September 25,2021
After a nice breakfast at Magdalena and Jarek's we all head out to see the newly opened Siberia Museum in Bialystok. This Museum was officially opened on September 17, 2021 only one week before.
Sybir......Siberia...in the context of the Polish Nation, in the hearts and souls of Polish people the very term Sybir denotes a place of desperation, of loss, of hunger, of hopelessness, of distance, of exile from our homeland, a place of death and misery that has been that way since the 16th century. It has been used by Czars, by the Soviets, by the Russians as a place to put people so they are out of the way, so they lose hope so they may never come back. A place of terror well denoted by Alexander Solzhenitsyn among others.
On February 10, 1940 at 2 AM Wanda Szwender, Father Antoni and Mother Fraciczka, long with Helen, Edward and Bolek were rudely awakened by pounding on the door and the coarse sounds of Soviet soldiers who gave the family 30 minutes to gather things before they were taken to a station and loaded onto cattle cars for a month long journey to hell and exile, Sybir. this is the start of an odyssey that was only able to continue when Wanda along with her parents and youngest Bolek were able to escape their Siberian prison. Due to lack of food and unhygienic conditions, Helen and Edward died just as they had a chance to get out. This is what Siberia is all about a place of death or a hope of getting out alive, there is not much in between.....
On September 17, 1939 the Soviets invaded Poland to join their Nazi partners in the invasion of Poland and to divide the Nation between them. Jointly responsible for launching World War 2 the Soviets were more duplicitous, lying and false as they started to claim otherwise. But the deportations began. On Sept 26 ,1939 Franciszek Szwender, Walters Dad received a sentence of 15 years in hard labour in the gulag for ,well being a railway employee.
Walter and his sister and mother were deported on April 13, 1940 to a kolkhoz in Kazakhstan and were later sent further into Siberia. Walter did not talk too much about life there but he did talk about the point where there was hope and how and 120,000 other Poles were able to get out with Anders Army!
this Museum is haunting in message but it is a beautiful building and well done exhibits. When it turns out they find out who Walter is, a Sybyrak and soldier from Anders Army they provide a personal guide and we have well done tour of the museum for 2 hours and the girls were awesome always well behaved but they followed the whole tour.
Walter was very impressed and as you can just imagine it was moving for all of us as Family every one of us has been touched by the Story of people in Exile to Siberia. We leave after a tour, lunch and some intense feeling and memories now...
September 25 at Entrance to Sybir Museum Bialystok
We are here for this journey
Greeted by the Professor
In the footsteps of the Forgotten and the Exiles and the lost
Polish Army in Russia-not Anders Army-
Siberian workshop of Polish scientist
The Signing of the so called Amnesty for Poles-the criminal Stalin and Molotov, along with Anders and Sikorski, cynically this is where they signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact to jointly invade Poland, the nazi invasion of their frineds turned the tables...the Amnesty allowed for the thousands of Poles to escape hell
Bren gun like Walter carried, Polish Anders Army-
Receiving gifts and sincere thanks for visiting!
Comments