From There to Here As I Remember It!: An Autobiography

By Leonard Szczesny

Leonard Szczesny was born in 1931 on the Polish-Russian border to a Polish family. Because in 1933 his father Josef was banished for five years of hard labor to Siberia and was not allowed to ever return to within two hundred kilometers of his village, Leonard’s travels started at an early age. In 1937, with his mother Antonina and his older brother Jan, he traveled east to rejoin his father at a new place of employment. World War II broke out in 1939, and by 1943 it became clear that the Russian Army was getting the upper hand. Josef, being an “unreliable element” because of his banishment, decided that his family would have a better chance of living a peaceful life in Poland. On the way, the family had the misfortune of falling into a German roundup providing free labor for the German war industry. The rest is history: forced labor camp, several displaced persons camps, work for American and British occupational forces, and finally emigration to the United States. At that moment fortune returned: job, school, marriage, home, children…and the chance to reflect on the past and a happy ending!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9781662403255

Book preview

Part I

Russia: Beginning of a Journey

I would have to start with the most vivid impression made on me by the wheels of the speeding train rhythmically hitting the rail connections. In today’s terms, speeding train would be considered an oxymoron, but remember, we are dealing with Russian trains in the year 1936. Heading constantly into the northeasterly direction, one by one, the rhythmic thumps were adding distance to the vaguely remembered past bringing us closer to the unknown future. The unknown consisted of meeting a father whom I did not remember (Mom called him Josef) and the prospect of resettling (not by choice, mind you) to a different area of the country.

In one of the open railroad-car compartments, sitting on opposing benches and facing each other, were four people of different ages. The oldest one, a woman in her mid-sixties, looking much older than her age, was trying to support a boy of about six who was falling asleep leaning on her shoulder. Across from them sat a young woman in her early thirties, whose face looked tired but still pretty. Her head was leaning against the compartment window, her eyes wide open, but one could tell that they did not see much of the passing scenery.

Despite all the efforts by the boy sitting next to her, trying desperately to get her attention, she did not alter her focus. Her mind was racing through the frames of the past four years, which she had spent working on the collective farm, taking care of her ailing mother and raising two boys. Being the wife of an alleged criminal sentenced to five years of hard labor in Siberia did nothing to improve her situation. At work and in the village, whispering behind her back, side glances, and expressions of false sympathy were easy to deal with. Constantly getting the worst job assignments at the collective farm was another matter.

Unexpectedly having to face the unknown was not easy. On the other hand, escaping the existing social atmosphere and working conditions was a blessing. The house, its location, and the happier days spent living in it, were all very painful to leave behind and would always remain vividly in Antonina’s memory. The long train ride from Minsk to Orsha gave her the incredible opportunity to reflect upon her past and the events that led to this life-changing journey.

Antonina’s memory took her back all the way to the day when the village matchmaker introduced her to a much-older man, who in time became her husband. Most of the villagers, by local standards, considered Josef rich and worldly. Rumor had it that not only did he come back from military service with many golden rubles, but that he made a lot of money hiring himself out as a guide to the black-market traffic, flourishing in the early nineteen twenties across the Polish-Russian border.

There was some truth to that too! And why not? Living one half of a kilometer (approximately one-fourth of a mile) away from the border, it would be foolish not to make use of an available opportunity. After all, he was very familiar with the territory and the habits of the border guards, in particular their drinking habits. On many cold winter evenings, one could see their faces pressed against the partly frozen windowpanes, hoping to be invited for a quick stakancheek (glass) of vodka. Since the black market consisted mostly of sugar and sewing needles going to Russia and golden rubles back to Poland, Josef did not see any evil in it. But alas, I am getting ahead of myself!

Let me formally introduce one of the main characters in this story. Josef, being the oldest son of a family of three brothers and four sisters, filled the czar’s military recruitment requirements to perfection. Knowing that there would be plenty of working hands in the family left to tend the fields, and how healthy and tall Josef was by the standards of the time, the military recruited him in 1902 to serve twenty-five years in the Imperial Navy. His ship’s homeport was located on the Baltic Sea, giving Josef a chance to visit many foreign cities and neighboring countries. Tall in stature but rather quiet in manner and slow to express his opinion, Josef was also very handy at many trades, some of which were acquired in the service. While serving his long stretch in the Navy, he managed to learn how to read and write Russian and to educate himself to about a third-grade level. Little did he know, someday the education he attained in the Russian language would turn out to be a handicap.

During the height of the 1917 Revolution, leading to the abdication by the czar, Josef did not feel obligated to join the Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, or any other revolutionary party fighting each other for control of the disintegrating czarist’s empire. After many years of service, Josef had had enough. Taking advantage of the political and military turmoil of the time, he decided to go back to the area of his birth and rejoin his family. There, he would try to reestablish some form of normal life, only this time in the village instead of the already crowded family farm.

To his credit, from his small monthly pay while serving in the Navy, Josef managed to save a few of the golden rubles. Upon his return to the familiar countryside, he bought himself some land in the village of Mala Borzdyn and, soon after, built a very nice log house.

*****

To aid the reader, the village of Mala Borzdyn was located on a straight line between Rakow and Nowe Pole, and was part of the area where all of his family lived and died for centuries. On the map of Poland from the year 1572, during the last days of the Jagiellonian Dynasty and the Golden Era of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, that area was midpoint between the westernmost and easternmost boundaries, making Poland one of the biggest countries in Europe. Two hundred years later, beginning with the first partition in 1772 and ending with the third partition of Poland in 1795, Russia became the ruling body over most of the territory east of the Bug River, including the village of Mala Borzdyn. With the exception of the twenty-year period between the first and second world wars, for almost 148 years, Russia—first the czars, then the Bolsheviks, and then the Belarusian regime represented by Lukaszenka—governed the area described.

It must be noted that the first partition of Poland was made possible by the dissention of malcontent magnates. Instead of uniting on the side of the king in the face of the forming coalition of Russia, Prussia, and Austria, with the intent to partition Poland, most of these rulers of various sorts were sitting on the fence. Even worse, some, tempted by promises of more privileges, were secretly cooperating with the coalition powers. That weakened the ability of the Polish Commonwealth to present a powerful enough army to discourage such a divisive action.

The last-minute attempt by the Seym (the governing body) to push through far-reaching draft reforms failed. Magnates did not want to lose their absolute power over the peasants and serfs. What kind of honor is it to be a nobleman, when you can’t whip your serfs? (National Geographic article Catherine the Great). To retain their privileges, most of the Polish aristocracy in the East did not actively resist Catherine’s design to annex their extensive possessions to Russia, thus making the first partition of Poland into a simple transfer of control (ninety-two thousand square kilometers of territory and 1.3 million inhabitants).

The transition from the Polish-Lithuanian to the czarist’s rule in this area did not have any noticeable effect on the everyday life of the local village population. While the countries of Western Europe and North America were experimenting with many new forms of government, nothing much changed east of the Bug River, particularly in Russia, and the Russian occupied former Polish-Lithuanian territories. For 148 years or so, life in the villages was frozen in the time frame of centuries-long traditions. Even as late as 1945, most of the villages did not have outhouses, running water, or such luxuries as gas or electricity. The further east one traveled, the more visible the lack of modern progress became. In 1936, heading east from Minsk to Orsha, Josef, his wife, and their two sons would have a chance to experience all that travel back in time firsthand.

At the end of World War I, the new order of Europe made it possible for Poland to emerge again as an independent country. At the Paris Peace Conference in Versailles in 1919, the provisional Polish-Russian boundary was established. In March of 1921, the Treaty of Riga was signed by Russia and Poland, streamlining the Polish-Russian border. Following that agreement, to Josef’s dismay, the new border posts were put in place less than one half of a kilometer west of his house, leaving him in Russia. Call it a very bad twist of fate. Since Josef’s property had been established as part of Poland following the demarcation of the provisional boundary in 1919, subsequent to the Treaty of Riga in 1921, it was located in Russia. After the border revision, two of Josef’s sisters and a brother, living west of the newly established border, were still located in Poland. Josef’s life investments, including a house, his immediate family, and the rest of his relatives were now on the wrong side of the fence!

There is no force on earth capable of moving a peasant or a farmer from his land or his home (short of the threat of death)! Had Josef known at that time what was in store for him, he probably would have walked to the western side, leaving the new house and everything in it behind. But who could have imagined the political and economic direction the new Russian government would take?

Through the centuries, there had been many changes in the governments ruling that region. At one time there were Lithuanians, then Swedes, again Lithuanians, Poles, Russians and, again, at the beginning of the 1920s, the Poles. Since none of the previous changes in governing bodies had much influence one way or another on the life of the local population, Josef stayed east of the border hoping for the best and paid the price! I could not object to Josef’s choice, because at that time, I wasn’t even on the drawing board.

In the mid-twenties, Josef’s luck was still holding out. Being a guide in the black-market traffic across the border still paid well, and the day-to-day living conditions were not bad. After taking care of his own fields, Josef had time to supplement his income by crossing the border and hiring himself out to the more affluent Polish landowners. Working in the fields from sunup to sundown mowing grass, rye, or doing whatever job was available, he was able to earn merely one zloty (Polish currency—approximately the price of two pounds of sugar) per day. At that time there was very little pressure from the government toward collectivization in that area. That did not occur until 1930.

At some point, Josef was introduced to a petite young lady whose family was rather poor, but known for good working habits. She had other qualities worth mentioning, like a happy disposition and a pretty face to go with it. The fact that she was very young, just about half Josef’s age, did not bother him at all! For Antonina Soroczynska, Josef represented security, comfort, and prestige. After all, he could read and write, and he traveled around half the world! Those were highly marriageable qualities, and so they wed.

Not being afraid of hard work, Josef and Antonina started to prosper and decided to have their first child. Jan was born in the latter part of the year, 1929. Neglecting the negative political signs and turmoil arising from the attempts at forced collectivization in central Russia and the Ukraine, Josef and Antonina decided to have another child, and here I am, the vintage product of 1931.

At this point, their good luck ran out, setting in motion an unstoppable downward slide toward hardship, personal deprivation, and misery, which lasted many years. The composition of the village population included people of different religions and national backgrounds with the majority being Belarusians of Orthodox faith. One person’s prosperity is another man’s source of envy. Enterprising and hardworking, Josef and Antonina prospered a little more than most of their neighbors. The fact that they had more created much hostility and finger-pointing by the less ambitious and the outright lazy. Soon enough, the hostility and finger-pointing turned into discrimination based on religious and national aspects. Polak this…Polak that! Those were the pejorative terms my parents were subjected to!

Organizing the village into a collective farm by the communist government did nothing to alleviate the problem. If anything, it reinforced the position of the malcontents. At the start, the poorer elements were overjoyed at the idea of equality. After all, the affluent had to surrender more to the common good of the collective, with everybody sharing in the new commonwealth.

Within the span of a few years, due to the mismanagement by the poor and lazy elements elevated to managerial positions, trusted by the communist regime, the commonwealth started to erode, making life much more difficult for everyone. Appointing people who could not efficiently run their own small farms, much less the collective, had disastrous consequences. For a few years in a row, the collective could not deliver quotas set by the central government. Someone had to be made accountable for the bad decisions and bad organization leading to the failures described above. That was obvious. Come spring, someone’s head would have to go on the chopping block!

Advised by his drinking buddies from the central committee, the head of the collective farm resigned! Officially he had to do it—because his hand got caught in a thrashing machine. After a few weeks of wearing bandages on his hand, thanks to the miraculous effort of the excellently trained communist doctors, the hand healed without leaving a trace of any scars! That move automatically imperiled the next elected official. In the spring of 1933 Josef (because he could read and write) was appointed to be the new manager of the rundown collective. Grievances of the past made him the perfect fall guy. To refuse that honor would be interpreted as defying the privilege to serve the Soviet government and its people. Automatically, you would be classified as a subversive element and, at best, spend some time doing hard labor in Siberia.

To accept, you would be held responsible for the years of mismanagement by others and, again, the penalty—hard labor in Siberia! Nobody in his right mind deliberately offends the communist system and lives to tell about it. You are damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Take the lesser of two evils, that is, take the offered position, admit the guilt, and hope that you will somehow survive.

From that time on, Josef’s days were numbered. In April of 1933 he was elected the new Pryedsyedatyel (chairman). By June, he was found guilty of mismanagement. The charge: failing to protect the collective’s orchards from rabbits that ate bark off the apple trees, causing some of them to dry up, thus lowering the projected harvest in the fall. Consequently, that deprived the government of its rightful share of apples. (Never mind that I was just elected two months ago! stuff.) Verdict—banishment for five years of hard labor to a camp for criminals in the most eastern part of Siberia on the Kamchatka Peninsula. Case closed! All of this took place in 1933, four years before the start of our journey to Orsha.

*****

During the years of Josef’s banishment, the survival of our family depended totally on Antonina. Working at the collective farm, she had to qualify as many trudodniej (working days) as humanly possible. The collective farms did not pay cash for work performed. At the end of every year, usually in late fall, you were paid in agricultural products. The government took its full share of all the harvested goods first, disregarding the quality and quantity of the harvest. Next, the collective put aside the best of what was left as seeds, which were needed to plant the fields in the fall and spring of the next year. The rest was divided up according to the amount of days worked by all employed individuals in each family. If only one member of the family worked, disregarding the size of the family, everybody depended on the working days of that one individual. Naturally, the families with more working hands were much better off.

In Antonina’s case, there were three nonworking family members depending on her for support. Josef did not send home any money. The camp’s authorities, as pay for his food and lodging, took out most of the small amount he made. He was lucky if he could save enough for a pack of cheap tobacco.

At home, Antonina’s mother, Michalina, spent most of her days indoors. A bad case of arthritis and numerous other health problems limited her activities. About all she could manage was taking care of some of the household chores and sending the boys on their way to kindergarten. In addition, whenever her health permitted, she would spend every moment tending the small garden plot next to the house, which helped the family of four survive. Considering the meager remuneration portions of goods received from the collective, this was no small contribution. Antonina too would spend many a moonlit night, performing the more physically demanding work trying to squeeze the most from the small property.

It was Jan’s responsibility to make sure we got to kindergarten on time. Unfortunately for him, his younger brother (that’s me, of course!) would not always cooperate. It seemed there was some nature-loving inclination hidden in that boy. Disregarding my brother’s grip on my arm, I would manage to get off the beaten path, distracted by some weed or flower, sit down, and proceed to study nature’s beauty with real, professional interest. Jan’s attempt at getting me back to my feet by pulling, lifting, and in the end crying, would not budge me an inch.

Some woman with a loose tongue reported my flower-studying sessions to Antonina. One sunny morning Antonina’s job assignment happened to be in the fields near the path leading to the kindergarten. Driven by an unstoppable urge to examine a particularly interesting kind of weed, I assumed a comfortable sitting position while my bigmouthed brother started his crying fits. Mom, being forewarned, heard his helpless wailing and came running. I think she did not like the idea of having a botanist in the family because she gave me a pretty good spanking. Lucky for her, we were in Belarus. If that would have taken place in the United States, she would have had to go to court for child abuse!

To judge Mom on her sometime harsh behavior, however, would be very unfair. As it was, she was under a lot of stress, not only at work, where she had to deal with different job assignments on a continual basis and the most difficult and dirty ones at that, but at home also, raising children and taking care of her ailing mother, Michalina. All of this put a tremendous responsibility on her young shoulders. After all, at that time, she was only twenty-nine years old.

Being young and pretty, with a criminal husband away for years somewhere in Siberia, she was open game for every male in sight, with most of the pressure coming from men in positions of power. The first of these was the collective’s assistant manager, who paid more visits to the house than was proper by using the pretext of assigning the next day’s work. It was his bad luck that Michalina, who rarely ventured outside, never did so in his presence. She would be shuffling around the house, looking busy, creating all kinds of interference! On particularly cold days, she would be sitting on top of the family hearth warming her sore joints and, at the same time, controlling things from behind the hearth’s chimney. In truth there was a positive side to such visits—the rest of the village casanovas did not dare to get in the way of the assistant manager for fear of falling in his disfavor.

Unlike Michalina, Jan and I were easy to get rid of. Being young and stupid, we always fell for the same