, our parents lived with us, but they eventually decided to buy their own small house in the neighbourhood. So things were very good. We were always very busy. Józef, as usual, had to have his fingers in every pie. I was a teacher at a Polish school. And I later had enough to do with four children. And on occasions where Józef left the car at home, I would drive all my children to the kindergarten or... and later to school. And our neighbours’ children as well, we would give each other’s children a lift. Our neighbours were wonderful, we’re still in touch. We all met again when we were celebrating our 50th wedding anniversary.
Studying in Pahiatua
I graduated from a six-year school in the Polish Children’s Camp in Pahiatua. How should I put it? I was never one to stand out from the crowd as a child. I was never considered to be very intelligent, I think. But one day, a new mathematics teacher came to us. And I was great at geometry. And it was her who helped me build my confidence. Later we went to... I went to middle school in Wellington and attended St. Mary’s College here in Wellington. A really... quite large girls’ school. My sister had already been attending it, because she started middle school one year before me. She was renting a room, and I lived in [unintelligible 00:14:09] Polish girls, and that’s where we commuted from. School was okay, good, but I obviously had trouble with English, it was all so sudden... the sudden change, all subjects were taught in English. Could have been better. It was very interesting, I talk to other people and in other schools, they just tell Polish children to sit next to other children and get by as well as they can. And I think that’s the best way. Our group was quite large. They formed a separate class for us and started to... though it was nice too... they only cared about English, mathematics and religious education, I don’t even remember if we were taught any geography. And that was my first year of middle school. They eventually mixed us with other children, including New Zealanders. It was quite nice, it was a small group that I was in, but I was doing well. I passed my secondary school exams, and I actually didn’t have to pass any exams anymore... the system was such that you could just pass a certain group of children if they were good enough. They were just given a passing grade. And I don’t know why, but I decided that I wanted to go to university.
This interview is part of the film “Wygrać z przeznaczeniem”, directed by Marek Lechowicz.
Marek Powierza
Born in Karabash
It was in early 1940 that the Russians took father away, and returned after a few months or weeks to take away our mum, grandma and two brothers. It was before I was born, but I did exist, and they took them across Russia all the way to Kazakhstan, to a place called Karabash. And that’s where I was born. I don’t remember much because I was a baby, but I do know that mum found father somewhere in Russia, he was with the Polish army, and it was like in a fairy tale, she went to get bread at some train station, and there was an officer standing there – and it turned out to be her husband, in the middle of Siberia. They spend a few weeks together and again, a few days, and father went to rejoin the Polish army, and it wasn’t until years later that we received information about his death. He contracted typhus, many soldiers died of it, seeing as they had no medicine. Wooden guns.
School and studies in New Zealand
We arrived in New Zealand in 1944. I was 4 years and 1 month old. I don’t remember much, if at all. But I do know a lot. I think I do, because I’ve always listened and read a lot, and I went to school in Pahiatua. I lived with my mum and grandma. My big brother went to school in Palmerston North. And Witold, my middle brother, and I lived in the camp till 1949, that’s when we moved to Hamilton. There weren’t many Polish people there, but there were some. Perhaps half a dozen, ten, six to ten. I went to a Catholic school there, and then to Hamilton Boys’ Highschool. I graduated and then enrolled into the education department. At university, and got a degree in social science. Then I worked for twenty years as a social worker principal, looking after children, problem children and the like...
"This country had given me an opportunity"
I wanted to work in that profession because I had always felt that this country had given me an opportunity. Not only did it give me good health, but a good education and a nice looking wife as well [laugh]. Yup, we’ve been together for fifty-three, fifty-two years now and, I don’t know, I’ve been to a couple of different countries, but New Zealand is a special country with special people. Sometimes, at the start, we kind of felt like foreigners, but not for long. Because the people here are very open. I’m pretty sure that a lot of us have told you about our coming here aboard that American ship and... about how we were received, it’s something that is difficult to... I really can’t remember, but I feel things whenever I see photos of that. And I always feel that... Even though I am Polish at heart, that I am a New Zealander. It is not a competition. It doesn’t mean that I am both one and the other. I don’t speak and understand Polish all that well because my brothers escaped to Australia, the sun here was too hot, too strong. But they come here a lot and we talk a lot. And mum and grandma at home would always speak Polish with us. It’s something you cannot lose. It’s sad that our children don’t speak Polish, my wife is a New Zealander and I think that without a mum... it’s always the mums that teach the language all across the world. Poland will never... It will always exist for as long as we live. Thank you.
This interview is part of the film “Wygrać z przeznaczeniem”, directed by Marek Lechowicz.
