The Dolls We Left Behind
A Child's Wartime Journey from Poland to Persia
Extracts from the book
‘I recall now the last treasured moments of our departure: Pan Władysław, a teacher and our lodger, makes the sign of the cross over our heads. Belongings are loaded onto the lorry, and, hurried on by the militia men, we take our seats.
My cat, Filutek, walks behind us to the gate, sensing all is not well. My eyes catch a glimpse of the small figure of Ewcia tearfully waving to us, and we are off, never to return to our home in Mołodeczno.’
The sisters and their dolls
A story carried across continents, remembered across generations
During an exceptionally fine August in 1939, eleven-year-old Genia was looking forward to the prospect of a train journey to Wilno, where her uncle and cousins lived and where her mother was born. Little did she know that this summer would herald the end of her childhood.
With the outbreak of war, her family was forced by the invading Soviet army to leave their home and embark on a very different journey by cattle truck, hundreds of miles north-east into the heart of Siberia …
A 7,000 mile journey
‘Kotłas was an important rail junction and port on the river Dvina. This huge river rolls northwards, joining a network of estuaries at Arkhangelsk that flow into the White Sea.
In the unrelenting heat we embarked onto the barge at 11 o’clock and arrived at the small river port of Sieftra the following day. Here our belongings were loaded onto horse-drawn carts while we trudged on foot, flanked by armed guards, to our destination 10 km away.
We walked and walked behind the carts. It seemed endless. Just at the point when I thought I would never make it, the carter said we were almost there. Indeed, through the vapours rising from the river, mingled with smoke from chimneys, we caught our first glimpse of Zharovaya 87 ‘Flame’ camp. This was our ‘posiołek’ – that is, the settlement that would be our home for the next 14 months… There was no need for barbed wire as we were surrounded on all sides by the thick taiga.’
Mołodeczno – a borderland town on the fringes of eastern Poland
‘You couldn’t leave this small and insignificant provincial town on the furthest reaches of the eastern Polish border without at least some thoughts of the past evoked by the imposing Mińsk Gate. With fields of golden corn on both sides in summer, for its Polish inhabitants it was highly symbolic of a precious peace secured by bitter armed struggle.’
The prospect of freedom
‘It was 24th September 1941. We now firmly believed that we would not be sent back to the penal colony.
There were hundreds of people at the Sieftra landing place, all jostling for space, waiting for the boat to Kotłas – the main railway junction 180 km away and the first stage of our journey to freedom.
There is a seemingly boundless expanse of water at the point where the Sieftra tributary joins the Dvina. The opposite bank is impossible to discern. In the sunset the water sparkled and glistened in all the colours of the rainbow and smashed furiously against the bank with white spray and spume.’
‘The men’s ward was long, with row upon row of beds. I am short-sighted and could not recognise any faces. Then suddenly, I heard a voice calling my name: “Genia! Genia!” I was startled and moved towards the voice, still not knowing who was calling me. To my great surprise it was father who, having also contracted typhoid, was at the same hospital. He was very pale and emaciated but overjoyed to see me. It was all completely out of the blue!’