Exiled to Kazakhstan: A Survivor Miracle

When the Soviet Union invaded and occupied Poland at the beginning of WWII, the secret police (NKVD) immediately began arresting and deporting Polish citizens identified before the invasion. They simply pulled out their prepared lists . . .

These initial arrests focused on individuals holding leadership roles in the government, in the church, in education, in the military, as well as foreigners and those who had visited foreign countries. In February 1940, hundreds of thousands of landowners and their families were sent to labor camps in northern Russia and Siberia.

In April 1940, family members of individuals previously arrested were transported to camps in Kazakhstan. Smaller numbers of Ukrainians and Jews were also deported.

Over one million people “rode the rails” to exile.

Maria Zareba Andrzejewska was deported with her mother and sisters during one of these mass roundups. Prior to WWII, Maria’s father served as mayor of a small town in Eastern Poland where Maria and her sisters lived peacefully, enjoying skiing, hiking, playing sports, reading, and picking mushrooms.

The war changed everything . . .

After the Soviets occupied Eastern Poland, they arrested, imprisoned, and then deported Maria’s father in October 1939. Six months later, in April 1940, Soviet soldiers pounded on the Zareba’s door at 4:00 AM, demanded entry, and gave the women only fifteen minutes to pack. They gathered many clothes but only a little food and rode by horse and buggy to Kolomyja where they were deposited in a cattle boxcar holding fifty to sixty people. The guards bolted the windowless boxcar from the outside, and the occupants were only allowed to leave their quarters one time during their month-long train journey.

Maria and her family prayed and sang as they traveled to Kazakhstan, hoping they would be able to return home soon. Upon arrival, the Zareba women were assigned to a dirt hut with no stove or furniture. Thirty people slept side by side on the clay floor. They dug water ditches for field irrigation, gathered hay during harvest season, and subsisted on very small rations of food.

Knowing little work would be available during the cold winter months, and the Soviets only distributed food to those who worked, Maria’s family bartered clothes for food in the villages. In the fall, they moved to a small chicken coop and endured the cold, dark, and brutal winter which followed. Snow built up until it covered the entire dwelling.

The Zarebas survived by melting snow for water and making a thin soup, which they ate once a day. To entertain themselves they sang and played instruments made of combs.

After walking to the local villages, Maria’s feet froze, causing festering boils on her toes. Maria’s sister developed large black sores all over her legs that spread to her torso, and she lay unconscious for weeks. Maria developed a milder form of the disease.

In the spring of 1941, the Zarebas worked in the fields and later in huge stables, caring for cattle. The deportees were told they could gather leftover sunflower seeds after the harvest, but other officials arrived and told them they were committing a crime against the state and could be arrested. The officials confiscated the bags of seeds the hungry children and teens had collected, much to their sorrow.

In June of 1941, the Germans invaded Eastern Poland and attacked the Soviet Union. Two months later the Zareba’s manager revealed that the Soviets and the Polish government-in-exile in London had signed an agreement granting the deportees amnesty so they could form an army to help the Allies fight the Germans.

The exiles were free to leave, so the Zarebas sold everything possible and purchased train tickets to go south, where General Anders was gathering and training the Polish Army. Traveling for weeks and suffering more hunger and disease, the Zareba women hoped to find their husband and father if he was still alive.

The women arrived in Samarkand, Uzbekistan and lived on the streets for three weeks. They were attacked and robbed.

A friend helped the Zarebas move to Zirabulak, where Maria worked in a cotton factory and her older sister labored in the mines. They stayed in the factory’s little living quarters. Maria’s older sister met her future husband, a Polish Army officer, and he helped the family arrange transportation to Krasnowodsk, a port town on the Caspian Sea. From there they crossed over to Pahlavi, Persia, on an overloaded dilapidated ship, full of hungry and ill passengers.

The Zareba women sheltered temporarily in tents on the beach until relocating to Tehran.

The British occupied part of Iran at this time, but the Iranians assisted the Polish exiles and treated them warmly. In Tehran a miracle took place . . .

Maria’s father had survived his imprisonment in the Soviet Union and after his release was searching for his family. What a joyful reunion took place in Iran! All the Zarebas were together again except Maria’s oldest sister who had fled with an aunt to Romania at the beginning of the war.

While waiting in Tehran for the war to end, Maria, her sisters, and thousands of other Polish youth attended school.

Maria’s father was sent to England, and the family later followed. At a Polish Military Resettlement Camp near Liverpool, Maria met her future husband Antek who had fought in the Polish Home Army, survived Auschwitz, and escaped to join the Polish Army in Italy.

After, Maria and Antek’s engagement, Antek moved to Alberta, Canada, and Maria followed six months later. They married the next month in February 1950. Maria’s sisters and their families also immigrated to Edmonton, Alberta, where many other Polish immigrants had settled after the war. After the death of Maria’s dear father in England, Maria’s mother joined the girls in Canada. Maria and Antek were blessed with three children and four grandchildren in their adopted land.

Source:

Canadian Polish Historical Society Virtual Museum