Customer Reviews

Stolen Childhood: A Saga of Polish War Children

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This book was very informative and especially interesting because my husband's parents were part of this transplantation of Polish refugees. They were treated horribly by the Russians and I am embarassed that we (the Allies) did nothing about it. But then, war was war, and refugees were a fact of life.

Although this book was written many years ago it helps to keep us focused on the fact that the Jews were not the only ones trampled on during the war at the hands of Hitler; the Poles were trampled on at the hands of the Allies.

I read this book when my Mother mentioned that it described her childhood. She was one of the orphans who lived through this saga. She was in tears reading it because it brought back so many good and bad memories. I was in tears realizing what my Mother went through. The details explained so much to me about why my Mother does certain things in the way that she does...like ironing sheets because that was the only way to kill the bugs on the sheets in Africa. This is a well written saga - almost a diary for my Mom.

I was impressed with the realistic quality of Krolikowski's story telling. He weaves in beautiful scenery and then covers many aspects of events including the mudane difficult life and many horrible, shocking events, as well as describing some political motives behind some events, and estimating the number of people affected and Soviet strategy to make it difficult to find and/or count everybody. A very emotional read for me. Everybody knows about Soviet troops waiting at the gates of Warsaw and allowing the Nazis to slaughter the Polish people, but this story about deportations to the outermost regions of the Soviet Union resulting in more than a million Polish deaths and 380,000 orphans, some of whom journey, impossibly, to far-flung primitive regions of British colonial Africa, is a must read.

There are many works about the 1.5 million Poles deported to the Soviet Union in 1939-1941. This one is unusual in that it emphasizes the difficulties faced by Poles, especially children, after the "amnesty", including that while still in the USSR, subsequently in various nations as refugees, and finally in terms of the difficult postwar adjustment in their new homelands. The author himself was one of the victims.

For a time, many of the freed Poles toiled in the cotton fields of "Soviet Louisiana". (p. 40). Krolikowski believes that the places the freed Poles were sent to were a matter of continued deliberate murderous Soviet policy: "At that time, none of the Poles knew that all of Turkestan had been for years a center of the most dangerous infectious diseases in the Soviet Union, or that from time to time there were epidemics of typhoid, `enteric fever', dysentery, and malaria." (p. 43). In Anders' Army alone, over 47,000 soldiers died between February and summer 1942. (p. 48).

The Shah of Iran was described as friendly to the Poles crossing his territory. (p. 71). Of the many nations discussed that accepted the Polish refugees (including India, New Zealand, Palestine, Mexico, etc.), Krolikowski emphasizes Nairobi (my own Gulag-refugee mother, aunt, and grandmother were there). The Felician nuns played a major role in aiding the refugees. The priests were very ardent in maintaining the spiritual and moral tenor of their parishioners. (pp. 135-140). They compared parishioners' spiritual apathy to that of the Israelites following their deliverance by God from captivity. Some priests burst into salacious places of entertainment to shame the participants. One priest even threatened to leave the parish if many more people did not come to Confession.

The refugee children were not easy to teach. Soviet workers, having no incentive to work hard or even to respect state property, had been a bad influence on the freed children. (p. 60). In addition, the children had a persistent distrust of authority because of their experiences. (p. 115). Still, many Poles learned about their surroundings, and some even climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. (p. 161).

Krolikowski reflects on the European presence in Africa: "Increasing nationalism and anti-colonialism make it easy to accuse the colonial powers of exploitation. Of course, the slave trading, banditry, and robbery of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries covered the white race with incredible shame. But the greatest enemies of the black people were the Arabs and the tribal chiefs themselves, who rounded up the prospects, killed off those unfit for sale, and tied the rest to one long chain for the length march to the coast and the ships of white slave-traders...Some good has come...the natives became more educated and now are able to occupy positions in all branches of cultural and economic life." (p. 172).

The Soviet annexation of eastern Poland, and the Communist puppet state imposed on the rest, meant essentially no postwar Poland for the refugees to return to. Ironically, Communists demanded their return, all in the name of homecoming or family reunion, conveniently forgetting why they were not in Poland and why they were separated from loved ones. (p. 199, 231). One of the places of permanent domicile was Canada, where many of the refugees eventually rose to high positions. Karol Wojtyla, the later Pope John Paul II, visited them in 1969. (p. 264).