American by Choice

By Henryk Szostak

The book American by Choice is the true story of Henryk Szostak and his familys odyssey from Poland to Siberia, Africa, England and finally, the United States of America. It chronicles how Henryk, as a seven-year-old boy in Africa, learned of the United States of America from an unlikely source: newspaper comics. He was highly moved by the tale of an honest black American shoeshine boy and for fifteen years, Henryk nurtured the dream of becoming a citizen of the land of the free. The book, written in narrative form in Henryks own words, is an autobiography of his familys journey, but also serves as a testament to what humans can endure and overcome by sheer survival instinct, faith and a little luck. The hardships they endured at a guarded labor camp in Siberia, and the difficulties, starvation and suffering they experienced during their passage through Russia and Uzbekistan need to be shared with all future generations.

Henryks story begins in the area southeast of Warsaw, where his ancestors had lived for centuries on a small land estate. In addition to Henryks obvious Polish heritage, some Dutch ancestors crept into the family tree during the 1800s. In the late 1920s, Henryks parents moved east to Belarus territory, to an area that was deeded to Poland by the Versailles Treaty after the First World War. His parents bought land in the village of Dabrowa where they worked hard as pioneers creating a small, thriving estate. The future looked promising for the young family of five, but everything came to a sudden halt when Hitlers Nazis invaded Poland in September of 1939 and World War II began. Local Belarusians rebelled against the Poles and ruthlessly massacred many. Russian communists arrived in the spring of 1940 and ended the atrocities, but forcibly deported the Szostaks and multitudes of other Eastern European families to Siberia. Their only crime was that they owned land, were educated, or were leaders in their communities.

On the night the Szostaks were driven from their home, the Bolshevik Russians gave the family two hours to gather some basic possessions, but did not tell the family where they were being sent. Henryks mother was pregnant at that time, so when one of the young Bolsheviks, moved by her condition, pointed to a down quilt, she surmised that the journey would be to the north. No money or jewelry was allowed, just the basic necessities and whatever food they were able to gather. The family was then loaded onto a horse-drawn sleigh and taken to a rail depot. Completely traumatized, they were forced onto a cattle train bound for northern Russia.

During the slow and tortuous journey north, with no heat in the primitive rail cars and minimal food, many succumbed to sicknesses and died along the way. After weeks of travel, the deportees were delivered to a guarded stockade at Archangelsk, a labor camp where people, as virtual prisoners, endured unthinkable hardships, bitter Siberian winters and mosquito-infested summers. The conditions were horrible. Overcrowding, primitive living facilities, lack of food and rampant diseases all contributed to misery and death in the camp. In this dreadful environment, Henryks sister Mary was born. People just existed, with no hope for the future.

In mid-June of 1942, a miraculous thing happened when Hitlers Nazis attacked Russia. Soviet Russia became allied with the west, and the exile Polish government in London negotiated a deal with the Russian dictator Stalin to free the deportees. A major turnaround occurred when the Poles offered to form an army in Uzbekistan, as long as it was under British command. Stalin reluctantly agreed to the plan, and declared an amnesty that allowed the dependants of Polish soldiers to leave the country.

Euphoria erupted among the Polish deportees throughout Siberia. Men flocked to Archangelsk from the surrounding areas, as this was one of the major rallying points for t

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 17, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483665894

Henryk Szostak

Henryk and Donna Szostak started RV-ing in 1981 while visiting their six children at colleges over a decade. Their love of RV travel took them to all forty-nine states and New Zealand. One of the more memorable trips was in 1998, when they took an eight-month, 40,000-mile trek of the entire Western Hemisphere, starting from Chicago to Ushuaia, Argentina, with a side trip to Easter Island. In their travels through Central America to Ushuaia, then Alaska, they experienced many unusual situations, met interesting people, and saw spectacular scenery. Their desire for adventure took them by land and cruises to over hundred countries around the world. Donna and Henryk now live in Southern California. They can be reached by email at [e-mail].

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Copyright © 2013 by Henryk Szostak.

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Rev. date: 07/12/2013

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Contents

Acknowledgemets and Dedications

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1 Poland—Ancestral Land

Chapter 2 Poland—Place of My Birth

Chapter 3 Deportation to the Sovietunion

Chapter 4 Uzbekistan—USSR

Chapter 5 Caspian Sea to Freedom

Chapter 6 Iran

Chapter 7 Tengeru East Africa

Chapter 8 Africa to England by Ship

Chapter 9 Diddington, England

Chapter 10 Polish Schools in England

Chapter 11 Aldwinkle, England

Chapter 12 Lilford Technical School

Chapter 13 Birmingham, England & College

Chapter 14 New Jersey & Singer Company

Chapter 15 United States Army & Greenland

Chapter 16 Civilian in New York

Chapter 17 Epilogue

Acknowledgemets and Dedications

I would like to recognize and thank the various people that helped me to write this true story. To my mother and father for the verification of the early notes and any additions to the story, while they were alive. To my brothers Czesiek and Janek, also for the verification of the story from the early times in Dabrowa, Poland, Chapter 1 through Chapter 16.

To Doctor William Swisher, a Geriatric Internist in practice with my wife Donna in Evanston, Illinois, and a student and writer about American Founding Fathers, who deeply encouraged me to write this Autobiography.

To my daughter-in-law Jennifer Szostak, herself a writer of children stories, for the numerous hours she spent on reviewing, editing my book and making valuable suggestions.

To my children and grandchildren for their encouragement, although subtle, to publish this book. Like most of the younger generations, they too did not see the full benefit and wisdom of telling the story of one’s life, but in time will realize that genes do not lie. To all the Szostak family future direct descendants, that they may have a story of a family’s past and their beginning in the United States of America.

To my wife, Donna, who generally left me alone while I recalled my life story. She, a skilled computer guru patiently endured and tolerated my occasional intrusions into her time when I asked for help with the electronic monster the computer.

To my ever present companion and helper, CJ the cat, who often sprawled on the papers on top of the desk and blocked my view of the computer screen and caused a number of calamities on the screen.

To Father Julian Krolikiwski who authored a book Stolen Childhood and whose few photographs appear in Chapters 4, 6 and 7. In the book, he depicts the travels of the Polish orphans from Russia to Africa following almost the identical route.

Preface

This is a story of a life’s journey of Henryk Anthony Szostak. It all started in 1939 when as a three year old child, he and his family, were forcibly deported from their home in Poland to Russia (Siberia), then traveled to Iran, East Africa, England and finally, in 1958, to the United States of America.

This book, American by Choice, as well its sequel, Living the American Dream, is not meant to be a major piece of journalism, but the events listed certainly are extraordinary. Some of the Szostak family genealogical derivatives are based on recent facts supported by the family elders and historical data, a field so dear to Henryk.

The book describes the adversities and cruelties people can inflict on his fellow beings, the strength and courage they found within themselves, to endure such sufferings, to overcome the hardships and eventually rise above them.

It’s a story of horrible cruelties inflicted on Eastern Europeans by the Russian communists during the Second World War. Those horrible events are not widely known or told, being largely overshadowed by the inhumane atrocities by the Nazis against mostly the Jews, Gypsies, Slavs and other races, during the World War Two.

It also describes the cruel conditions at the Russian work camps during the North Siberian winter of 1940 - 1941 and the terrible ordeals they suffered during their journey South through the Soviet Union to Uzbekistan, where the Polish Army was formed.

Some two million people from Estonia to Romania were forced out of their lands by the Russian communists before and during the World War Two. Their only crime was that they were either educated, owned land or had the misfortune to be at the wrong place at that time. Over one million Poles were deported to Siberia between February and July 1940, Szostak family among them.

The events recorded here are all real and based on notes taken by the author since he was an adolescent in Africa and as best remembered by him. Over the years, the stories were verified by numerous, often tearful recollections with his mother, father and brothers and cross referenced with actual historical facts. In many cases the events portrayed here, represent the true emotional state the author was going through at the time they occurred.

The story starts in Poland, describes the forced deportation to Russia in 1939, then two miserable years in the USSR, where their parents slaved at a labor camp in northern Siberia at Archangelsk. When, in mid 1942 the Nazis attacked the USSR, the exile Polish government offered the Russians to form a Polish Army with a proviso that the dependants scattered throughout Russia, be allowed the leave the USSR. Thus the Szostak family followed a mass exodus to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, where the Polish Army was formed. Separated from their father, the mothers labored, almost as slaves, at a local commune, till late 1942, the Polish Deportees were finally allowed to leave the Soviet Union and traveled through Iran to Tanzania in East Africa, where they stayed for six years.

From Africa, in 1948, they sailed to England where the Szostak boys were educated and after ten years, eventually came to the United States. From there on, the story becomes an autobiography of Henryk as he goes through two years of service in the US Army, his first marriage, raising a family in Illinois and describes the places he worked till the mid 1970’s.

The book describes the first time Henryk learned of the United States as a small seven year old boy living in Africa and his fascination with the USA. In England and in the early years in the United States, he experienced numerous prejudices and hypocrisies leveled against the foreigners. In spite of them, he prevailed, always believing in the American system. He witnessed the turbulent evolution and the struggles of the early racial movements in the 1960’s, the social behaviors and the good in the people that are based on the original precepts of the USA Constitution of equality, opportunity and freedom for all law abiding citizens.

This story was written in 2006, after he submitted some of the war time events to his grandchildren who wrote an essay on the World War II. Each one received high marks and that gave Henryk incentive to write an autobiography. The author had a habit of writing current or past events starting as early as 1947, then years later, asked the parents to verify them for authenticity and accuracy. Later, when the parents were deceased, he did the same with his brothers or cousins. He started this general diary way back in 1947 while living in Africa, then through the 1950’s in England and the 1960 and 1970’s in the United States.

The events listed are all recollections as perceived from the author’s point of a view and at the time they occurred. He tried to be as objective as possible, but in some cases, other parties mentioned herein may have a different interpretation of some of the events.

This story covers the period from Henryk’s birth in Poland in 1936, to 1964 when he and his first wife Vivian drove to Chicago to start a new job, live and raise a family. The divorce, the turbulent times of the Viet Nam war, how in 1977 he met his second wife, a nurse Donna, and their fascinating life are covered in a separated book Living the American Dream. In the Epilogue, only very few highlights are mentioned of their life together.

Their six children had twelve grand children most live the Mid West of the USA. This book is dedicated largely to them and their future generations that they may know what the author and his families went through, and serve as an inspiration to them and remember that Genes do not Lie.

Introduction

My father-in-law, Henryk Szostak, believes that you cannot deny your heredity. One of his favorite phrases is, It’s in the genes, and genes don’t lie. Meaning, I think, that each one of us is a composite of the strength, weakness, intellect and emotion of our ancestors. We can’t deny who we are, or where we come from. While I think there is a lot of truth to this, I have to believe that personal experiences also help define the people we become. After reading Henryk’s book, American By Choice, I can see how both heredity and environment helped to shape my father-in-law into the man he is.

Henryk is a talker. He will talk to anyone, anytime, anywhere. I recall watching him chat his way through a jam-packed grocery store on the day before Thanksgiving, working the aisles like a cruise director. He offers a smile and gets mostly smiles in return. On the rare occasion that he is greeted with a cold shoulder, he laughs it off and moves on. Henryk has a way of charming people, which may be in his genes, or it may have been born as a means of survival during his childhood. At the start of World War II, when Henryk was just a boy, he and his family and thousands others from eastern Europe were uprooted by the Communists and deported to Siberia. During those tough times, Henryk was sometimes forced to beg food from strangers. The ability to approach (and befriend) a stranger might have, at one point, meant the difference between hunger and a bite to eat. Henryk’s gregariousness allowed him to make much-needed connections with people during World War II, a time when life was tumultuous and nothing was certain. Is it possible that he is outgoing by nature? Is it in the genes? Maybe. But I have to believe that some of his early experiences played a part in turning him into a guy who can make friends over a frozen turkey or a bag of stuffing.

Likewise, I believe Henryk’s childhood also fueled his adventurous spirit. As I read his story I wondered: If his family had not been uprooted in 1939 at the beginning of the war, and as refugees relocated so many times, would he have had the same fascination with exploring our planet? By the time he was a teenager, he’d seen more parts of the world - from west Asia to east Africa and England - than many people see in a lifetime. I suppose it’s possible that he might never have left the family comforts in Poland had he been born at a different time, or had his circumstances been different. But then again, you never know what’s in the genes. At present, Henryk has been to over one hundred countries and his traveling days are not over. He encourages others to experience new places, especially places off the beaten path, whenever possible. In 2008, my husband Rob, daughter Megan and I took a trip to Hawaii with Henryk and Donna. One of the highlights of that trip was a drive out to Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island, where we explored an enormous cooled lava field at the end of a long, unmarked road. I remember watching Henryk and Megan explore the whorled patterns in the cooled lava. Very few other cars ventured down that road, but it ended up being one of the highlights of our trip. Henryk’s love of travel and adventure is contagious and I’m thankful that my daughter seems to have it in her genes.

One of the many things that struck me as I read American By Choice was Henryk’s desire to better himself. Living in Tanzania as a young boy, Henryk first learned about America from an unusual source: the comics in a newspaper. He was captivated by the story of a young black shoeshine boy, and began hearing about America, a land where, in his mind, you would not be judged based on where you’d come from, and could be anything as long as you were honest. Henryk’s American dream was born there and I think he recognized (consciously or unconsciously - was it in the genes?) that optimism and the desire to improve his own circumstances were essential in making his dream a reality. Today, Henryk encourages his friends and family to draw upon their own strengths. With his grandkids, he encourages them in their various interests, whether they be academic, musical, artistic, or athletic. You can argue that any decent grandparent off the street probably does the same thing, but I feel that Henryk’s encouragement comes from a slightly different place. He has truly lived his dream and wants to see others do the same. My daughter and her cousins are fortunate to have so many opportunities that Henryk did not, but he doesn’t make them feel bad by lecturing them about all that he didn’t have as a child. He focuses instead on all the good they can do with their lives given their unique qualities and temperaments. It’s that same optimism that allowed a young Polish refugee living in a hut in Tanzania to work towards, and achieve, the dream of becoming an American with a life full of freedom and opportunity.

Reading American By Choice allowed me to see my father-in-law in a new light. To me, he’d always been outgoing, adventurous and optimistic, but learning his personal history helped me to put the foundation under those characteristics. I have so much respect for the way his family handled their hardships during World War II, and I have to believe that Henryk would agree that what does not kill us, must certainly make us stronger. I still have not decided which is more important—nature or nurture—but definitely feel that both play a role in shaping us as people. I’m glad Henryk finally told his story after years of people saying to him, You should write that down! It was no small task, but it will give future generations a unique window into the life of a very interesting ancestor. And lucky for those future generations, they’ve got some good genes that will help guide them as they navigate their way through life.

—Jennifer Szostak

Chapter 1

Poland—Ancestral Land

A little boy was crying as his mother was straightening a big red bow tie around his neck. That was the very first recollection of my childhood in Poland. The mother was Zofia Szostak. That scene was ingrained in my mind and I always wanted it to be an opening line for a book, if ever it was written. I was almost 3 years old when my two older brothers, Czeslaw (Chester) and Jan (John), 10 and 7 years old, respectively, would not wait for me, while my mother Zofa was fussing with the bow. We were standing atop a slight incline and the brothers were running down the slope on a path lined with beautiful and fragrant blossoming orchard trees. It had to be late spring of 1939. My mother remembered the incident well, when the boys were on their way to the church for a religious celebration in the village. My two brothers would not wait for me because they were excited and anxious to get to the church on time and did not want to miss any festivities.

That moment’s recall was fairly accurate and was verified in later years by my mother during the frequent, often tearful recollections we had on the past events. I made a habit of making notes of my past and current events, not a diary, just events and stories of everyday happenings. I started to take notes when I was 8 years old living in Africa and carried on well into my adulthood. I guess history always interested me. I would have been a historian but engineering also fascinated me and I became a Mechanical Engineer. Later in life I found how lucky and visionary my collecting the data was when it came time to write this story.

The first recollection scenes were from in a village of Dabrowa, near a town of Pinsk in the state of Polesie, on the regained eastern territories of Poland. After the 1914-1918 World War, Poland, although officially non existent as a country from the late 1700s through the 1800s, was resurrected in 1918 when Allied Powers of England, France and United States, defeated Gemany and the Central Powers. The new Polish borders were defined by the Versailles Treaty, and after a few hostile disputes with the neighboring countries, Lithuania, Czechoslovakia and Russia, the lines were fixed in the early 1920s lasted till 1939. My parents moved to eastern Poland in the late 1920s, where my brother and I were born in Dabrowa; Czesiek on February 22, 1931, Jan on April 20, 1933, Henryk on July 15, 1936. An oldest brother, also named Henryk, was born on December 5, 1929, but died two weeks later in December 28, 1929.

My ancestors, Szostaks, all lived for centuries in an area some 25 kilometers south-east of Warsaw, in the state of Minsk Mazowiecki. I remember my parents and their cousins often talking about places like Kolbiel, Lubice, Parysow, Pilawa and river Swider. It was quite normal in those times all over Europe for families to live in the same area for years without moving. The land was rich, plentiful and other than occasional war or revolution, life was reasonably good, even under the oppressive Russian or any other regimes during the 1800s. People were hardy and learned to adjust to any hardships imposed on them and kept on living.

My father told me that there was a small monument; a chapel with a picture of Virgin Mary of Czestochowa, erected near Kolbiel and dedicated to a Szostak who was some kind of a leader of Polish patriots and was killed during the Swedish invasion of Poland in 1600s. The events of that period are very dear to the Poles and are well documented in the Nobel Prize winner for literature, Henryk Sienkiewicz’s book Potop or the Flood. The Miraculous defeat of the Swedes at Czestochowa gave raise to the veneration of The Black Madonna, which became a symbol of Polish adoration of The Holy Mother as The Queen of Poland.

From the western point of view, Poland was somewhat excluded and isolated from the main activities in Europe. Poland had its periods of greatness in the fourteenth century where an Italian queen brought Mediterranean influence to the court at Krakow the capital of the country at that time. In the middle ages, commerce flourished in Poland, trading salt from the mines at Wieliczka in the south to Amber from the coast of the Baltic Sea. Also in the medieval times Krakow’s Sukiennicewas a major center for international commerce, where people from Asia and Europe came to trade. Caravans came by land or by the Wistula River to Gdansk or Danzig, a port on the Baltic Sea. From there ships from the Hanseatic League of Northern European City—States carried the cargo to cities throughout Europe. After the union with the Lithuanian Kingdom in the fifteenth century, Poland was the largest country in Europe stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea. The riches of the country brought foreigners, notably expelled Jews from Spain after the Spanish Inquisition. The Renaissance of Central Europe did penetrate into Poland and the Religious Reformation resulted in some influx of people notably Catholics. From about the seventeenth century on, most countries in Europe were largely influenced by the French culture and their language. Poland developed close ties with France especially among the nobility and in the educated circles. That relationship was particularly strong during the Napoleonic Era at the end of the eighteenth century, when Poland started to lose its territories to nearby monarchies. Napoleon’s early idealism of Equality, Freedom and Liberty, particularly appealed to the reformers in Poland. The French Grand Army had many mercenaries in its ranks from Central Europe, Holland and Poland among others. After the defeat of Napoleon at Borodino, Russia in 1812, many retreating soldiers trekking through the Duchy of Warsaw probably decided to stay in Poland.

The Independence spark ignited by the French and American idealism resulted in numerous conflicts against the monarchies in Central Europe in early and mid nineteenth century. That brought foreign liberals, adventurers and with them came, entrepreneurs and craftsmen into a country that was hardly touched by the Industrial Revolution of the 1800’s. The Dutch were always very enterprising, and quite mobile, so it is logical to assume that the Dutch were quite present in an area only 25 kilometers east of Warsaw. Most of them were educated and were far less provincial than the locals. Feudalism or some sort of serfdom still existed in the rural areas. The new arrivals tended to stay within their own kinfolk, but occasionally ventured out to marry some local pretty Polish girls.

In 1994, when my son Robert and I visited my cousins in Poland, we found the area was bustling with activities, especially in Kolbiel, where my father spent his youth in early 1900’s. When Robert and I visited Poland, the church was particularly lively, nicely decorated inside and outside and largely attended by parishioners. The structure, originally erected in 1300, was rebuilt many times over the years, especially after severe damage during the two World Wars I and II. Kolbiel, 25 miles east of Warsaw, is located on the main route to the Polish capital from Berlin and Moscow. It was frequently overrun by the armies of Russia, Prussia, France, and Sweden and saw its share of revolutions against the oppressive monarchies in eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. No wonder that all of our family records were destroyed or burned during those conflicts. But I’m getting away from the story . . . .

With deep roots in Poland, one may say that I’m all Polish. That is true, except that during the many visits with me in the late 1970’s, my father, Jozef, often mentioned that we were partly Dutch. My father said that when he was a boy, his grandfather frequently told him Remember, Remember Juzio, (as he called him) you are from Holland. My great-grandfather, I learned during our sessions, was a well-educated man who acted as a judge in the area. He was quite proud and infatuated by his Dutch heritage and to say that, he had to be at least half if not totally Dutch. My great-grandfather was a tall man at over two meters tall, who conveyed respect and commanded authority in settling local disputes. Incidentally, height was never dominant in the Szostak family except for my brother Czeslaw’s son Christopher who is over six feet four inch tall. Also, all Szostak boys did not have typical Polish features and my father and I were often mistaken for being Dutch. The adventurous spirit that the Dutch are known for were exemplified by my brother Jan and me. True, these traits may be coincidental, but I believe they all point to the genealogical connection with my great-grandparents.

Correlating the information from my father and notes I received from my cousins during my visit to Poland in 1994, I deduced the following scenario. The Judge, a wholly Dutchman had a daughter Katrina (Katarzyna in Polish), possibly all Dutch. The daughter married a Pole Michal Szostak, whose family owned land outside Warsaw. They settled on a small estate and in time had two boys, Jan and my father Jozef. My father’s mother died during his birth in 1903. The infant Josef was given to a wet nurse, whose baby also died at childbirth. Her name was Paula and she breastfed baby Josef for one year. The Judge paid for the wet nursing services.

When Jozef was still a baby, his father, Michal, married a woman called Tekla Laszczak. The new wife did not want to be tied down by any children so early in her marriage. She and her husband left the ancestral land to seek fortune at Kersey an area in eastern Poland that was under Russian occupation. Also she probably resented the half-Dutch step children. My father was still a baby, his brother was eight year older, and both were of foreign blood. Mixed marriages were not very common in Poland in the 1800s, and certainly not in the rural areas. Prejudices and suspicions against the foreigners did exist in Poland, following the turbulent events in Polish history. So while my grandfather and his wife were away, the judge took the two boys into his house and practically raised them up until his death in early 1900s. So from infancy and through the adolescent years, the most formative years in child’s life, my father was greatly influenced by the Dutch heritage of his grandfather, just like any father impacts his son. So my father technically became the judge’s son and why the Dutchman kept on telling my father Remember, remember Joziu you are from Holland.

Of the three occupying powers, Austria was Catholic, and was the most civil and lenient towards the Poles. Prussia (Germany) in the west, under Chancellor Bismarck wanted to totally integrate Poland under their government. The eastern part under Russian occupation, called the Kresy was the poorest, most disorderly and least populated, but offered large parcels of land to anyone with pioneering spirit. Michal and his wife went there at the turn of the twentieth century, but after a few years experienced some hardships in the east and came back to Kolbiel. During and before the start of the First World War, prelude to the Bolshevik Revolution and the Polish partisan activities under General Pilsudzski, life in Poland was quite chaotic. The battle fronts moved through Central Poland, looting, burning and ravaging the country, especially areas around Warsaw and to the east.

When Michal and his wife returned to their ancestral land shortly after the death of my great-grandfather, probably during World War I, they found the oldest son was already married and Jozef almost a teenager. With great reluctance, Jozef went back to live with his parents. The atmosphere at their home was very explosive, full of confrontation and bitterness. My father was justifiably angry at his father for abandoning him for those years. After a period of bickering between the two, father’s married brother Jan asked Jozef to move to their house and he did. That had to be just before 1920 when Jozef was a young man and like all boys of that age, was captivated by the military mystique especially after the resurrection of the Polish State. He joined the Polish cavalry shortly after the Polish army defeated the invading Red Army in 1920 at a battle near Warsaw, referred to as a Miracle at River Vistula. After much bickering with the neighbors, Poland’s eastern border was decided by the Riga Convention deeding a large part of west Belarus and Ukraine to Poland. Almost immediately, the rumblings of decolonization of the regained Poland started to fly around the country.

When my father lived with his older brother, he had ample opportunities to learn about running a farm and operating the farm machinery. He learned to be a very self sufficient, capable young man. He was athletic, an excellent horseman, capable of all kinds of acrobatic moves like jumping on and off a horse in full gallop. All that training served him well later, when he joined the Polish army as a cavalry man. Because of his horse riding skills, he was assigned to the cavalry regiment serving the Polish president Joseph Pilsudski. There he also met a number of elite officers, a contact that served him well later during our deportation to Russia.

That interpolation of my Dutch heritage was derived from various conversations with my father and later encounters with my cousins in Poland, in 1994. While there, I could not dig out any new concrete information about my ancestors. I was able to confirm the information previously derived from conversations with my father. There were no surviving documents in the church or any other public places, as the area was badly damaged during World War I and II. The oldest existing gravestones were in a new, post World War II cemetery outside the Kolbiel Church. Buried there is my of my father’s brother Jan, who died in1983 at the age of 88 years. All prior cemeteries were damaged or totally destroyed during the two World Wars or the reconstruction work by the communists during their occupation of Poland. During our visit to Poland in 1994, I asked my cousins about our ancestry, but there was some hesitancy among the older cousins to talk about the times before the turn of the twentieth century. That gave me the impression that the Dutch lineage had to be true as they did not want to talk about the foreign connection in the Szostak genealogy.

When my father joined the Polish army in Warsaw, only 25 kilometers away from home, the soldier’s uniform served him well on the home front, especially with the local girls, and one in particular. She was Zofia Kot, my mother. Zofia had four brothers, and had to fend for herself from her teen years on. Her mother, Katarzyna, taking care of the meals for the men, plus all the housework, which aged her prematurely and she was often ill. While the men, Jan the father and the four young men, Jozef, Jan, Wladyslaw and Stanley, tended to the farm needs, Zofia assumed the bulk of the house duties. Life for her was not easy from early times on. Yet she found time to be a happy, jovial young woman. As a little girl she was somewhat of a tomboy, climbing trees and in the process breaking numerous bones. All of them healed properly and she had no ill effects in her adult life. She also was an excellent dancer and a much sought—after girl in the villages. That is what attracted my father to her. They must have been quite a couple, a pretty petite girl and a handsome guy in a cavalry uniform.

After World War I, the 1919 Versailles Treaty redefined the map of Europe. Poland was resurrected after official non existence for over one hundred years. The borders established by the treaty were finally fixed by various plebiscites and armed conflicts with the neighbors. The Eastern territories now Ukraine and Belarus were given to Poland. That caused lots of debates and arguments between the Russians and the Poles which led to a shooting war between the two states in 1920. In a battle east of Warsaw, the Polish army was victorious and at the 1921 Riga Peace Convention, the Western part of Belarus was deeded to Poland. By the way, that was the last time a Russian Red Army was defeated by another country. The Polish government quickly sized the opportunity and encouraged anyone with money to buy land in the regained territories to re-settle the Eastern Provinces and Re-Polonize the area.

So, in about 1927 the Kots with the four young men, two recently married, heard the call and made plans to move from their ancestral land and become pioneers in the new land. Zofia Kot went with her parents, Jan and Katarzyna Kot. They sold all their land and all moved to the East, except for second youngest Wladyslaw who decided to stay behind and settle near Warsaw. He later moved to a trade school in Lodz to become a tailor, got married and lived there with his family the rest of his life. Before the War, Lodz was one of the largest textile centers in Europe.

My father had a dilemma, he also wanted to go and be with Zofia, but he needed money.

So he went to his older brother, Jan Szostak and asked for his portion of the estate. That did not go very well, dividing the land after so many centuries. But eventually an agreement was reached with great reluctance and the Szostak brothers, Jan and my father Jozef, parted. The resulting bitterness over that act lasted for a long time and all communication between the two brothers practically ceased. Later, when we were starving in Siberia, my father’s brother, Jan Szostak neither contacted nor sent us anything. Admittedly, communication was difficult during the war, but it was possible; other people did make contact with the work camps in Siberia. Justifiably, my father was somewhat bitter about the lack of support or attempt to make contact with us in Siberia.

Jozef and Zofia did visit Poland in August 1974 on a tour and spent a few hours at their places of birth. They briefly met some of the cousins; meetings were at best, guarded but polite. Later in 1994, I took my son Robert to Poland, we spent a few days with the cousins talking about the past and our travels. I did ask Jan Szostak, the son of my father’s deceased brother, also Jan, about their attempts to contact us in Siberia. I was told that they did make an effort but had no success. That may be so, but we know many other families did successfully make contacts with the deportees to Siberia especially in Archangelsk where we stayed for over a year. We’ll never know the real truth; such is the faith of war. Their daughter, Agnes, a pretty 19 year old, did come to the United States in the fall of 1999. We hosted her for almost two months at our beloved log home between Bartlett and Barrington, some thirty miles West of Chicago. We drove her around in a motor home to meet the cousins in Chicago area, Minneapolis and New Jersey and visited Niagara Falls and Washington D.C.

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Poland—22 January 1928—Zofia & Jozef

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Poland, Warsaw—1926—Jozef in Polish Calvary

Chapter 2

Poland—Place of My Birth

Land in Poland, like in most European countries throughout history, belonged to a few families. The ownership changed hands after a war or an uprising; each time a greedy neighbor with a bigger gun or more powerful army came along, invaded Poland and claimed the spoils. Poland at one time in 1600s was the largest country in Europe, but because of constant bickering and family jealousies could not sustain a steady monarchy and was repeatedly plundered by its neighbors. Until the mid 1700s the powerful Szlachta or Nobility group could never agree on selecting a Polish-born king and through an antiquated Veto ruling in the Polish senate and numerous ruinous corruptions, always elected foreign rulers. The selected monarch often did not even speak the Polish language and had little or no vested interest in governing Poland. Bribery and discourse among the Polish ruling class and inability to form an army to defend itself against the neighbors, led to the first partition of the country in 1772. Educated Poles, many Jews among them, labored hard to bring reforms and drafted the May 3 Constitution of 1791, which was modeled after that of the United States. The surrounding monarchies of Russia, Austria and Prussia saw potential threat to their rule over their own citizens, collaborated with the Polish nobility in squelching any internal calls for more freedoms for the people and land reforms that the new constitution promised. Later and in early eighteenth century, a number of rebellions erupted in central Europe, against the Russians, Prussians and Austria. One Polish resurrection in 1794 labeled the Peasant Rebellion was led by Tadeusz Kosciuszko who earlier as a young general fought the British in the American Revolutionary War. After some initial battle successes against the Russians, hope for the Poles emerged, but without any help from other nations, eventually the overwhelming Russian and Prussian armies defeated the Polish resurrection and sent many patriots to Siberia. Thus Poland was further partitioned between Russia, Prussia and Austria and technically was wiped off the European map for over one hundred years. Turkey was the only great power that refused to acknowledge the total partition of Poland, stating that a country that produced such gallant and ferocious soldiers, cannot pass into oblivion.

After the 1914-1918 World War, the victorious powers were England, France and the United States, and the defeated Central Powers were Austria, Turkey and