extracts
False Freedom
EULALIA OLSIEWICZ (HUBERT)
Osada Horbów, District Równe

In 1941 we tasted freedom. We were allowed to leave the work camp. Father found work making sausages in Cherevkovo and the whole family went to live there. Now our conditions were relatively better and it was with great joy we welcomed news of the formation of a Polish army. It was at this juncture that deportees from Komartikha and other posioleks took to the road.

It was the beginning of November 1941 when we moved as well. We stopped in Kotlas railway station and by no means were we the first. We were forced to camp in fearful conditions with vermin infesting the concrete floor. In the intense cold we, and crowds of wanderers like us, lived in dirty, smelly conditions. We put up with this for two weeks, before, once again, finding ourselves in cattle trucks in exactly the same way as we had been deported from Volhynia with one important change â the atmosphere was completely different. In our carriage, besides our family, was the Kozierackis, Kruczeks, Toru's, Jurmans and Folwarks. We had no planned route but knew we were aiming for Central Asia and from there to the Middle East. Days passed and all the time we travelled, there were regular stops in railway sidings, because the green lights worked in favour of the army transport. Hunger stalked us all. Illness reaped a rich harvest. At each stop the corpses of dead children were taken off, indeed our entire route was strewn with the bodies of children. In our transport we had a large family from the camp in Komartiskha, parents and eleven daughters, who one by one were left behind on luggage carts at different stations.