This weekend (October 31st - November 1st) marks the 65th anniversary of 733 polish children and 105 adults arriving in New Zealand.
After Germany invaded West Poland in 1939 and the USSR following suit in later that year, taking the East, millions of Poles were deported to concentration and labour camps. My grandfather and his family and my grandmother and her family were among those deported by the USSR. As all their records and belongings were burned during their journey, not much is known about my family heritage. We do know that my grandfather was deported to a labour camp in Siberia and my grandmother somewhere in the Ural mountain region. After months and months of forced labour, starvation and deprivation the Poles were granted 'amnesty' in 1941 by the USSR (as they declared war on Germany). During the long journey through the USSR into Persia, both my grandparents lost their parents and most of their siblings to typhus or malnutrition. Around 6 million Poles perished in total. After a stay in an orphanage in Iran, my grandfather and his sister and my grandmother and her brother along with 800 other Poles made the long journey to New Zealand on the warship General Randall, arriving 1st November 1944. They lived in the Pahiatua Polish camp until they eventually settled in different parts of the country. Both my grandparents made their way to Wellington where they married in 1958. They had 4 children.
My grandparents are the strongest people I know, unaltered by the horrors they lived through. I am proud to be their granddaughter. I can only hope that I can live to be half as strong as they are.
kocham was
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