Donna Solecka Urbikas - My Sisters Mother: A Memoir of War, Exile, and Stalins Siberia

My
Sisters
Mother

A Memoir of War, Exile,
and Stalins Siberia

Donna Solecka Urbikas

The University of Wisconsin Press

The University of Wisconsin Press
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Copyright 2016 by Danuta A. Urbikas

All rights reserved. Except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles and reviews, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any format or by any meansdigital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwiseor conveyed via the Internet or a website without written permission of the University of Wisconsin Press. Rights inquiries should be directed to .

Printed in the United States of America

This book may be available in a digital edition

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Urbikas, Donna Solecka, author.

Title: My sisters mother: a memoir of war, exile, and Stalins Siberia /

Donna Solecka Urbikas.

Description: Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, [2016]

| 2016 | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015038427 | ISBN 9780299308506 (cloth: alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Urbikas, Donna SoleckaFamily.

| World War, 19391945Deportations from Poland.

| Forced migrationPolandHistory20th century.

| DeporteesPolandBiography. | DeporteesSoviet UnionBiography.

| Polish peopleSoviet UnionBiography. | Polish AmericansBiography.

Classification: LCC D810.D5 U735 2016 | DDC 940.53/14509239185dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015038427

Whosoever takes the child by the hand takes the mother by the heart.

old proverb

For

Father

who took Miras hand and won Mothers heart

This book is a nonfiction account of my familys experiences in preWorld War I Poland and during the years prior to and during World War II in Poland and the Soviet Union, the Middle East, India, and Britain, as well as the United States following World War II.

Before the fall of Soviet-style Communism in Poland in 1989 and in the Soviet Union in 1990, the atrocities committed by the Soviets in the prisoner-of-war camps such as those that my father, a Polish Army officer, witnessed or in the labor camps to which my mother and half sister had been deported, were essentially unknown. It was my aim to bring those events to light when I first began writing their story in English in 1985. Years later, I expanded their story to include the impact of their experiences on me growing up in America after the war.

This account of my mother, Janina, and my half sister, Mira, is based on interviews with them and with my father, Wawrzyniec, who was one of the few hundred Polish Army officers who had not been murdered in the Katy Massacres. He had met my mother and half sister in the Soviet Union after their escape from the labor camps in 1941. All quotes are either taken verbatim from recorded interviews, from their written notes, or from memories of my life growing up with them. Thoughts and emotions ascribed to them have been reconstructed from these interviews and my memories. Details of war events were taken from historical documents, documentaries, oral histories of survivors, and autobiographies such as An Army in Exile by General Wadysaw Anders, and from reputable historical sources such as Norman Daviess Gods Playground. All sources of information used can be found in the references section. I also benefited from interviews in 1988 with local Chicago experts on Polish history such as Jan Krawiec, an underground Polish soldier during World War II, historian, journalist, and former editor of the Dziennik Zwizkowy (Polish Daily News), and John J. Kulczycki, professor of history emeritus at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Professor Kulczycki provided valuable insights into the perspectives of the various ethnic groups in what was then eastern Poland at the outbreak of World War II.

Events that I directly experienced are narrated in the first person, while stories collected from my parents and sister are written in third person to distinguish the time period being described. When I first began writing their story more than thirty years ago, I wrote in a new style of writing intended to show, not just tell, the reader what was then little-known Polish history. Narrative or creative nonfiction was not yet a recognized genre at that time, but thankfully, today it is an accepted form that makes it possible to bring true historical accounts to life with a novelists eye.

Both older and current names of places, which changed before and following both World Wars are used, depending on the period in which the events being narrated took place. For example, the city of Grodno is no longer in Poland but is part of Belarus, Persia is now Iran, Bombay is now Mumbai, and Palestine is now Israel. Some Poles, including my mother, referred to those inhabitants of eastern Poland, following World War I, as Biaorusi, or White Russians (today known as Belarusians). Poles often referred to all Soviets, Belarusians and Ukrainians included, as Russians though not all would have been, and the reference to Russian or Moskal was regularly used in colloquial conversation. Similarly, when Europeans found themselves in such foreign lands as the Middle East, they referred to Persians and others as Arabs, as the distinctions between different groups in the Middle East would not have been clear to them.

Polish history is very complicated, and there is debate and some controversy about what should be considered Polandthere is occupied or partitioned Poland, the Polish Empire, or the Polish-Lithuanian (or Lithuanian-Polish) Republic or Commonwealth, depending on ones point of view. For the unique generation of Poles raised between the World Wars, such as my parents, who were educated in Polands history throughout its 123 years of occupation by the Germans, Austrians, and Russians and who had a patriotism instilled in them that is largely missing from subsequent generations, there was no debate. Because I absorbed much of their point of view, I have strived to separate that from the known historical record while still keeping their voice. I have worked as a scientific researcher, and so I have attempted to approach these historical events with the same objectivity I came to value through that work.

First names often have various forms in Polish depending on the emphasis of endearment; my name, for example, is formally and officially Danuta, which translates as Donna in English, but I was also known as Danusia, Danulu, Daniusienko, and so forth. Last names also change with gender, so that my fathers name, Solecki, becomes Solecka for my mother and me. Finally, though Mira is my half sister, I never thought of her as such and refer to her only as my sister.

I must thank my parents, Janina and Wawrzyniec, and my sister, Mira, who so generously shared their difficult stories with me over the course of many years while I pressed them with unrelenting questions. I thank my husband, John, for his infinite patience and tireless numerous readings and many helpful comments of early versions of the manuscript while I was still trying to find my writers voice. I wish to thank Gwen Walker of the University of Wisconsin Press for her recognition of the value of the story and her tireless promotion of the book. The University of Wisconsin Press staff were especially wonderful, and copyeditor M.J. Devaney provided valuable, critical comments.