THE LONG BRIDGE

I found this story by Danuta Nowak-Rumfeld following a web search for Rawa Ruska. The Nowak family was deported on the same train as Urszula, went to the same kolkhoz and, amazingly, Urszula is mentioned by name. My cousin believes that Mrs Nowak is the Mme. N who was with Urszula when she was arrested p. 56. Danuta's father was shot on the same day in the same prison as my grandfather.

http://www.katynfamilies.com/Nowak%20Jania/Jania%20Nowak.htm

Then came that terrible year 1939.  In early August mother and I, without father, had gone back to Inowrclaw to visit grandmothers, She probably knew that this was a final parting and separation with her family for the foreseeable future.  When we were returning back home during those final days of August, the roads were awful – filled with army convoys, we were constantly being diverted to a sidetrack, as the military trains had preference.  Finally we reached Rawie Ruskiej – Father was impatiently waiting for us.  He hardly had time to greet us and drive us home, before returning to his duty station, and to advise mother to make preparations for evacuation further east.

Frightful days began.  Father was not at home, just dropping in to wash and dress.  Mother was left with the entire difficulty of the oncoming cataclysm, the task of cataloguing, packing suitcases, and preparing food articles.  Plus that awful fear of waiting for what was to be----September 1, 1939, the first German bomb fell on our town.  Now father did not appear at all and after a few days a card was received: “I cannot come for you, we are moving out…” We were now left alone, but mother did not give up.  I would never had supposed, that she would be so strong in such a threatening and uncertain moment – she just would not give in to anything.

Then began the hell of evacuation.  Through our town of Rawie Ruskiej, ran a main highway and the railroad line Warsaw-Lwow-Zaleszczylki.  Families of the army in the west were hurrying east before the German army.  Our dwelling was transformed into a refuge for these army families who were now fleeing on foot as all railroad centers had been destroyed by the continuous German bombings.  The side roads and ditches were full of destroyed vehicles, wagons, and dead horses.   In every room, where it was anyway possible, even on the floor were nomadic sleeping mothers and children.  Once again mother stood up against cruel fate.  With her whole heart she cared in everyway possible for these refugees – everyone was fed, and since the weather was beginning to cool, to those who needed it, was given our clothes and shoes, with the children receiving my toys.  Our residence became very crowded  - although rather large and spacious, but in any event, they were at least under a roof, warm and fed.  Mother just gave to the fullest extend that her strength permitted.  Once again, mother met the greatest of tasks and no one ever left our home without help and a good word. 

After a few days this huge human wave flowed on, our home became deserted, the front drew closer.  There was a frightful battle over Mosty Wielkie.  My catechist came for us, that for the duration of the battle, we must take shelter beneath the church where everything had already been prepared, straw and blankets for sleeping, food, and water. Thereafter, for three days and nights, amidst the roar of bombs and shells, with the priest and a few other persons, we waited until there ensued this uncanny silence.  We were able to leave and view the town after the battle.  Some neighbors came running over saying the Germans wanted to requisition our house.  Mother had a good command of the German language and came to an understanding with the German officer, who withdrew that intend after learning it was the home of a Polish Officer. 

The Germans occupied the town.  Then came the quiet before an even bigger storm that was to occur on the 17th day of September 1939.  After a few days that tattered ragged Bolshevik army appeared and the Germans, according to their agreement, gave them our town.  At the same time we were evicted from our home and were not permitted to take all our furniture and belongings.  Fortunately, right next door in a little house was a small apartment – one room with a kitchen – to where we brought the rest of our things.  Once again mother began her active operations.  In an understanding with the priest, she opened a point of crossing over the green border for those persons who had not been able to cross over to the west where their families lived.  I took over mother’s duties and she began to search for father, wandering among the various NKVD commands, often traveling to Lwow, because she had heard that secret prisons there held Polish officers.  There were good people in Lwow who provided for mother, with food and shelter, as well as helping with the search for father. It was this cooperative way, which made possible the crossing through the green border.

It was from one of these searches that she brought back from the Zamarstyn prison in Lwow father’s arrest warrant.  This was in March 1940.  A month later, in the night of 12 to 13 April, at four o’clock in the morning, there came a banging on the door: “Open up, NKVD. You are being sent to your husband (?).” Terror paralyzed us, but just for a moment.  In mother again, arose that spirit of self-defense. Our valises were already packed; we just had to pack some food – and departed to the railroad siding, where there were already several loaded railroad cars.  The entire intelligentsia of our town was being deported.  So began our nightmarish trip in cattle cars to Lwow where there was a transfer onto the larger broad-gauge railway.  The doors were bolted and the windows nailed shut with boards.  We were then taken into the unknown.  From time to time, one person was allowed to leave the train with a bucket to get kepiatok  (hot water) right from the locomotive.  Through the entire journey we received some sort of mystery soup, made from God knows what, only twice.  But as usual, the fortunate hand of my mother was able to find something to eat that could be shared with everyone.  We traveled that way for over a month – because there was always some sort of delay - we reached a station called Alga, in the province of Aktiubinsk in Kazakhstan.  After a couple of days in a newly built school, we were then separated and assigned to a kolkhoz.  My “Z” group of fifteen persons found ourselves assigned to a Kazakhstan kolkhoz named “Tokmansaj” – five mud huts on the naked, empty steppes.  No one among the Kazakhstanis understood Russain; there was no possible way to make oneself understood.  They gave us one large “hall” in a mud hut, and called it – a storeroom for grain.  On our large carpet from father’s study, under which we laid straw, fifteen persons would now sleep.  Early in the morning of the next day a Kazakhstani with a whip would appear and hurry us off to work in the cowsheds to gather up an entire winter’s manure.  It was piled so high and thick that the cows hardly had room to leave the shed.  It made you want to cry to see our mother, in pinned together and completely unsuitable clothes, being hurried off to do this work.  Even we children were not exempt.

Once again a spirit of resistance appeared in mother.  Together with Pani Ursula Muskus they went to Alga (more then 60 kilometers away) to the NKVD for permission to transfer to a Russian kolkhoz, because – as we later learned – in the one we were now in, we would not have survived the winter.  They tried three times, each time they were denied because of Kazakhstani objections  - but we persisted.  After the fourth time, permission was granted.  They laid the entire night in a packing case in a truck, which a friend from the kolkhoz had come to pick up its food that was covered with bags of potatoes.  Naturally, the driver was bribed with the rest of our chattels. After a couple of days they returned by a “powodach” (an ox cart) and with the written permission we were transferred to a Russian kolkhoz  “Maxim Gorki”, This was an entirely different terrain, not knowing any Russian, mother again had brought about a miracle in getting the NKVD to consent to our transfer.

It was there that we were to spend four frightful winters.  Winters on the steppes were no joke.  Burany (snow storms) at times went on continually for twenty days without a break, frost cut through the air, the mud huts of the kolkhoz disappeared in the snow.  Only the snow from the stove broke through the snow.  Through the open door we brought snow inside to do our cooking.  Fuel for the winter, or so called kiziak, dried cow manure, and dried grass – burzan – we had to gather up enough on our own through out the summer to last us to spring, as no one would extend any help to us. Then summer, in turn, a breeze would blaze forth from the east as from a hot stove, nowhere any coolness or shade, because on the steppes there were no trees.   Here again my mother’s hands found a solution.  After work she went to Rosjanek to repair and sew their clothes, payment for which she would received among other things was that splendid anran – milk which had been cooked for a long time and allowed to sour – that was then stored in the cellar.  It was awfully cold, but we ate it as though it was the most delicious ice cream. For recreation we had the Ilek River, which flowed right by our kolkhoz.  In the summer it was our bath and our laundry.  After work we would go down to the river to bath and wash our ever increasingly worn out clothing. 

Nothing was too difficult for my resourceful mother; she was able to accomplish in her broken Polish-Russian language anything necessary to survive life through this forced labor.  We just kept getting weaker as time went on.  In that last winter, we had not been able to gather up enough fuel. Once again, mother by her own means tried to get “podwody” (a slang term – to go under water – meaning to get a way out) and in three weeks we were transferred to the town of Alga.  In the morning of 19 January 1942, right on St Jordan’s day, in the mist of a frightful freeze, we drove off from the kolkhoz.  Fortunately the sleigh was filled with straw from which we were able to build a little fire for warm while on the road.  Otherwise it would have been questionable if we had been able to survive until reaching Alga. Blood was flowing from the mouths of the horses that were pulling our sleigh, but apparently we were meant to survive. 

After the signing of the agreement of Gen Sikorski with the Soviet Union, mother was selected by the Polish Delegate in Kujbyszew to be a representative for our region. Soon after, help from American began, for which mother had to go from Alga  (Asia) to Czkalow (Europe) to their warehouse.  Again showing her skill in organization.  She was always able to find a truck and that way brought in food and clothes, which the committee then distributed further to the various kolkhoz and our compatriots.  After the army of Anders left the Soviet Union again vexation and certifying – there are no more Poles in the Soviet Union.  

Just as soon as war activities crossed over from the Ukraine to Polish territory, mother could not hold back, but went right into action and organized a convoy of 14 Ox carts to travel to the Ukraine, in order just to be closer to Poland.  Thanks to mother’s efforts in October 1943 from Alga and the nearby kolkhoz we rode off to the Ukraine to the city of Mikolaj (near the Black Sea).  For a few days we camped in the deserted ruined railroad station in a drizzling rain, and in the bombed ruins of the shipyard. Our compatriots were scattered among the Oczakow and Sniegorow regions.  Mother was instructed to remain in Mikolaj and to open a Polish office.  Just as soon as we received our quarters and the snows came, mother began to tour Polish settlements, preparing lists and distributing gifts to the most needy.  Even though these trips were onerous – it was necessary to cross over the Boh River on a pontoon bridge, which went ankle deep in the water – although she never refused any needed help, she went everywhere herself in order to see with her own eyes, as to how our compatriots were living and what they needed.  

Our tiny little room on Pogranicznej Street began to swarm with compatriots seeking advice.  There also began small friendly meeting. We were of course, already nearer to Poland and hoping for a quick return.  From here many Polish families had already departed at the invitation of their family in Poland.  It was just such a family, which in appreciation for her help and care sent mother an invitation needed to depart.  As improbable as it may seem, in such an important matter, mother again was not able to prevail.. The local office of the NKVD in Sniegorowie, took away the invitation, as they already had in their possession a list of 15 persons who were identified as our nearest relatives.  Once again, this gave her a chance to display her desire to help another and extend to them the joy of an early return to Poland.  That was how our entire “gromaka” (group) drove out of Mikolaj through Kiev, Wlodzimerz Wolynski to Babci (grandmothers) in Inowroclaw, and the hometown of my mother, which did not want to accept us or even to report us.  We were told to return to where we left. 

Thanks to her great resourcefulness we were always able to reach our declared goal. Because my mother was hard, difficult, and obstinate, we survived the hell of war, deportation and exile.  There was just one thing that she was never able to obtain - information as to what had happened to her beloved husband.  The entire time that was spent on the steppes of Kazakhstan none of us ever heard of Katyn.  After returning to Poland all search efforts failed to produce any results and mother dying on June 11, 1978, left us not knowing what had happened to her husband, as to what had been his fate. 

My father I recall as a brave, valiant Polish officer, for whom fate prepared such a horrible death at the hands of NKVD.  He was shot in the Zamarstyn prison in Lwow, by order dated March 5, 1940, No. 2081 55/4-82.  I learned of this only in May 1994.  After 55 years I was invited to an organized “Memorial” in Lwow, for the funeral of the remains of the victims of the NKVD that had been shot in the Zamarstyn prison. This took place on July 31, 1994, the actual birthday of my father.  Could it have been just a coincidence?  I was allowed to go out onto the grounds of the Zamarstyn prison, where I gathered up some earth from the place of his death.  Perhaps there were areas, where my footsteps met with traces of yours, Dear Father. In spite of the awful cruelty of that place, I was still so glad, that I could be there and see everything, there where you suffered so much, because I felt your presence. You, Dear Father, there you remained, while I left and the guard even saluted me. 

These memoirs I dedicate to my beloved parents.  Especially to mother for her energy, her will to survive, for her love, resourcefulness, and courage in the moments of the worst tragedies, thanks to all of which I was able to live through the hell of Kazakhstan’s steppes and thanks to which I returned happily to my beloved Poland.   Honor to Their Memory. 

Mother: Mrs Janina Nowak, nee Klimkiewicz.

Father: Captain Ignacy Nowak.

Translated by N. Frank Lanocha