Mentionsy

Work in Progress is a podcast to help skilled migrants rebuild their careers in a new country.

Listener of the Polish SBS program.

Do you remember the times when you were taken to Siberia?

So when my father disappeared from the house, my mother never had a peaceful night.

They were Jews from Łomża.

They rode our buildings on horses.

And the same with us children.

On the day they came, our children asked about our father.

And my mother knew that there would be...

She expected that she would be arrested, because at that time they took a lot of people from the places where we lived.

And she was preparing Jerzyk, my older brother, and me to escape.

And he came to mom, when we were arrested, it started to light up, he came to mom, I stood there.

When I woke up, I was sitting at the entrance gate and they gave me vodka with beer.

They sent me to the barn a few times to bring me something, but I always came back.

I just didn't want to be without my mother.

I had to be with my mother.

What is important is that when they came to arrest us, it was probably a Belarusian from Podminsk.

There, in Śniadow, the Russians built hangars and brought people from Russia to build it.

So they sent them to various places near Śniadow.

And when they came to arrest us, it was him.

When we were already in Siberia, in the sovkhoz, in the autumn they brought us, but even before that, because he was such an old man, in my age, we were running, stealing the sunbed, already drenched.

Later, when they started to bring cabbage from the field, we were scratching on these carts and throwing it away.

And there was also one Russian woman there.

When she saw that there was no one, she threw two heads of cabbage there.

We picked up 47 heads of cabbage with Staszek.

But we didn't use it, because when the amnesty came, those who came from the north didn't pay, and we had to pay.

We were in southern Siberia, near the Altai country.

There were wives of officers from Pińsk, who were in captivity, and they were there.

And we left these cabbages there, because we couldn't take them with us.

In the book you wrote that there were people who understood what was going on with you and you also said that there were women who helped you or when you came to the station and your grandmother had no money and he let you on the train.

So there were people who helped you, and they were people, they were not Russians or Poles, only one person helped the other.

If someone didn't see it, they ate it right away.

And from there already to Iran, and then from Iran to Africa, and from Africa to Australia.

Zenek had a terrible cochlea, my brother.

So we lived in a hut with the Uzbeks.

And there was a grandmother.

Three days in a row, his spiritual father came.

I don't know what they called him.

And we made a hole in the wall.

Because these walls were very thin.

So for three days in a row, he came and we looked there.

It is impossible to write down all these stories, tragedies, drama, moving from continent to continent.

We have traveled half the world and it did not cost us a cent.

but it cost a lot of other things.

These things are not important.

It is important that we visited half of the world without paying.

And my mother complains that she traveled everywhere.

On the 8th of February, let's remember, at 3 p.m.

in the Polish Club in Albion, the book promotion of Teresa Sosnowska will take place.

The book entitled And so it was.

Well, because I often stated something there, I wrote it down and it was like that.

And Joasia says, Mom writes like that, it will be the title of the book.

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Work in Progress is a podcast to help skilled migrants rebuild their careers in a new country.