ryszardsys
19 Jan 2015
History / Do Polish people in general dislike Russia or Germany more? [369]
Hmmm. I'm new to this site, but over the years have read many of the threads. I have done quite a bit of research into the old eastern provinces (now Belarus) including transcribing the names of some 200,000 people who lived in Wojewódstwo Wileńskie before 1939 (they're on various websites now).
My father (still living) was deported on 10th February 1940 from the Smorgon area along with his brother, one sister and mother, to Rudnik Kommunar, Krasnojarski Kraj. They left behind one sister. According to my dad, some weeks before their deportation, all of the local (non-Polish) population came to their houses and told them to get out. My grandmother said "where are we supposed to go?" only to be told "go to your God....". They left to relatives not too far away, partially returning about 6 weeks later to find their house ran-sacked and all their animals taken. They only returned because they were told it was safe to do so now. As it is, one daughter was left behind at her grandmothers and on 10th February, she was not deported.
My dad remembers receiving a letter from her whilst they were in Siberia. Quite how the postal system worked across front-lines I'm not sure, but he remembers along with the letter was a parcel with food and other items.
The letter he remembers well because she says (and I summarise here) "It's all OK now. The Germans are here. They took me around the village and asked me to identify all of our livestock and returned it to us...."
Her father (my granddad) was an Osadnik having won his virtuti militari in 1920 in the bolshevik war. So that side of the family makes it clear as to which side is and was disliked more.
I have to add that on my maternal family side, it is opposite...their records show that even though they spoke Polish, their deportation records show them as Belarussian and my granddad would always break into Russian song and never hear a bad word against them, even though they deported him to Szoksza in Murmansk!
Hmmm. I'm new to this site, but over the years have read many of the threads. I have done quite a bit of research into the old eastern provinces (now Belarus) including transcribing the names of some 200,000 people who lived in Wojewódstwo Wileńskie before 1939 (they're on various websites now).
My father (still living) was deported on 10th February 1940 from the Smorgon area along with his brother, one sister and mother, to Rudnik Kommunar, Krasnojarski Kraj. They left behind one sister. According to my dad, some weeks before their deportation, all of the local (non-Polish) population came to their houses and told them to get out. My grandmother said "where are we supposed to go?" only to be told "go to your God....". They left to relatives not too far away, partially returning about 6 weeks later to find their house ran-sacked and all their animals taken. They only returned because they were told it was safe to do so now. As it is, one daughter was left behind at her grandmothers and on 10th February, she was not deported.
My dad remembers receiving a letter from her whilst they were in Siberia. Quite how the postal system worked across front-lines I'm not sure, but he remembers along with the letter was a parcel with food and other items.
The letter he remembers well because she says (and I summarise here) "It's all OK now. The Germans are here. They took me around the village and asked me to identify all of our livestock and returned it to us...."
Her father (my granddad) was an Osadnik having won his virtuti militari in 1920 in the bolshevik war. So that side of the family makes it clear as to which side is and was disliked more.
I have to add that on my maternal family side, it is opposite...their records show that even though they spoke Polish, their deportation records show them as Belarussian and my granddad would always break into Russian song and never hear a bad word against them, even though they deported him to Szoksza in Murmansk!