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Hi Members,

I'm sure some members may have already viewed this gallery. I came
across it today and found the photographs very interesting, so thought
I would post the site address for other first time viewers.



in SEARCH I typed...... 1939-1945 POLAND

Regards
Helena.

-story-20081218-71ni.html?page=-1








Enduring the pain of loneliness: one woman's story


* Marika Dobbin
* December 19, 2008

Krystayna Gruba

"We were free'': Polish migrant Krystyna Gruba, 84, at her Footscray home of
54 years, which she shared with her beloved Wladyslaw and son Zenon (inset).


THE clock said 1am when Krystyna Gruba jerked awake to banging and shouting
on the roof just above her bed. She struggled to the window, her usually
sturdy 84-year-old legs wobbly from sleep, to see two men crash on to her
front lawn, tearing the roof gutter down as they fought. Panic rose to a
drumbeat inside Mrs Gruba's ears as she watched still more men in black
uniforms and dogs pour through her gate.

The Footscray street had been her home for 54 years but that night, in the
darkness, nothing seemed familiar expect for an old terror that stirred
inside her. She thought, "The Nazis are here."

Mrs Gruba did not know that police had chased a man as he tried to flee over
rooftops, eventually nabbing him on the tiles over her head and wrestling
him to earth.

These days, having lost most of her English and reverted to her native
Polish, she finds it increasingly difficult to communicate with the wider
world.

A widow for 15 years, with most of her old friends dead, and just one child,
Mrs Gruba has fewer and fewer distractions from her demons. Memories of the
traumatic end to her childhood and years of unrelenting hardship in German
work camps have returned to haunt her in her old age.

"I am very lonely because I miss my husband. I miss him terribly. I try to
be happy but sometimes your thoughts knock you down. I miss my mother and
father and my family back in Poland," she says, tears trickling down her
cheek.

Mrs Gruba's slow decline into isolation is typical of the experience of
older migrants, according to a new report on ageing.

Speak Up Seniors, commissioned by the Victorian Government, is the biggest
review conducted of the challenges facing the state's rapidly ageing
population. It found a lack of transport, information and suitable housing
was robbing older people of their quality of life.

These problems are often worse for those who have been displaced by war and
whose families have been strewn across the world.

Like many migrant women of her generation, Mrs Gruba never learnt to drive.
She has lost confidence in using public transport because of her frailty.

Surviving on a pension of just $257 a week, with no money saved, it is a
stretch to pay even a concession fare to catch a taxi to social occasions,
doctors' appointments and to her Polish Catholic church each Friday and
Sunday, where she sings in a choir of just two members.

While she once held Polish dance classes in her garage and raised money to
build a Polish community hall - her voluntary work earning her a civic award
- these days she finds she tires more easily.

That does not mean she can sleep. For Mrs Gruba, the greatest traumas of her
life - including the death of her beloved Wladyslaw - always seem to happen
in the middle of the night. She was 18 when the Nazis captured her and her
little sister, Zofia, before dawn for use as slave labour, forcing the girls
from their bed out into the snow.

The year was 1943 and the Germans had launched a massive counter-attack on
the Soviets on the Eastern Front, by far the largest, bloodiest theatre of
World War II. In the small village of Nowy Korczyn, Poland, rations for
villagers were down to 250 grams of bread per person per day, and they were
forced to watch German propaganda films on a screen erected in the town
square. But it was the kidnappings that most tortured the townsfolk.

"They came at night, at day, any time," Mrs Gruba says. "They'd come and
they'd catch somebody on the street; everywhere, they'd take you."

On the February morning a young Krystyna was taken, her father tried
desperately to negotiate with the soldiers as they herded his daughters onto
trucks along with 90 other villagers earmarked for work camps.

As the engines started, their mother clung with all her will to the truck
with her daughters on board and tried to climb in. But she fell back on the
road, shrieking, "My children! My children!"

Later that day, the prisoners were packed on to trains, to travel nearly
1000 kilometres to Germany. "They gave us nothing - no water, no toilet,"
she says. "Everybody was crying and we were not allowed to talk to each
other, not one word."

On March 20, 1945, Krystyna awoke (for the second time in her life) to a
living nightmare. Explosions rocked the farmstead in Weidenbach, a town in
Bavaria, Germany - where she was forced to work as a housemaid - and cast
bursts of light on the surrounding fields like it was daytime.

The Allies were bombing an underground ammunition factory 20 kilometres
away, killing hundreds of prisoners, mostly Russians, who worked there.

Krystyna watched from the window and then from the road as those who escaped
came with blackened faces and broken bones through the forest, begging the
farmers for help and bread. Less than two months later, a defeated Adolf
Hitler shot himself to avoid capture, and the war was over.

Having not received any word about family for almost a year, and been warned
about the communists in Poland, the young women were encouraged to find
husbands quickly, so they could emigrate.

Krystyna settled on a fellow Pole she met in a refugee camp, a man she
hardly knew or loved, and sewed a dress out of a lacy curtain for the church
wedding in the town of Mildorf.

Fortunately, Wladyslaw, a handsome 23-year-old with light hair, turned out
to be a perfect match. In one of life's paradoxes, the savagery of war
brought her the greatest joy of her life.

"I wish that everybody had such a husband," she says. "He was so kind, he
was so understanding, he could do anything he was so smart." A year after
they were married, a son, Zenon, was born.

The family was eventually accepted for migration to Australia and boarded
the ship Amarapura, arriving in Sydney on October 20, 1949, after a
gut-churning 45 days at sea.

In Melbourne's western suburbs, the Grubas found a place among the community
of Polish migrants who settled there. "We didn't have no money but of course
we were happy because we were free," she says.

And they stayed happy for decades until one day at work, Wladyslaw, in his
50s, was crushed by some car parts that fell from a Holden factory line.

"My husband was sick for 13 years . I tried so hard for him, so hard to save
him. I was completely ruined when my husband died. I wished I'd died with
him."

Now, in the long days of mourning, Mrs Gruba is more often than not alone
with just her thoughts for company. And sometimes, especially at night, the
past seems more real than the present.

So, when one of the shadowy men who invaded her Footscray garden last month
knocked at her door, he had no luck trying to explain that it was police,
not Nazis, outside in the dark. Instead it was a kindly neighbour who eased
Mrs Gruba's fears the following day when he volunteered to fix her gutter.

Karen

This is a good sign; the records they have usually list home addresses, names of family members etc. Try to get full copies of all the records.

See

Stefan

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Vincent Geffroy" <geffroy@...>
Sent: Friday, December 19, 2008 9:26 AM
To: "stefan.wisniowski@..." <Kresy-Siberia@...>
Subject: Re[2]: [Kresy-Siberia] Research---Nikiel

Stefan,

I think my brother in the UK got them a couple of
years back. I know we received some medals after
my father's death. My brother had made enquiries
to some organisation and had to prove that he was
the eldest son, they were then forwarded to him.
Nevertheless, I shall ask him if received the records
to which you refer.

Karen


------------------------------------

Hi Vince;
Couldn't help reading about your relatives who entered USA...
Why not听look at 听Ellis Island immigration records to confirm;

pozdrawiam serdecznie Krysia


听
听Krysia

Stefan,

I think my brother in the UK got them a couple of
years back. I know we received some medals after
my father's death. My brother had made enquiries
to some organisation and had to prove that he was
the eldest son, they were then forwarded to him.
Nevertheless, I shall ask him if received the records
to which you refer.

Karen

Karen

Have you already got all the Polish military records from the Uk?

Stefan W
Sent from my BlackBerry庐 from Optus

That is nonsense. They are confusing the wniosek with later sworn statements from witnesses etc.

There is no need for a notary to legitimise the wniosek.

I will try to get this fixed for any last-minute claimants (you went to London, right?)

Stefan.

Sent from my BlackBerry� from Optus

Antoni,



Thank you for the reply. I am looking for information on the

following persons:-



NIKIEL, Edward Josef, DOB 13/10/1921, Zdolbunow Wolyn. Arrested

� � � � with mother 1940 (according to Osrodek Karta). Sent to

� � � � Vorkhuta slave labour camp, where spent 17 months. Proceeded

� � � � to England. Joined Polish navy in exile. Remained in UK after WW2 � �

NIKIEL, Tadeusz (father), Captain WW1 (?), later Stationmaster�

� � � � Shot by Gestapo during Warsaw Uprising �

NIKIEL, Helena (n閑 HERCZYK)(mother), arrested Lwow 1940,

� � � � sent to unknown slave labour camp where she reportedly died.

NIKIEL, Stefan (brother), Polish Air Force, shot down possibly

� � � � Battle of Britain�

NIKIEL, Tadeusz (brother)

NIKIEL, Wladyslaw? (brother)

NIKIEL, Jadwiga? (sister) �

One brother served on ORP Piorun, another shot down in Lancaster during

air raid over Cologne, Germany.



The family moved from Zdolbunow to Lwow between 1931-39. Lived�

in Trzeciego Maja Street, not sure if this was in Zdolbunow or

Lwow. May also have spent some time in Gdynia and/or Krakow.



Hope this may help.



Regards

Karen Geffroy



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Best wishes and warmest Christmas and New Year greetings to All Members of Kresy-Siberia Group.
From Michael Adamski (www.mdavideo.com)

First of all - thanks to Carol and Stefan for their help.

Stefan wrote:

"I am pleased to announce that thanks to our efforts, the two
flagship Polish Consulate Generals in London and New York have
joined Toronto and Sydney in agreeing to accept applications for
Kresy property compensation rights until the 31 December 2008.

CONSULATE GENERAL OF THE REPUBLIC OF POLAND, 73 New Cavendish
Street, London W1W 6LS England. tel: +44 (0)207 2913 900"

Secondly - I went here this afternoon and they seemed to want the
claimant in person (not me, claimant is my mother) with their
passport or to have the signature approved by a notary public.

I think I will try to send it direct to Warsaw tomorrow - hopefully
there is enough time.

Marion

Karen,
Yes, it might be a very extended family as there are something like 170 -175 listed; also in Karta there a few as well which differ to Ru lists.
Please give patronymic names and dates of birth for the persons you are looking for. Some spellings in Russian are Nikl or Nykl, but I feel they are not your family as they are not from Lwowskie/Tarnopolskie.
There are one or two Hercik -Herczyk as well.
You said they were deported to Vorkuta region-- it would be advisable to write to Memorial in Moscow and even to pani Janiak at Karta.
k.janiak@... just to see if there are any records.

antoni530

--- In Kresy-Siberia@..., "Antoni Kazimierski"
<ASKAZIMIERSKI@...> wrote:

This family name is quite popular in Poland as I can see.

Well, let's see... In the Warsaw phone book there are
17 entries for Nikiel+Nikel+Nykel+Nykiel
21 entries for Anders
some 280 entries for Kaczynski+Kaczynska
some 2000 entries fro Wisniewski+Wisniewska

Pozdrawiam
Janusz

A medal for surviving

Thu, December 18, 2008

Katherine Sawicki of London was among Poles shipped to Siberia by the
Soviets

:






By <mailto:kdubinski@...> KATE DUBINSKI











Katherine Sawicki wears a special commemorative medal given to her by the
Polish government for surviving her Soviet-forced deportation from Poland as
a child. (Susan Bradnam, Sun Media)

The Russians came early one morning, banging on the door of the family farm.


They ransacked everything.

"Get ready. You're going," they yelled. "Twenty minutes."

As her four terrified siblings cried, one Russian soldier told 10-year-old
Katherine Sawicki's father, "Bring warm clothes for the children."

Today, tears well in the London woman's eyes as she recalls two years of
hardship in Siberia, from 1940 to 1942, when her family was deported by
Stalin's Soviets for one reason: they were Polish.





"They put us in cattle cars, locked us in, packed us in."

Sawicki received a medal from the Polish government recently for surviving
the forced deportation. She was one of 1.7 million Poles shipped to Siberia
between 1940 and 1942.

Sawicki, 79, lives in a bungalow near the Our Lady of Czestochowa Polish
Catholic church on Hill Street.

She has a message for those falling on hard economic times. "You can
survive. If you use your head and don't want much, you can survive. What you
have, you have."

The day the Russians went to her village in southeast Poland is still vivid
in her mind, as are the years of poverty that followed.

"In Siberia, the grownups had to work, and we had to go to school. And I
mean, had to go to school. One day, when I didn't go, they sent my father to
prison," Sawicki says.

"We learned Russian, and that there was no God," Sawicki says.

The families, about 10 to a barrack, were prohibited from speaking Polish.
Ticks, mites and lice abounded. Beds were simple wooden boards.

Surrounded by forest and snow, there was no escape.

"You couldn't run. One guy tried, and they found him weeks later in the
woods. He lost his mind."

Summer, though, brought berries and mushrooms -- and encounters with bears.

"I made friends, and we had fun, like children do. But my mom said, 'Don't
run too much, you'll get hungry.' There was nothing to eat," she says, her
eyes filling with tears.

Then one day -- just like that -- Stalin made a pact with Poland's
government in exile, granting amnesty to imprisoned Poles.

"People started leaving camp, but we couldn't go because my brother had
injured his leg," Sawicki says.

Her father made a sling, and the family, cold and hungry, set out walking to
a nearby village. Their clothes worn through, the family would pour water on
rags and let them freeze over their feet -- makeshift shoes.

Finally, Sawicki's father was told trains were leaving with Polish refugees.
The train station quickly filled up.

"We didn't know where we were going, but we knew it was freedom," Sawicki
says.

Sawicki's mother, sick from starvation, died on that train to freedom.

"The doctor said we had two choices. Stay and bury her or come to freedom.
We left my mom by the side of the train, covered in a blanket."

The train stopped at a port and the family learned they would cross the
Caspian Sea to Iran.

Sawicki has pictures from those times, several months in a refugee camp
outside Tehran, with people dying of diseases contracted in Siberia. But
also school, scouts, friends. Then, more camps, in India, then Uganda.

After a time in England, Sawicki and her dad landed in Halifax, at Pier 21,
in 1948 and began another journey -- this time to Saskatoon, where an aunt
had settled in 1929.

Her father went to work on a farm, and she in a factory. In 1963, married
and with three kids, Sawicki moved to London.

This month, she was one of several Polish people in Canada to receive a
medal of recognition for her survival.

"It brought back so many memories," she says.

The medal is her most prized possession, Sawicki says. Before that, it was a
scouting cross she earned in the Ugandan refugee camp.

"Back then, we had nothing. When you talk to people nowadays, and you say
there was nothing, they can't comprehend it."

Antoni,



Thank you for your reply. We were always used to being

the only NIKIEL family around in the UK and South Africa,

but I have now realised that this is not an uncommon name

in Poland. Your christian names in the camp are not familiar�

to me, but then I only know of those relating to my father's

immediate family. Sadly I would not know of extended family

members on either the NIKIEL or HERCZYK side.



Regards

Karen Geffroy �













�



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Karen,
This family name is quite popular in Poland as I can see. Very many were deported. We had a very large family of Nikiel at Jeglec posiolek in Archangelskaja; Antoni;Bronislaw;Weronika;Emilia;Jozef;Maria;Marian;Pawel and Teresa. As I recall they were from Lwowskie or Tarnopolskie.
antoni530

Greetings Rysiek,



I would love to have your information. My father always

spelt his surname NIKIEL and it appears as such in the

Osrodek Karta. My father did say that 2 uncles went to

the US prior to WW2. He mentioned Chicago and Detroit,

as far as I can remember. One may have been named Jerzy

and the other possibly Robert, but of that I am not sure.

I think one may have owned a type of Spar store.



Thanks for the reply



Kind Regards

Karen Geffroy

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�



�

Hello Karen
听
I am not sure on the spelling, is it Nykiel?听 If so, and I suspect it is, a Joseph Nykiel was my confirmation sponsor in Detroit, Michigan, USA, back in the 1950s.
听
My father was from the Lwow area also, and I think they knew the Nykiel family from there.听 I can try to get in touch with the family here, if you think it is the same.
听
听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听 Rysiek Kasprzak

Dear Members,

My name is Karen Geffroy and I am the daughter of the late Edward
Josef NIKIEL, who was born in Zdolbunow in 1921. My father and his
mother, Helena NIKIEL (n茅e HERCZYK) were arrested by the NKVD in
Lwow in 1940 and deported to separate slave labour camps. My father
was sent to Vorkhuta in Siberia, where he spent 17 months. After
escaping he made his way via Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Persia, Egypt,
Palestine to England, where he joined the Polish navy in exile until
the end of the war. It would appear that his mother died in the slave
labour camp to which she was sent. My father lost his father, Tadeusz
NIKIEL, in the Warsaw Uprising and other siblings during the course
of the war. He, as the only survivor of his family, never returned to
Poland. I am interested to find information on my paternal family,
whom I never knew and about which I have very little information.

Regards
Karen Geffroy

--- In Kresy-Siberia@..., "Lucyna Artymiuk"
<lucyna.artymiuk@...> wrote:

The Children of Teheran



Our Price:

$550.00

Is this a joke ?