大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Kat Pearson a volunteer from CSV Action Desk on behalf of Mrs Teresa Babicz and has been added to the site with her permission. Mrs Babicz fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

My story is just one in 1 and a half million incredible and traumatic stories from that time.

65 years ago, 15th April 1940, my idyllic blissfully happy, 2 year old life came to a vicious stop. In the middle of the bitterly cold night my terrified mother, grandmother and I together with most of the Polish families (mostly women and children by then) were loaded, as we stood onto carts and taked to the nearest railway station. The Red Army was continuing its ethnic cleansing of my land.

The same thing happened some 4-5 months before, to most of the men of this town, my father (a police officer) and my uncle together with all the rest of the police force, the town council, teachers, priests and anybody who was anybody, were arrested by the Russian NKVD soldiers, most of them never to be seen again. My father miraculously survived stone quarrying in the artic to fight in France and Belgium.

After weeks of travelling in the filthy cattle trucks, often 200 in one wagon, cold, hungry, thirsty and petrified, those who perished on the way there were the lucky ones. We eventually ended up in Novosibirsk in Kazakhstan in one of thousands of civilian labour camps known as 鈥減osiolki.鈥� Mercifully the next 2 years are completely blotted out of my memory! Except one incident, which looking back I鈥檓 not quite sure whether it is my own memory or a recounted one, but it certainly left an impression.

Among my mother鈥檚 jobs in the camp was delivering stuff from one 鈥減osiolek鈥� to the other some distance away, through the featureless vast steppe. This was done by cart and one or two wild looking oxen. One day during the first winter, my mother was caught up in the blinding snowstorm, where temperatures dived to -30潞. At the best of times the only signposts in this vast, flat steppe were the sun or the stars. In the white expanse there was nothing. My mother was trying to get the oxen to go, what she thought was straight on, but the beast would not listen. She started to pray, after hours of struggle she gave up- she knew this was the end. She took out her rosary, which was always with her, wrapped it round her frozen hands, let go of the reins and settled in the seat. By now she was slowly loosing consciousness. She regained consciousness some hours later in our camp, with me sobbing by her side. No wonder the rosary, to this day, has never left her side, or mine.

You can see how lucky I was. I had my mother and my grandmother to shield me from the worst. My husband Michael was not so lucky. His mother died on the first day of the war 1st September 1939, leaving him, a 12 year old with 5 younger brothers and sisters. 17 days later the Russian Army marched into south-east Poland. They ended up in the depths of Siberia. He and his father were the only breadwinners, if and when there was any bread to win.

After that first winter the typhoid struck and they lost one little brother. The youngest one, the 3 year old however, was the only one not yet ill. He stayed with Michael and the others in a kind of hospital, having nowhere else to go. After days of unconsciousness, Michael felt some prodding of his hand and a little voice calling his name. He opened his eyes and there was little Gienek trying to wake him up.

鈥淚 have been sitting here from three days trying to wake you up, but you sleep and sleep, and so do the others鈥�
鈥淲hat are you doing here?鈥� asked Michael.
鈥淚 am waiting for you to wake up so I can ask you for that piece of bred by your pillow. I鈥檓 so hungry!!鈥�

After these months and months of starvation, sharing between them any scrap of even a root, he would not take it himself without asking!

Hearing this story many years later, I suddenly remembered my grandmother鈥檚 mysterious ritual. When in 1942 our Russian nightmare ended, we escaped and ended up in India our wonderful 鈥渉ot heaven鈥�. Every time my grandmother was starting a new loaf of bread, she would kiss it gently, then bless it with a cross before she cut the first slice. My questions about this ritual were shrugged off, with something like an explanation 鈥淥ne day when you are older, and perhaps a mother yourself, you will know.鈥�

Small wonder that neither Michael nor I have ever thrown away any piece of bread, at the worst it goes to the birds. 鈥淕ive us this day our daily bread鈥� means so much more to us than dare I say it? - To you?! Thanks be to God for that!

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