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Chapters (84)
  1. All the Days of Our Lives
  2. 1945
  3. 1931-1944
  4. I
  5. One
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. Thirteen
  18. Fourteen
  19. Fifteen
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. Twenty-One
  26. Twenty-Two
  27. 1946
  28. II
  29. Twenty-Three
  30. Twenty-Four
  31. Twenty-Five
  32. Twenty-Six
  33. III
  34. Twenty-Seven
  35. Twenty-Eight
  36. Twenty-Nine
  37. IV
  38. Thirty
  39. Thirty-One
  40. Thirty-Two
  41. V
  42. Thirty-Three
  43. Thirty-Four
  44. Thirty-Five
  45. VI
  46. Thirty-Six
  47. Thirty-Seven
  48. 1948-1949
  49. VII
  50. Thirty-Eight
  51. Thirty-Nine
  52. Forty
  53. VIII
  54. Forty-One
  55. Forty-Two
  56. Forty-Three
  57. IX
  58. Forty-Four
  59. Forty-Five
  60. Forty-Six
  61. X
  62. Forty-Seven
  63. Forty-Eight
  64. Forty-Nine
  65. Fifty
  66. Fifty-One
  67. Fifty-Two
  68. Fifty-Three
  69. Fifty-Four
  70. XI
  71. Fifty-Five
  72. Fifty-Six
  73. XII
  74. Fifty-Seven
  75. Fifty-Eight
  76. XIII
  77. Fifty-Nine
  78. XIV
  79. Sixty
  80. XV
  81. Sixty-One
  82. Sixty-Two
  83. 1953
  84. All the Days of Our Lives

‘We all survived that together, by God’s grace. Then came the amnesty. Amnesty . . .’ He repeated the word with bitter contempt. ‘As if we were criminals. The Germans had attacked Russia – you remember, in 1941? So suddenly their great friendship is off, and Russia is comrades with Poland again. So, they decide we can go. Can you imagine?’

He stopped and drew in a big breath, letting it out slowly.

‘Oh, it is a long story. It took us some time to get out – I was almost going alone, I was young and impatient – me and some other boys and girls. But my mother said: No, you wait, we stay together. We have to get rail permit to go south. In the end we left the camp. For days we walk, my sister Ewa was very sick, pain in head, fever. After days we come to railway. There were many of us on the train. No one knows anything, except we are told there will be a new Polish army. We make a long journey south. Trains, barges, trucks, walking. Even donkey and camel.’ Kate felt his chest move in laughter for a moment.

‘It was chaos, Russia – the Russians didn’t know what they were doing. Finally they hand us all over to the British, when we got south, in Uzbekistan. Here we are told that for sure there will be a Polish Army Corps gathered out of those freed from the camps. Our General, Anders, they let him out of Lubyanka prison in Moscow and he came to command us. I was old enough – eighteen by this time. I decided to join. But for some time everyone would be travelling together: the army and also women and children, everyone. We went to Tashkent where there was a camp. This is very bad time – there was no food, almost, eating worms from the ground. And you know what else we could eat sometimes? Turtles – big ones, we boiled them – and storks. They make their nests high up, but there were no high buildings, so they nested in the trees. We would go and lift them by the neck. But this is not often, of course. We were hungry and many people sick, thin like insects, dying. I was worried about my mother. After all the camp, the journeys, all she had suffered, her health was very bad; she was weak. We did not know where was my father – she had to do everything alone. And Agnieska got very sick – typhus, as we told you.’

‘And you – did you get sick?’