Note: Memory Politics and Historical Context
The two forewords reproduced here bookend nearly two decades of profound change in Polish, European, and global memory politics. The Foreword to the First Edition (2008) emerges from a post-1989 Polish commemorative landscape characterised by recovery, documentation, and moral restitution. During this period, survivor organisations such as the Association of Siberian Deportees played a crucial role in reclaiming suppressed histories of Soviet repression and integrating them into national historical consciousness.
The Foreword to the Second Edition (2026), by contrast, is written in a markedly different transnational context. While continuing the work of commemoration, it explicitly situates Polish deportation memory within contemporary global concerns: renewed authoritarianism, the instrumentalisation of history, political imprisonment, and the erosion of human-rights norms. References to Russian historians, activists, and organisations underline a shift from nationally bounded remembrance toward a shared, transnational ethics of memory.
This work illustrates how Polish deportation memory has moved from a primarily national project of recovery toward a broader engagement with international debates on historical justice, repression, and civic responsibility. It demonstrates that remembrance is not static: it responds to political change, technological transformation, and evolving moral horizons. This edition, therefore, presents the forewords not only as introductions to a memoir collection, but also as historical documents in their own right, as testimonies to the changing conditions under which memory work is undertaken.
Combined Foreword (for General Readers)
Memories of Siberian Deportees brings together firsthand testimonies of Polish citizens who experienced deportation, forced settlement, and exile in the Soviet Union during and after the Second World War. Since the publication of the first part in 2008, the collection has attracted sustained interest not only among former deportees and their families but also among historians, educators, and students engaged in the study of twentieth-century repression and displacement. The accounts gathered here, as written memoirs, transcribed interviews, copies of documents, and photographs, constitute primary historical sources that preserve individual experiences often absent from official records. The publication was made possible by this reception and by the trust of contributors who chose to share their memories. Over time, Memories of Siberian Deportees has also become a catalyst for wider community engagement, encouraging further testimony and supporting educational and commemorative initiatives in Poland and abroad.
Technological change has enabled this work to reach new audiences: recent editions are now made freely available in electronic form, responding to growing international interest in the history of Soviet repression and forced migration. This edition appears at a moment when the remembrance of past injustices intersects powerfully with present realities. Renewed war, political repression, and the persecution of historians and civic activists remind us that the issues addressed in these testimonies are not confined to the past. Read together, the voices collected in this edition affirm the enduring importance of documenting lived experience, defending human dignity, and sustaining memory as a form of civic responsibility. This book is dedicated to those who endured deportation and exile and to the generations who continue to seek understanding through their stories.
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Foreword to the First Edition (2010) The second part of Memories of Siberian Deportees.
A Collection of Source Texts, published by us in 2008, met with considerable interest not only among former deportees but also among those engaged in the study of deportations. This response motivated us to continue our work and to prepare the second part.
We included accounts by individuals whose testimonies could not be included in the first part: members of the Krzyworzeka (Marianna, Zdzisław, Janina Wabiszczewicz (Krzyworzeka)) and Miedłów (Jan, Kazimierz and Władysław) families. Other individuals mentioned in the first part were later identified as people deported to the same localities, returning in the same transports, or meeting only later in Poland at the transfer facility. Having read the memoirs of neighbours, these individuals decided to record their own experiences in order to supplement existing knowledge of life in deportation.
Among this group is Zofia Teliga-Mertens, whose name appears in the first part, in the memoirs of Jadwiga Bortnik-Pytlarzowa. Ms Teliga-Mertens own account deserves particular attention for its mature and balanced judgements on social relations in the Eastern Borderlands (Kresy Wschodnie), Polish–Ukrainian relations, living conditions in Arkhangelsk Oblast and Kazakhstan, and relations between local authorities and Poles. Despite adversity, the Teliga family did not give up and achieved outcomes beneficial to the Polish community. Although they were unable to reach Iran with General Władysław Anders’s army and remained in Kazakhstan. After the amnesty, Ms Teliga-Mertens’s mother undertook the task of gathering Polish orphans from surrounding collective farms and placing them in the Polish Children’s Home in Turkestan, where she worked until Anders’s army left the Soviet Union. In 1943, following the establishment of the Union of Polish Patriots, she became involved in registering Poles in the Chimkent region and was later invited to Moscow by the Union’s Executive Board, where she ran an office searching for Poles across the entire Soviet Union.
Ms Teliga-Mertens’s great achievement lies in her active and considerable involvement in the repatriation of Poles from Kazakhstan: she brought forty families to Kresówka and transferred apartments to them free of charge, together with notarised deeds. She assisted them in finding employment and securing funds for renovations. The residential buildings were obtained in compensation for property lost east of the Bug River. In this way, she carried out the tasks of the Polish government, which had delegated repatriation responsibility to local authorities without providing financial resources. Despite continually mounting difficulties, she achieved her goal, a testimony to her determination and steadfastness.
The memoirs of Danuta Krzyżanowska and Tadeusz Janiszewski describe the fates of Polish children—members of military families, orphans, half-orphans, and lost children who, through the efforts of Polish authorities, were able to leave for Iran and later for India and Africa. Their stories present a completely different life, also in exile, but without the spectre of hunger, disease, and often hard labour, which was the fate of those who remained in the Soviet Union. These stories emphasise the kindness of guardians, teachers, and priests, the possibility of studying in relatively normal schools, the deep engagement of the Polish Scouting Association, and very good housing conditions. They present the issue of returning to Poland in 1946–1947 objectively. Decisions about return were made by parents, if they were with the children or in Poland. They could also leave for England, Australia, New Zealand, or the United States. Such decisions were also taken by some orphans who had no one to return to in Poland. If parents decided to remain abroad, the children remained as well. It is true that there was agitation or urging in favour of staying abroad or returning to Poland and mild pressure in both directions, but in general, the accounts make no mention of serious obstacles to decision-making. Once in Poland, however, some repatriates, especially men, felt they were citizens of a lower category, and in the army, they were transferred from active service to Labour Battalions. Both Janiszewski brothers, in their accounts, considered themselves fortunate to be assigned to the Internal Security Corps and to fight groups of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).
Danuta Krzyżanowska and Tadeusz Janiszewski proudly tell of their communities regularly organising reunions of former residents of Polish children’s homes abroad and publishing memoirs and commemorative albums to ensure that the memory of their experiences is not lost.
Not all military families were able to leave for Iran. This was the case for Alicja Mrozowska and Stanisław Stykowski. The reasons varied; most importantly, the huge distance from transport routes to the border and the closure of the Iranian border. Both families remained in Kazakhstan. Only the foresight of Alicja Mrozowska’s mother spared her large family from being sent into the unknown without means of subsistence and survival. A similar situation affected the Stykowski family.
The remaining memoirs constitute responses to the first part of Memories of Siberian Deportees. Some accounts were written independently; these include writings by Antonina Batkiewicz, Mieczysław Czop, Jadwiga Grzybczak, Aleksander Kania, Tadeusz Kania, Zbigniew Kania, Teofila Kołodenna, Anna Mikołajczyk, Helena Lubera, Emilia Olejarz, Wanda Mojżysz, Władysław Miedła, Zofia Teliga-Mertens, and Stefan Szott. Others were prepared in the form of interviews conducted and transcribed for this edition.
The memoirs of Jadwiga Grzybczak stand out for their vivid and beautiful language. I am certain she could write a longer, very compelling account of life in the taiga and its inhabitants, both indigenous peoples and deportees from various nationalities and cultures. Her descriptions of the taiga and the admiration with which she portrays it testify to a genuine love and awe of nature. Of its people, she writes: “All of them adhered to one principle, solidarity and mutual assistance, in order to survive in those conditions.” Her assessments of people encountered both in exile and in Poland are impartial; she judges individuals by their actions rather than by their political views.
Equally beautiful is the account by Helena Lubera, a companion in suffering of Stanisława Kowalska. One cannot help but admire her excellent memory and elegant language.
Attention should also be drawn to the story told by Zbigniew Kania, who recovered notes written by his brothers Tadeusz and Aleksander, bearing witness to the will to survive under conditions seemingly impossible to endure. Tadeusz’s fate was particularly dramatic; yet he survived and returned to Poland.
Zbigniew Kania encouraged other relatives to record their memories, providing a promising start toward creating a family chronicle. Born in Siberia himself, he resolved to deepen his knowledge not only of his family’s history but also of how to survive in extreme conditions in the taiga, especially what to eat and what to do when lost.
Stanisław and Marianna Stykowski share the almost lost story of Adolf Kuźmicki, a soldier of the September Campaign, a Home Army (AK or Armia Krajowa) member, and a Gulag prisoner. This account is very well documented and raises a compelling question: how many former Gulag prisoners of similar fate remain unknown to us? Perhaps members of their families might also wish to document their experiences to preserve them for future generations.
Two student projects documenting the fates of deportees are included here. These projects serve as examples of collaborative work between students and former deportees in preserving memory. These are works by Martyna Mikołajów, Marta Bień, and Aleksandra Tomkiewicz.
The Association’s collections also include individual photographs accompanied by brief descriptions. For various reasons, their owners did not wish to, were unable to, or did not have time to provide more extensive explanations. The traumatic wartime experiences still evoke strong emotions. The unique character of these materials encouraged us to publish them.
The second part of “Memories” concludes with two articles: Olga Szonowa’s “Monument to the Victims of Political Repression…” and “This Is the Pain of Our Memory” by Oleg Ugriumov and Julia Urianska. Their inclusion in the book about Polish deportees is a result of our cooperation with the Scientific-Information Centre of the Memorial Society in Saint Petersburg.
Olga Szonowa’s article was prepared as part of the “Virtual Gulag Museum” project. A new, expanded version of the Museum was launched on 29 th June 2010. The museum can be accessed via www.gulagmuseum.org. The article exemplifies the type of documentation produced by the Saint Petersburg centre, recording the fates of victims of state terror. Ultimately, the intention is for each site included in the Virtual Museum to receive a description as detailed as that of the monument in Yarensk.
The work by Oleg Ugriumov and Julia Urianska examines the beginnings of special settlements and deportations in the years 1930–1949 in the Yarensk region of Arkhangelsk Oblast. I believe that this study helps explain how special settlements for deportees were established, the conditions under which they arose, and how the first deportees of the Soviet Union lived. I can add that my own family, in Arkhangelsk Oblast, was placed in ready-built barracks divided into rooms, whereas those first deportees, settled in the taiga, had to build barracks and settlements from scratch, living in shelters made of branches laid directly on the snow.
I am convinced that cooperation with Russian researchers is essential and that we should support them in documenting the fates of Polish deportees. At the same time, Polish readers should be made familiar not only with the experiences of deportees—citizens of the USSR and other states—but also with contemporary efforts in Russia to preserve the memory of this difficult past.
I would like to appeal here to fellow Siberian deportees, their families, and local branches of the Association of Siberian Deportees to join the Virtual Gulag Museum project. Modern technology enables sharing collections and memoirs worldwide without cost or risk of losing mementoes, photographs, or documents. For the Museum`s purposes, electronic versions of documents are sufficient.
I extend my sincere thanks to all memoir authors whose contributions made this publication possible.
We dedicate the second part of Memories to the memory of our parents, thanks to whom we survived.
Jerzy Kobryń, Chair of the Bystrzyca Kłodzka Branch, of the Association of Siberian Deportees
Translation: Halina Kobryń
