大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Ania Curtis and has been added to the website on behalf of her dad Antoni Motel with his permission and they fully understand the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

I am now 67 years old and have lived in England since July 1962 when I arrived from Poland. I came to join my father who lived in Bedford. My story recalls how it was my father settled in England and my childhood war memories of Poland during the time that he was away.

My father was taken to Siberia in 1940. He managed to escape to Iran and joined the British Forces. He told me he took part in the second battle of Tobruk in North Africa/Egypt before arriving in Italy where he took part in the Battle of Monte Casino. In October 1946 he came, with the other Polish and British soldiers, to England.

I have 3 or 4 recollections of the war. I lived in a town called Drohiczyn Nad Bugiem, in Eastern Poland. It had about 2,800 inhabitants before the war, which included about 1,000 Jewish people. From 17th September 1939, Russian soldiers occupied my town, until 2nd June 1941 when Germany invaded Russia. Our town was one of the first casualties as it was on the border of then Poland occupied by Germany (in the West) and Poland occupied by Russians (in the East). Although I was only around two and a half years old and I don鈥檛 remember the Russian soldiers, somehow I learnt to sing the most popular Russian song 鈥淲ychodila na bierek katjusza鈥� which translates as 鈥渨hen katjusza (a vehicle with 40 barrels or tubes which launched 40 bazookas at the same time) climbs the river-bank.鈥�

The second thing I remember was when Germans invaded our town they launched a canon bombardment and my neighbours鈥� house (he was a prominent communist leader) was struck and burnt.

The third thing I remember is that soon after the Germans came to our town they took the Jewish population to one part to form a ghetto. My house was on the edge of the main road leading towards Warsaw. I saw dozens of horse and carts with Jewish people being driven to Treblinka only 40 km away. Then nobody in the town knew of the camp鈥檚 existence or of the danger to the Jewish people. One thing we were made aware of by the Germans was that we were not allowed to harbour any of them or give them assistance, under the threat of death. Despite this, about 100 Jewish people were harboured during the war in surrounding villages and in our town. I remember that for many days a Jewish lady in her 30鈥檚 would come to our house with a list of provisions she required and my mother would give the list to my uncle who was in the Polish underground army. The underground army would bring the provisions to our house a day or two later and the Jewish lady would collect them.

As our house was the last one on the edge of the town during the whole German occupation (meaning it was away from where the soldiers were most of the time) it was used to teach young children (my older brother included) Polish by a Polish teacher. I was too young to attend class but around 4 or 5 of my colleagues and me took vigil 100 metres away from the house. If we saw German soldiers we would pretend to play hide and seek or fighting games. We made a lot of noise so that the pupils would clean their slates on which they were writing and come out and pretend to play. Fortunately the Germans never discovered the class of students in our house. There were other houses in the town where pupils learnt Polish. My mother told me later that there were never more than 10 pupils in each house.

Another vivid incident in my memory, which I wish I had a talent to paint, is the following: one summer鈥檚 afternoon (1943 I think) I was playing outside the house when I saw two German soldiers in brown shirt sleeves rolled up, with Sten guns that looked like kalashnikovs and 2 Alsatians, taking away a Jewish couple with 3 children. I still remember the fear in the parents鈥� eyes and the children clinging to their legs. I now realise that the Jewish people were in grave danger.

Despite all this somehow I wasn鈥檛 frightened of the Germans. Even at the end of the war, when the Russians 鈥渓iberated鈥� our town, my brother, me and other colleagues went to the battlefield to look for spoils. In dead soldiers鈥� knapsacks we鈥檇 find tins of food and biscuits. I also didn鈥檛 seem to be horrified by the sight of 100鈥檚 of bodies floating down the river Bug a few days after battle. It was summer 1944, I must have been about 6, and I was fishing with my colleague. A body was marooned near the bank and fish were eating it. We just cast our line near the body so that we could catch a fish.

When any of our town鈥檚 many battles was over there were plenty of guns, grenades and other ammunition in the field. Colleagues, brother and myself would collect them and keep them in our cellar. The most popular to collect was grenades which we would use to throw into the river to kill the fish. We knew how to do it. I vividly remember when I was 5 years old my brother would stand about 50 metres away from me down the river and I would throw the grenade to kill the fish. My brother would then scoop up the fish by hand and as a family we鈥檇 eat the catch that evening. We would take the pin out of the grenade and throw the grenade into the river to where it would explode around 6 seconds later.

The last thing that stays in my mind was that when the Russian soldiers came to our town they were very friendly but especially to the children. They would give us fresh bread and a tin of meat. Soon after the liberation of the town there were hundreds and hundreds of tanks and armoured cars passing my house on the main road. Once a young soldier (no more than 16) jumped from the tank and picked up a chicken in front of our neighbour鈥檚 house and took it away with him. The woman shouted at him. When the Russian officer saw what had happened he shot the soldier dead. Later I learnt that the Russian army was told not to steal anything from private people who they 鈥渓iberated鈥� under pain of death. Our neighbour, now deceased, never forgave herself that she had inadvertently caused the death of the young Russian soldier.

When I came to England and saw my father, whom I didn鈥檛 remember as I was only one year old when he was taken away, he told me that in Siberia he met many Russian people who were there since the revolution in 1917. They were very friendly and helpful and helped to organise the Polish prisoners so that they could survive. The place he was sent to was called Pechora, which is behind the Ural Mountains, in northern Russia. Prisoners were made to chop wood and would get a food ration according to the amount they chopped during the day. Those who were old or sick would have had no chance to survive.The kindness of prisoners was shown when they would allocate the cutting of the wood to the sick and old, so they would get food, but do the work themselves. Conditions were very harsh and the Russians, when asked by my father how one could live like that, explained, 鈥淵ou come here not to live but to die.鈥�

When in August 1944 there was an uprising in Warsaw of the Polish underground army against the Germans I remember seeing the red sky as a result of Warsaw burning in the West. Our town was only 70 miles away.

When the Russians came in September 1939 they took away about 40 families from Drohiczyn to Siberia. The order was to take everybody 鈥� children, old people, and the handicapped. When they came to take my family away (mother, father, brother and me) I had Scarlet fever. My mother begged the officer in charge that I be left with her family. He said his orders were to take the whole family regardless. Somehow, once we were packed to go, he changed his mind. He said he would take my father away and come for the rest of us in 3 weeks time. My father was taken to Siberia. Three weeks later we were again packed and waiting outside the house but the Russians never returned for us. The three of us left behind survived the war in Poland.

Our house was made from wood and we were ordered by the Russians to demolish it. During the whole war we lived in my auntie鈥檚 house and the timber frame of our house became essential fuel. Without that wood we probably would have frozen to death as the frost could be 40 degrees centigrade at night in that part of Poland. I remember waking up in the night and seeing icicles on my eiderdown.

Needless to say I am pleased to have survived the war and to have my story, even though that of only a young boy, recorded for future generations 鈥� particularly any future generations of my family.

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