A decisive battle was fought on the banks of river Vistula, just outside Warsaw, when, despite being overwhelmingly outnumbered, the Polish forces completely routed and destroyed the Russian army. My brother Alfons, I later learned, went down with typhus, and my mother, who was then near his unit, nursed him to health.

This she did, and being very cross with my guardian, soundly told her off.After settling me in, which was on a blanket spread on the sand inside a tent, she had to return to her unit. referenced. Sanitary conditions again were almost non-existent. Fuel for this was cows’ dried dung which we collected from fields. The train driver never gave notice of moving off, he simply started off, when people frantically climbed on board snatching their pots at the same time. Because we were travelling in animal trucks, there were hardly any sanitary provisions. While drilling inThe over-riding feeling was that of perpetual hunger and fear. Violence de masse et Résistance - Réseau de recherche 1939 — II WORLD WAR — GERMANY AND RUSSIA INVADE POLAND.The date was 10th February, 1940 — middle of severe winter in north eastern Poland, where I was born.

Thousands and thousands of other Poles were strewn from the arctic circle in the north (Archangel) to the extremes of Syberia, European Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kirgystan, and other places, and set to work, in appalling conditions, felling forest trees, transporting and working timber, or, as my father, working in mines. As “luck” would have it, he was at home when the Russian soldiers burst in, which was just as well, because they would have arrested the rest of us anyway, and we would not have had him with us to take care of us.On the date of 10th February, 1940, some 218,000 people were forcefully deported from Eastern Poland, and with further deportations during the year, this figure rose to almost 2,000,000.As I mentioned previously,we were then crowded into almost unheated cattle trucks, and started our journey into the depths of Russia, which lasted about three weeks, as on occasions were shunted backwards and forwards, and during the course of which, a great number of people died either from exhaustion or were lost in transit. Again with only a cast iron round stove in the middle. He was aware that he might be arrested, so he took to hiding in various places, hardly ever sleeping at home.

And remember we were travelling at the height of winter.There was no supply of water either for drinking or washing. By then we were very frightened and crying uncontrollably — my father white as a sheet.

Other solders rushed through the house looking for hidden arms. At times I was forced to chew on some bark of a tree in order to put something in my stomach.There are certain moments in one’s life that stay in one’s mind forever. The Volga Germans were now treated as prisoners and were transported by rail to the camps. They were so bad that we were continually covered in lice and bedbugs. Thank you so much for writing it.

There were only four toilet facilities on board, so with people and children suffering from dysentery and other stomach disorders, it simply was impossible for everybody to avail themselves of toilet facilities.

News spread like wildfire through the village, and almost everybody gathered outside our house.Not finding any arms, the soldiers then gave us a very short time to pack what we could, arrested the whole family, put us on their sleighs and took us to the nearest railway station. Families housed in communal barracks had to endure undescribable living conditions, when people were dying every day from a variety of causes.It must be said, that ordinary Russians were, on the whole, friendly and very sympathetic to our plight, but they had to be very discreet about it.As I have already said, my father was made to work in mines, mining mainly malachite where, on one occasion, he sustained a bad accident. Just one hole in the floor for toiletary purposes. Read more . We never did.