12 R E C O L L E C T I O N S
Family Histories
KWIATKOWSKI Family
4/ Call-up and separation
In a short while a man came in and asked for "Kwiatkowski? I am the one you are going to stay with". In bright sunshine and swirling snowflakes we got onto his cart and went down a gently sloping road. We travelled about 700 metres before pulling up before a house on the left. Access to it was over a bridge without handrails spanning the roadside ditch. The family's name was Mytrenko.They were Ukrainian colonists who came there in the early 1930s from Voronezh. The father's name was Gregor, his wife Anna. Children by age, Anna ("Niura"), Iwan ("Wania"), Aleksandra ("Shura"), about 17,15, and 9. We were in Kyrgyzstan, Jalal-Abad Oblast, Bazar-Korgon, Posiołek Karakul.
The house stood on a patch of level ground between the road and a high ridge running north to south, it was about 30 metres high and overgrown with small trees.Mum told us they were firs and crab apples . About 200 metres north of the house, downhill, was a small grove of walnut trees. Another 200 or so metres further on lay the main part of the village. I think we arrived there about the end of the first week of December.There were a few snow patches and the air was cold. Once again, this was a poor area. Dad and Mum tried hard to find work but, with harvest in, there wasn't any. Dad took to repairing pots and pans in neighbouring Kyrgiz villages, sometimes Tadeusz went with him. Later for a while, Mum worked planting cucumbers and tomatoes in deep pits. Aleksandra and I soon became friends and played with the Ukrainian children from nearby houses, I must have been the youngest.
Snow fell properly well before Christmas and with food being scarce Christmas Day was a miserable time. Help came from an unexpected quarter; the Polish Mission in Jalal-Abad sent us a hundred roubles. This helped enormously. With the snow and frosts, out came the children's toboggans and many happy hours of tobogganing in the road. I severely scared myself when, after everyone else went in, I went off on a toboggan left outside. The slope was so steep that I couldn't stop and buried myself in a snow drift. It was before the snow fell properly that Tadeusz and I searched the walnut grove for fallen nuts. We found one and shared it. By the second week of January the snow was deep and the frosts severe. I don't remember the following weeks except as a time of play but we were always hungry for the next meal.
In February, Dad received his call up papers into the Polish Army. On 12 February, 1942 I stood with Mum as we said goodbye to him in the road. Jadwiga and Tadeusz stayed in. Snow was gently falling as he walked down the hill, stopped at the bottom to wave and disappeared around the bend. That day and night he and his two companions, Kolebuk and Jagielicz, walked over 50 kilometres. First to Bazar-Korgon, then, having missed the transport, to Jalal-Abad. Early in the morning in Jalal-Abad they were put on a train and sent to Margilan. Dad's hope of being able to help us was thwarted, Margilan was 200 kilometres away. We, of course, knew nothing of this until the following year. Meanwhile Mum had responsibility for our survival. There wasn't anything we could do except wait for news from Dad.
The winter was severe. Mum, with Tadeusz, often climbed to the top of the ridge to bring back chopped branches that served as firewood in our tiny fireplace, the only source of heating and cooking, not that there was much to cook. On one occasion, returning from the ridge, she tried to follow my brother's example of sliding down. Halfway down she lost her balance and tumbled to completely disappear in the snow. I, amazed, watched as she dug herself out still clutching the little axe. Weeks passed and we still hadn't heard from Dad. We were surviving on the quickly dwindling hundred roubles. Snow began melting in the sun which was quite warm at midday, yet it was still bitterly cold at night. One night, a large pond up the road burst its bank and the resulting torrent of water hurtling downhill washed away half the house on the other side of the road. I watched in the morning as people were trying to save the remaining half and salvage possessions while the water level dropped but still deep in the roadside ditch. The widow who lived there, Rohaczycha, was absolutely distraught. Spring was approaching but still no news from Dad. When a pig drowned in an irrigation canal, Mum was able to buy a little piece of pork.
While snow still covered the ground I watched the Kyrgiz and Ukrainian army recruits in training. They trained in the field beyond the irrigation canal which was still covered by snow. With their imitation rifles they would fall in a line, on a shouted order the whole line would leap up and then charge, yelling "urra!" to fall down again about hundred metres on. This would last most of the day. The stony level patch on the opposite side of the road, where the very bitter wild garlic grew witnessed a minor drama one morning. A large eagle was shot while attempting to take a lamb. I stood in a crowd around it and marvelled at its size. Measured, the wingspan was almost three metres. By now there was real warmth each day, grass was visible everywhere but still no news from Dad. We were down to our last few roubles and barely survived. March ended, we were into the first days of April when Mum heard of a Polish Army Unit stationed about thirty five kilometres away in Błagowieszczanka. On Good Friday 1942, she left us to walk there. It took her a day of walking through the foothills of Babash-Ata, she rested a day and returned carrying two loaves of bread. A day later we packed what remained of our very meagre possessions and helped by Anna Mytrenko with "Niura" set off for Błagowieszczanka.
It was a quiet, overcast morning as we climbed the hilly road to the large lake where we turned right onto the path through the hills. About mid morning the sun came out and we stopped for a rest on a patch of grass which grew in a hillside recess. It was an enjoyable meal of bread, three eggs with water.
It wasn't long after we set off again that I began to tire quickly. We couldn't afford the time to rest again so Mum carried me. When she tired, Anna Mytrenko took over. In between times I walked. The path led downhill continuously and this made the backs of our legs ache badly. Time passed slowly as, silently by now, we struggled on. Eventually, I don't recall when, we reached level ground. It was a cotton stubble field, the stubble was very painful to walk on.This field was in the shadow of approaching evening. We stopped part of the way across, all very tired, I was unable to move a step. The sun was just setting, off to our left up a slope, lights of Błagowieszczanka began twinkling. But we no longer had the strength to walk that last kilometre. In front, about two hundred metres away, a light appeared in a house. Anna Mytrenko told us to wait and went towards it. She returned in a little while with good news.