大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 war website by a national trust volunteer on behalf of Halina Lepkowska, she fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

I remember my mother took me to a village to be with relatives and we slept in a cellar for a few nights. At the end of the war the Russian army was in town and everyone was cheering them without knowing what was going to happen. It was very difficult for my mother to manage as we had one room and the rest of the house was full of German officers. They were good to us and gave us toys and a Christmas tree as they thought it was rest to be there as they were changing over from the front. I was born in 1940. my husband was also born in Poland and he tells me that in one day more than one million Polish people were taken to Siberia to work. My husband鈥檚 father went to the labour camps and his younger brother died of hunger. After the war my family stayed in Poland before we came to Birmingham along with three thousand other Poles. I have now lost my Polish citizenship.

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