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February 10th, 2005 marked the 65th anniversary of the beginning of a holocaust that the world has yet to learn about - the one endured by an estimated 1.7 million Poles living in what was at that time the eastern region of Poland. My mother, her parents and her siblings were among this number — of the 10 family members who were deported, only 4 made it out alive.

The world has heard much about the Jewish Holocaust, but very few have heard of the Polish Holocaust. Why? Because this holocaust was perpetrated by an Ally of the United States and Great Britain, and it would have been embarrassing to these two great powers to have the world know that they had allied themselves with such an evil and inhuman regime. So, although the West knew about the hundreds of trains loaded with human cargo that were headed east, they did nothing to stop it. Furthermore, they went to great pains to make sure that this was not publicized, because they needed Stalin’s Russia in order to defeat the Germans.

While Hitler’s Nazis were hell-bent on obliterating Jews, Gypsies, and other non-Arians from the face of the earth, Stalin’s policy was to remove all trace of Poles from that section of Poland that he insisted the Allies give him at the close of the war.

With a spine-chilling banging on doors in the middle of the night of February 9th to 10th , in what was one of the coldest winters on record, entire families were hauled out of their beds, given only minutes to gather belongings, and were taken by sled or on foot to the nearest train station. There, long trainloads of cattle cars equipped with virtually no heat (other than one small iron stove in one corner of each boxcar) and no food or water, awaited the helpless families. People were loaded into these boxcars like cattle — eyewitness accounts put the numbers at 50 to 90 people per boxcar - and thus began their journey of 4 to 6 weeks into the depths of Russia in the dead of winter.

Many did not make it to their destination. They died of hunger or froze to death and their bodies were left in the snow alongside the railroad tracks, without burial or the most basic marks of human dignity. This was particularly the fate of the elderly and the very young.

Descriptions that have come down to us of the railway boxcars used for these transports include:
® there were no windows — only slivers of light coming through the joints of the wooden walls, and through which they could squint to attempt to see where they were;
® the large wooden door was locked from the outside and was only opened when the train would stop at a station and a representative from each wagon would be allowed to disembark to fetch warm water or firewood;
® there was a single hole cut into the floor which served as the toilet;
® there was a row of wooden bunks along two of the walls of the wagon — these were piled 3 or 4 levels high, and each bunk had to accommodate entire families;
® the stench of unwashed bodies, of death and decay, of human waste, became more and more unbearable as the trip progressed;
® the ever-increasing presence of lice and a variety of illnesses were the daily/hourly preoccupations of this wretched humanity.

Trying to imagine the horror, the despair, the agonies endured by these helpless souls is nearly impossible. Shivering in the frigid temperatures, day and night, running out of the meager provisions they had managed to bring with them, hunger and thirst dominating every waking moment, overrun by fleas and bedbugs in living quarters that were not fit for animals, and with it all the fear — the all consuming fear of what was yet to come! One has to wonder how many of the present generation would survive such hell on earth?

The destinations of this human cargo was mainly Northern Kazakhstan and the vast reaches of Siberia — to a variety of camps (Gulags) that had been in existence in these parts since the time of the Czars. Here the deportees, men and women and teens alike, were forced to work at clearing forests, building roads, or mining coal, gold, and other minerals — all for a daily ration of 1 or 2 slices of bread and some watery soup per person. Days off were virtually non-existent, as was medical care or proper nutrition and clothing. It is estimated that almost half of the deportees died in these camps, or in transit to or from them. Anyone who died during winter months could not even be buried until spring, when the earth was sufficiently thawed to allow for digging.

There were three other mass deportations:
® The night of April 12-13, 1940: approximately 300,000 deported
® The night of June 28-29, 1940: approximately 400,000 deported
® The week of June 14-20, 1941: approximately 280,000 deported
® An additional 450,000 were POW’s or were deported as a result of being arrested for a variety of politically-motivated charges

Once the Germans invaded Russia, a Polish-Soviet agreement was negotiated and signed on July 30th, 1941. This agreement provided for the release of all Poles in Soviet exile and the formation of a Polish army on Soviet soil. The objective was that this Polish army would assist the Russians in defeating the Germans. Poles from every corner of the Russian Empire (who were lucky enough to be granted travel documents by their keepers) slowly made their way southwards to where the Polish army, under the direction of General Anders, was being formed. The Polish-Government-in-Exile (in London) provided food and clothing for this rag-tag assortment of half-dead volunteers and their families, orphanages were formed, and temporary-hospitals provided medical assistance.

Eventually, when Stalin changed his mind about having a Polish army on Russian soil, an evacuation plan was quickly put into place, and boatloads of deportees crossed the Caspian Sea into Persia (now Iran). Unfortunately, the borders were closed before everyone could be evacuated and hundreds of thousands were left behind. Some worked on collective farms and in slave industries into the late 40’s and early 50’s, and then eventually made it back to Poland. But some never did manage to leave the Soviet Union and their descendants are there to the present day.

Once in Persia (Iran), the Polish army was trained and eventually distinguished itself in many theatres of war — of particular note is the Battle of Monte Casino. The women and children were also taken care of. After initial delousing and medical treatment, convoys of refugees made their way to India, Pakistan, and many areas of West and South Africa. This journey was made by truck, by ship, and by a variety of means of transportation, and included perils of a different nature — blistering sun, baking temperatures, and tropical diseases. They spent a number of years in these refugee camps, recuperating from their ordeal, before finding permanent homes in far away lands such as Australia, New Zealand, South America, Canada, the United States, and Great Britain. With Poland falling under the Communist regime at the end of the war, few ever returned to their homeland since it would have been ‘hazardous to their health’ to do so, and since their homes / villages / cities were long-destroyed or now located inside Russia.

In the years since the war, most of the deportees never spoke of their experiences. Many remained silent because they were too traumatized by these events and many more because they feared for their loved ones who were still behind the Iron Curtain. Only the fall of Communism in 1989 finally allowed the story of these wretched souls to be told. However, Russia has been slow in allowing access to the archives surrounding these inhuman acts, and most publications have thus far been in Polish. The story remains unknown in much of the rest of the world.

It is time that the conspiracy of silence ends and the world acknowledges this Unknown Holocaust, and gives these victims of Stalin’s ruthless and merciless policies the acknowledgement that they have long deserved.

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