VIDEO

Poruszane tematy: 

Grodno (Second Polish Republic); deportation of the Stępniewski family; Zbigniew Stępniewski (father); Katyń Massacre (1940); family separation; life of a child in refugee camps; Jerusalem – England – USA; career in aviation; desire to pass on information about his origins to his children and grandchildren born in America; Polish identity; discovering the history of Poland

Poruszane tematy: 

the process of discovering her husband’s past; her husband’s origins – Grodno (Second Polish Republic); the Katyń Massacre (1940); emigration to the USA; Polish language; Polish cuisine; connections with World War II – an American perspective; the need to pass on history to future generations; postmemory; cultural memory

Poruszane tematy: 

Katyń Massacre (1940); Polish cuisine, fragmentary information about the family; Freedom of Information Act (USA); need to pass on history to future generations, postmemory; cultural memory

Poruszane tematy: 

Katyń Massacre (1940); Polish cuisine; fragmentary information about the family; cultural identity; pride in Polish roots; postmemory; cultural memory

Topics addressed:

Alexander Dudenko (6.05.1906/1912–1974) – father’s story; postmemory; father’s arrest (1939); NKVD POW camp in Ostashkov (USSR); interrogation; Soviet repression; famine; return to Poland; the realities of life in the so-called Polish People’s Republic; no talk about Sybir – silence; Radio Free Europe / RFE; parents’ upbringing; respect for bread; the trauma of Sybir; thirst for knowledge

Topics addressed:

Krystyna Zielkiewicz (née Żelazik) – mother; Zbigniew Zielkiewicz – father; Zofia Żelazik (née Kuleszyńska) – grandmother; The Eastern Borderlands (Sarny–Równe); 5th Zasław Uhlan Regiment; military settlers; The Central Industrial District / COP (1936–1939); Soviet repression; Nazi German repression; I mass deportation (10.02.1940); Arkhangelsk – settlement (poselok) Witunino – Kotłas; taiga deforestation; living conditions in Siberia; sicknesses; amnesty (1941); Anders’ Army; The Combat Trail of Anders’ Army; The 2nd Polish Corps ;The Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (Uzbek SSR) (Gʻuzor – Guzor); Iran; Palestine; field hospital (El-Qantara – Egipt); polish emigration (Great Britain – Argentina – Unites States of America / USA); International Committee of the Red Cross / MKCK (Switzerland); trauma; post-memory; nurturing Polish identity; polish cemetery (Uzbekistan);

II mass deportation (13.04.1940); Nowodworowka (Kazakh SSR – Northern Kazakhstan); work and life; hunger; sicknesses; father story; international character; Ukrainian SSR; repatriation (1946); Sybir caused trauma

Topics addressed:

Life in pre-war Poland; Napoleon Modl – father; Franciszka Modl (née Dąbrowska) – mother; soviet repressions; prison in Bialystok; III mass deportation (June 1940); preparation for deportation; Sybir – kolkhoz (Jewgaszino – Omsk Oblast Omsk); German-Soviet war (22.06.1941); livinghood conditions; families reunion; raising children – motherhood – mother’s role; nationalities in kolkhoz ; steamboat on the Irtysh River; repatriation (1946); Regained Lands (Bolesławiec – Dolny Śląsk); Red Army in Poland (1945); reminiscence about Russians; Flight and expulsion of Germans after World War II; polish emigration (Australia); life in Polish People’s Republic; Solidarność; opinions about Sybir; recollections; post-memory;

Topics addressed: family history; post-memory; Stanisław Marcinkiewicz (father); Wiktoria Marcinkiewicz (mother); Władysław Marcinkiewicz (uncle); life in GULAG (Workuta, Kołyma); Anders’ Army;  Anders’ soldiers; Wojtek the bear; Battle of Monte Cassino (18.05.1944); repatriation to Gdańsk (1946); repressions against Anders’ men; repression against Home Army (AK) soldiers; Eastern Borderlands (Bielarus – Szczuczyn); post-war deportations (31.03/1.04.1951); Czeremchowo (Irkutsk Oblast); coalfield; Life in the USSR (in the 1950s); repatriation (1955); State Repatriation Office in Nowy Sącz (PUR); Regained Lands (Szczecin, Bolesławiec); exchange of families (Germany – Zimmermann Family); the realities of life in the so-called People’s Republic of Poland; Security Office (UB); interpersonal relationships

Topics addressed:

Różański family history: Kazimierz Różański (father); Stanisław i Mieczysław Różańscy (uncles); soviet repressions (1939–1941); IV mass deportation (20–21.06.1941); German-Soviet war; German attack on Drohiczyn (1941); Luftwaffe attacks on convoys; Settelement (Poselok) Szerstobitowo – region Pudino – Narymsky Krai (USSR); forced labour; amnesty (1941); Kuybyshev; Union of Polish Patriots; repatriation (1946); reality in post-war Poland; Home Army / AK – Władysława Łukasiuk’ (“Młot”) unit / partisan troop; conspiration; denunciatory activities; teacher’s work in post-war Poland; history of the Association of Siberian Deportees; The Association of Siberians in Siemiatycze; historical memory; culture of remembrance.

Temas:

Walentyna Grycuk Woronitka (madre); hacienda Santa Rosa – León, Guanajuato (1943–1947); niños polacos en México; Historia familiar; identidad polaca; cultura polaca; descubriendo historias familiares y raíces familiares; viaje a Bielorrusia

Topics addressed:

Walentyna Grycuk Woronitka (mother); Santa Rosa Hacienda – León, Guanajuato (1943–1947); Polish children in Mexico; family history; Polish identity; Polish culture; discovering family stories and roots; trip to Belarus

Temas:

la vida de la madre en la Segunda República Polaca (1918-1939); la vida de su abuelo y su papel entre los seguidores de Józef Piłsudski (1926-1939); deportación de la madre, la abuela y el tío a Siberia (1940); el papel de la abuela en la llamada ejército de Władysław Anders; llegada a Argentina (1948); preservación de la memoria; identidad polaca

Topics addressed

mother’s life in the Second Polish Republic (1918–1939); grandfather’s life and his role among the Piłsudski (1926–1939); deportation of mother, grandmother, and uncle to Siberia (1940); grandmother’s role in the so-called Anders’ Army; arrival in Argentina (1948); preserving memory; Polish identity

Topics addressed:

relationship with Dorota Wypych Gibbs; New Zealand; Polish community; family; knowledge of Poland abroad; Polish children in New Zealand (1944); the Pahiatua children; Polish orphans; post-memory; memory; commemoration; Polishness / Polish identity; Polish–New Zealand relations; attitudes of New Zealanders; upbringing; heritage

Topics addressed:

life before the war in the Eastern Borderlands; parents’ history: Maria Wypych (née Węgrzyn) and Jan Wypych; deportation Novosibirsk (USSR); life and work in Sybir; amnesty (1941); Anders’ Army ; evacuation; Uzbek SSR – Uzbekistan; Iran; Polish children in New Zealand (1944) ; the children of Pahiatua; Polish orphans; mother’s work in New Zealand; the Polish community in New Zealand; life in exile; preserving Polish identity; Polish House in Wellington; post-memory; memory; commemoration

Topics addressed:

Tadusz Chwiedź (1935–2023); sybiracks identity; post-memory; family memories; II mass deportation (13.04.1940); life, work and conditions in exile; Kazakh SRS(Pawłodar); children’s experience; trauma; historical education in the period of the so-called Polish People’s Republic; historical tabu; activities of the Association of Siberian Deportees; Białystok Branch of the Association of Siberian Deportees; International March in Remembrance of Siberian Deportees (Białystok); Sybiracks community; Sybiracks traditions; commemoration.

Topics addressed:

Chełmno Lubelskie (Poland); Zarasai (Lithuania); deportations from Lithuania; deportation of family members; intellectual trends inspired by the work of Jerzy Giedroyc among the Polish diaspora in Argentina; political climate; the state of knowledge about deportations to Siberia in Argentina; Polish Settler’s Day(hiszp. Día del Colono Polaco) – 8th of June

Topics addressed:

Grandfather arrest (22.10.1939); prison at Kopernika Street in Białystok; II mass deportation (13.04.1940); Leokadia (grandmother), Leokadia Józefowicz (doughter); children: Kazimierz Józefowicz, Zygmunt Józefowicz and Stefan Józefowicz; loading into wagons in Białystok; transportation; Pavlodar (Kazakh SRS); the village of Bogdanówka (7 Auł); work in a state farm; Karaganda coal mine; Berling’s Army, repatriation (1946);paratroopers of General Stanisław Sosabowski; Operation Market Garden(17–26.09.1944); life in Poland after returning from Siberia; Security Service in Białystok

Topics addressed:

Tadeusz Romer (1894–1978);Polish politics in the interwar period (1918–1939); Polish international politics– Japan (1939–1942); Chiune Sugihara (1900–1986); jewish refugees; Sugihara visas; Polish diplomatic mission in Kuibyshev in the USSR(1942–1943); Jolanta’s mother’s stay in a camp for Polish refugees in Africa; post-war emigration: England, Canada; University of Oxford (England); monthly magazine “Kultura” – Literary Institute (France – Maisons-Laffitte near Paris); Józef Czapski (1896–1993); the lack of awareness of the so-called West about the realities prevailing in the USSR; Jolanta Nitosławska-Romer (born 1948); Polish identity in exile; cultivating Polish identity (4th generation)