大象传媒

The following story appears courtesy of and with thanks to Marushka (Maria) and Zygmunt Skarbek-Kruszewski and George (Jurek) Zygmunt Skarbek.

Our way continued along the railway lines, hopelessly straight, uninterrupted, indefinite, cutting through meadows, swamps and forests.
It was exhausting travelling along the lines, especially with tickets in our pockets. We were meeting other evacuees, some having a rest, leaning with their rucksacks against barriers, resting their backs. It was customary by now that evacuees asked each other questions and gave information about the road, the Front and the political situation. Wandering the trail of the evacuees was like living a newspaper. After the conventional questions "Where from?,鈥� "Where to?" and "How?,鈥� we were told that the Soviets were already near and were killing all Polish officers, even those not in uniform. We were advised to burn all documents if we should be officers of the reserve. One woman with a rucksack on her back told us definitely that Rydz-Smigly, Chief Commander of the Polish Army, shot Minister Beck and then committed suicide. The President was in England and, in Poland, Stalin would rule. Full of this news, we walked on waiting nervously for our meeting with the Soviet Army. We did not destroy our documents but were not certain what would happen.
There were so many rumours about the Red Army. Somebody had already seen them. They were supposed to be already quite near, like an army of ghosts which was swarming near us. We had the feeling that at any moment they would jump out of the bushes, they whom we had never seen - the Soviet people, these mysterious people of the Red Revolution.
Would they be the people who built Dnieprostroj? (The large dam, hydropower station and industrial centre on the River Dnieper - 1330 km in length), or the people who changed Stalingrad? Or people of the great Cham, as according to my mate, Lesman? (Cham = boor, churl, a vulgarian, primitive, brute, cad).
Or cadres of the bloody G.P.U. (Secret Police)?
Or gentlemen of the red land?
We were fed by propaganda; we looked through white glasses to the red east. Where do we go from there? From there, slowly the truth was filtering through. Not the naked truth but the truth draped with red cloth. We, the people of the age of 'Applied Propaganda', know what the official truth injected with propaganda means. What are these people, the Soviets? What is their Red Army like?
With thoughts like these we travelled on, full of curiosity and anxiety. We did not know whether we would stay free or be imprisoned. We passed a few dozen more telegraph poles which Marushka was counting carefully. Counting them gave us some indication of distance covered. We approached a station building.
On small platform a soldier stood guard with a rifle over his shoulder. He was dressed in a dark grey short, army coat without badges and without shoulder straps. His thin legs were covered with black puttees, dirty foot clouts showed above his shoes. A narrow face, unshaven, rather pleasant looking. On his head he wore a soft, grey cap in the shape of a spiked helmet. On the hat was a large red star with hammer and sickle. He was our first Red Army soldier.
When we were a few paces away he called, "Who is that?" taking the rifle in both hands.
Our small groups stopped. I called back in Russian, "We are evacuees."
"Go to the station where other people are standing," he instructed and put his rifle back over his shoulder. At the station building huddled a group of people with their bundles and a few Russian soldiers. Through the door of the station came a military man, probably of higher rank. He was middle-aged, with a smiling round face and a snub nose. He was dressed quite differently than the soldiers, in high boots, dark navy trousers with narrow red stripes, and a long drill tunic reaching to his knees. On his collar was a red tab with dark red little squares. He wore a dark navy cap with a stiff leather peak and a red band. He was a Politruk (political officer) of the Soviet Army. We all looked at him full of interest, but also with anxiety. He stopped at the top of the steps, looking our group over.
"Where are you from, citizen?"
From the group came replies "From Warsaw, from Luck, from Lublin". He came down the steps and began speaking with some of us individually. People were answering his questions in Polish, Russian, and in a mixture of both. He came near us and asked me
"And you, where are you from?"
"My wife and I are from Warsaw," I replied in Russian.
"What were you doing there?"
"I worked in the archives," I replied in general with a careful reticence.
"And where are you going?"
"Back to Wilno. Our parents are living there. We are from Wilno."
"You a smoker?" he asked, holding out a packet of cigarettes.
"Yes."
"Try one of the Soviet cigarettes." He gave one each to us and to the others and, lighting one himself, continued, now speaking to all of us.
"Do you know, citizen why we came here?" This was a rather rhetorical question as he did not wait for a reply and continued, "We came here to liberate you from the oppression of the Polish masters who force the people to hard labour. Now there will be freedom. In our Soviet Union all have the same rights. You, citizen, don't know as yet our Stalin's constitution. We have no masters. We have no bourgeois oppressors. So now you know, the Red Army came here to protect your interests. The interests of the labourers and the peasants and, in addition, as our Comrade Molotov said 'to spare your towns and villages from destruction of war."' We were all quiet until someone asked, "What will happen to us, Comrade?"
"You can continue your journey," he replied and went into the station. We grabbed our bags and quickly went away, now travelling on 'liberated' soil. Our freshly-instructed group started to stretch out along the rails, becoming smaller as many began to look for sleeping quarters for the night. It was dark when we lay down in a cottage standing by the road.
We still had 25 kilometres to Sarny. We covered this distance the next day still walking on railway tracks which are monotonously straight and seemingly without end. Sleeper after sleeper, bolts after bolts, pole after pole, reappeared hopelessly at the same intervals. We walked automatically, rhythmically, bored stiff with railway tickets in our pockets.
We met a few more Soviet guards along the railway line. They wanted to buy my watch. Later, we noticed that they were very keen on watches. They tried to buy them, or just took them, whenever possible.
"Don't you have watches in Russia?" I asked one.
"No, you can't say that we have not got them,鈥� he replied slowly. "We have watches, only they are very large like a potato, not nice to wear, and they are also hard to get."
To be on the safe side, I put my wristwatch in a pocket to avoid temptation for the soldiers.
When we reached the outskirts of Sarny, Marushka stopped. The bard and I wanted to go to the centre of the town. We tried to persuade her to go just one more kilometres but to no avail she would not budge. She sat down on some planks. Irritable and tired, she told us to 'go to hell'. Up to now she had been a stout companion on land and water, but now she was finished. The railway track had been too much for her.
Only now did I realise how she had lost weight. She was pale. Her skinny, dirty legs in damaged shoes were hanging helplessly. Her large, grey eyes were full of tears. I understood those tears. During the journey we expected her, a female, to be our equal physically. She always adjusted her steps to ours, being proud and keeping up the team spirit, with strain and effort. Now her strength had given out before ours. Therefore the tears. She was not angry with me but, because we were stronger, because we could still walk and, above all, the nightmare of another 300 kilometres - so hopelessly depressing.
I sat down next to her, put my arms round her shoulders and hugged her tightly, stroking her hair, grey from dust. I was truly sorry. My sorrow was for those tired, sore legs in down-trodden shoes, for those large tearful eyes. My companion for life and comrade on this journey was clinging to me like a child, crying on my shoulder. She was looking for tenderness, affection and understanding. I comforted her as well as I could. She cried for a while and felt better. I dried her eyes and she rose with a smile.
Holding hands, we started walking. The bard in the meantime was asking the neighbours for eggs.
The Russians were already in charge of this town. In the streets there was much traffic and many pedestrians. Through the streets passed army columns and the footpath was crammed with evacuees. Demobilised Polish soldiers in their grey-green coats were coming from everywhere. They were directed to old army buildings. The organisation of civilians had also started. Young lads with red armbands, the beginning of the local militia, were rushing through the streets. On some houses red banners were flying. The mixed crowd in the streets consisted of evacuees, Polish soldiers, Red Army soldiers, and local Jews in their Sunday best. Queues in front of the bakery were growing rapidly. We pushed through the crowd looking for a shop less rushed.
Suddenly on one of the side streets the crowd started to move and we were carried along by the human wave towards the market place. Upon asking what was happening, we were told that in the market place the Soviets were distributing something. In the square some trucks were standing, surrounded by a milling crowd. On the trucks were soldiers tossing into the crowd white, dried bread.
The old Roman slogan "panem et cireneses" (bread and circus) was still applicable. The bard dived into the crowd towards the trucks. We still had the "bourgeois prejudice" and, although we were hungry, we were unable to fight in the crowd for tossed gifts but, when the bread came to us, we took it. It came to us by way of a truck which, for a better propaganda effort, started moving slowly along the street throwing dried bread amongst the people. In this way a few pieces of dried bread landed in our hands. The pieces were the size of chocolate blocks.
Before we were able to finish chewing our first gift from the Red Army, we were arrested by the Red Army Militia.
To this day, for what reason I don't know. One militia man came towards us asking for our documents, took a look at them and asked us to follow him. He took us to a large, red brick building - the offices of Gorodzkoj Ispolnitelnyj Komitet (Town Executive Committee). Many people were crowded into this room. A few tables were covered with papers. Around the table were gathered the representatives of the "Ispolkom" (Executive Committee). They wore hats and coats. Militia men were coming and going. The chairman was rushing in and out through the door. He was a slim man with Aryan features. Our militia man approached him, reporting something. The chairman listened, gave us a quick look and went back, calling someone. The militia man left, considering his job completed.
We stood and waited, not knowing what was wanted from us. When the chairman once again returned, he was surrounded by a group of people demanding the arrest and execution of one of the bakers as he was heavily over-charging, a profiteer. A very agitated discussion developed, complete with table-banging and fist-raising. The chairman listened with a detached interest. Some were pulling his sleeve, others giving him advice or asking questions. I had the impression that by now he was not certain how to start rebuilding the government in his town; shoot the baker or regulate bread prices? Or, maybe, have some more banners? Looking at the crowd which surrounded him, it was impossible to say who were the advisers, who the petitioners and who the arrested.
We decided to disappear and simply walked out. Nobody stopped us, nobody gave us a second look. Searching for bread, we joined a queue in front of a bakery where bread was to be sold within the hour. There was a peculiar smell of something charred and smouldering coming from the next building. I asked the man in front of me if this town had been bombed or if there had been recent fires. He told us that the previous night when the Soviet soldiers were entering the town a battle developed in the fire brigade house. A dozen or so officers, sergeants and firemen locked themselves in the station and, when the order to surrender arms was issued, they replied by opening fire. Many hand grenades were thrown into the station and some of the people were wounded and killed, but they would not surrender. All sides of the fire station were set alight and the station completely burned out, incinerating the fanatics who were fighting such impossible odds. The ruins were still smouldering with the characteristic smell of burnt flesh.
Another grim picture of the tragedy of Polish soldiers fighting on the eastern region.
When the baker finally started selling, it was a loaf per person. When we were just near the door, the same policeman who arrested us approached, smiling and greeting us like old friends and asked us to buy him a loaf. He probably assumed that we had been set free by the chairman after our papers were checked.
After securing the bread, we tried to find some place for the night. It was not easy. The town was overcrowded as soldiers and evacuees alike headed for a large railway station.
A few householders refused to take us under their roof as they were afraid to shelter men of military age. There had already been arrests of Polish officers who had changed into civilian clothes and were hiding in town and those who gave them shelter were also prosecuted. It was getting dark and we were very tired after a day's march and hours of walking in the town. We went across the railway line towards the outskirts of the town. As had happened many times previously, the richer houses closed their doors in our faces with a more or less polite excuse.
Understanding and pity were mainly shown by the people in the poor, cramped huts. This time we were accepted, without hesitation, by a poor postman living on the far outskirts of the town. He had one room and a kitchen. He lived with his wife and child. We were offered the couch and the bard slept on straw in the kitchen.

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'This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by 大象传媒 Radio Merseyside鈥檚 People鈥檚 War team on behalf of the author and has been added to the site with his / her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.'

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