Countless Thousands Mourn

By Krystyna Martin

The world in 1945 became a setting of confusion. So many families had lost their homes, nations, and dear ones. It had become a place of wanderers, refugees, of nomads searching for sanity. This book is about one such family who lived peacefully near the city of Lwow, in southeast Poland, till 1939, when the

• Language: English
• Publisher: Krystyna Martin
• Release date: Feb 26, 2024
• ISBN: 9781805410645

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COUNTLESS THOUSANDS MOURN

title-page

Copyright © 2022 by Krystyna Martin

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review.

ISBNs

978-1-80541-065-2 (paperback)

978-1-80541-064-5 (eBook)

Man’s inhumanity to man

Makes countless thousands mourn

Robert Burns

To Bronia, my mother

Author’s Note

These are memories passed down to me by my family. I have tried to fill in details to highlight the feelings evoked by the events I write about. It is, therefore, hearsay, so I am aware that historically there may be some details that are incorrect, although I have researched the events on the Internet, books on the subjects, and YouTube, and have tried to be as accurate as possible. This is particularly true when I write about people whom I did not meet or who did not want to remember the terrible happenings of their past. So, when I write about Józef Antoni Pudełko, the pilot who escaped from Poland, I rely solely on information from books about his squadron and so try to build a picture of what happened to him.

This is also true of the experiences of Hania Pudełko in Auschwitz-Birkenau. I listened to eyewitnesses online who were able to tell of some of the horrors that they encountered and witnessed during their incarceration, and I used these to paint a picture of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Finally, the story of my uncle Kazik’s experiences in Berling’s army have come from historical research on the internet and books and not from his personal story, as again, he would not speak about what he had experienced.

Last of all, as these are my family members, I cannot change their names, and unfortunately, it seems that the most common first names seem to be Józef and Maria. I have tried to minimise confusion by stressing which Józef it is, writing the full name, or using a pet name like Józek. I also hope that the Family Trees will be helpful in identifying relationships in the family.

Kasia’s Immediate Family Tree

Antoni’s Immediate Family Tree

Ukraine, The Village, Bryńce Zagórne

1939

The borderlands, Kresy, or the Bloodlands, as Timothy Snyder calls them, were again a region of monstrous bloodletting, murder, and horror during World War Two. Again because during the centuries, the populace has endured battle after battle and war after war as the border lands were fought over by subsequent nations.

Poland, a powerful nation until the eighteenth century with its kings and fierce dynasties with their own armies, was able to protect its borders and even expand them at the cost of its neighbours. It built strongly fortified cities, which kept the borders relatively calm.

Ukraine, on the other hand, was in constant turmoil. The Scythians who lived there during the expansion of the Roman Empire were hounded by the neighbouring Goths and Huns. Later it was the Tatars, Mongols, and Turks, and finally, the emerging powers like Russia, the Commonwealth of Lithuania and Poland, and eventually Austro-Hungary. Culture, language, and nationality were never truly allowed to flourish except for brief periods in the 17th Century when strong Princes, Dukes, and Hetmans ruled Ukraine. The proud but bitter people constantly tried to establish their own land and were constantly subjugated. For many centuries, Ukraine was not seen as a nation by the other powers. To them, it was merely a border.

The village of Bryńce Zagórne, which was home to about a hundred families between the wars, of which only a handful remain, is located in a beautiful valley approximately 35 kilometres southeast of Lwów.

In 1939 the majority of residents were Ukrainians, who generally lived on one side of the road which wound its way through the centre. On the other side were the Poles.

The two communities had lived in harmony under the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but when 1918 that empire was abolished, three powers fought for Lwów and its surroundings. Ukraine wanted it as Western Ukraine’s capital city, Soviet Russia wanted it as part of their Bolshevik expansion, and Poland saw it as a Polish city. Both Ukraine and Poland had a stronger right than the Soviets. The Lwów area, its oblast, had a majority Ukrainian population. The city itself had a mostly Polish population.

The first battles were between the Poles and Ukrainians in 1919. Ukraine besieged the city, but it was defended by the Polish Eaglets, young Polish volunteers, and scouts (the Polish emblem is the White Eagle). They and the few elderly ex-soldiers held the city until the regular army arrived, and the Ukrainians had to withdraw.

Much worse was the danger from the Russians, and Poland and Ukraine united to fend off the aggressors. The Russians were pushed back from Lwów by the Polish/Ukrainian army under Józef Pilsudski and Szymon Petlura. However, peace did not last, and the Russians moved again, even reaching the outskirts of the capital of Poland, Warsaw. Pilsudski’s strategy was to break into the Russian’s coded battle plans and so forestall their next move, putting his own strategies into effect and beating the Russians.

Poland finally became an independent country in 1920.

So Bryńce Zagórne and its population of Ukrainians and Poles should have been a hostile environment with each side hating the other. However, because the two nationalities were so intertwined, Ukrainians married Poles and vice versa, and the community was close in every way. It seemed that almost every household was neither Ukrainian nor Polish but a fusion of the two.

What distinguished them were, of course, the language and the religion. The language was not a difficulty as most people spoke both, or at least understood the other. Religion, however, was a dilemma, although not a great one. The Poles were Roman Catholics and worshipped in the Roman Catholic Church, whereas the Ukrainians were part of the Uniate Church, and although Catholic, its rites were those of the Orthodox Church, and they worshipped in the Cerkwia. When a marriage between both groups occurred, usually the children took the mother’s nationality but not always. What settled the matter was the church in which the parents decided to baptise the child.

So, there was a road. And people lived on either side of it. But more importantly, the road was crossed again and again, and the people of Bryńce Zagórne lived together in harmony.

Katarzyna Pudełko, whose mother was Ukrainian and father Polish, had married Antoni Jabłoński, whose parents were both Polish.

Bryńce Zagórne teemed with Pudełkos and Jabłońskis. Katarzyna, or Kasia as she was known, had cousins, brothers, and sisters whom all lived in the village. Antoni’s brother and sister also lived there, but his relatives were mostly to be found in Lwów itself or in Wybranówka, a small town to the east of Bryńce.

The village was surrounded by grazing fields and the great Lwówian forests, and Antoni worked for the Lwów Forestry as a gajowy – a forester. The Jabłońskis lived high up on a hill above Bryńce in a gajówka, the foresters’ house, a location which could only be described as idyllic with beautiful views across the valley to the hills beyond.

Stepan Bandera was an ultra-right nationalist. He was a Ukrainian whose fierce animosity towards the Poles was fuelled by the restrictions placed on the Ukrainians in Eastern Poland by the inter-war Government. He joined the OUN (Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists) and fought for an independent Ukraine. In 1943 many of the OUN members formed a militia of their own called the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (Ukrainska Povstanska Armia). Although Bandera was not part of this so-called army and was, in fact, imprisoned at the time in Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, OUN members took up his call to eliminate Poles from Ukrainian lands and began a series of mass murders in effect an ethnic cleansing of Polish villagers. The Poles called these nationalists Banderowcy (Banderovtsy). Thus died 100,000 Polish men, women, and children in Eastern Poland.

Bryńce Zagórne in 2014.

The Road through what was the village in 2014.

Contents

Author’s Note

Kasia’s Immediate Family Tree

Antoni’s Immediate Family Tree

Ukraine, The Village, Bryńce Zagórne, 1939

PROLOGUE

Bryńce, 22nd May 1944

PART ONE

Bronia, September 1st, 1939

Bronia, January 1940

Bronia, February 10th, 1940

Kazik, February 10th, 1940

Bronia, The Train, February 1940

Bronia, Tomsk, Siberia 1940

Kazik, Wybranówka, April 10th, 1940

Kazik, Wybranówka, April 13th, 1940

Kazik, Kazakhstan, 1941

Bronia, Siberia 1940/1941

Bronia, Barnaul, Siberia, November 1921

Bronia, Krasnovodsk, August 1942

Kazik, Kazakhstan, 1943

PART TWO

Bronia, Tehran, 1943

Bronia, Tehran, 1944

British Parliament, Hansard, 13th February 1946

Bronia, Beirut, 1946

Bronia, Letters from Home, 1946

Bronia, Marriage, 1947

Bronia, England, 1947

PART THREE

Bronia and Krysia, Polish Resettlement Camp, Sussex, England, 1953

Bronia, Polish Resettlement Camp, the 1950s

Bronia, January 29th 1958

Bronia, Sussex, 1958

Bronia, Christmas 1959

Bronia, Zbyszek

Bronia, A Visit to the Homeland, 1963

Bronia, The Last Years, 1970-2007

Bronisława Bandrowska, 22.1.1926 – 22.2.2007

AFTERWORD

Bryńce, May 22nd, 1944, The Destruction of the Village

Hania Pudełko, Auschwitz-Birkenau, 1943

Kazik, The War Years, 1944/1945

Lviv, May 2014

MAPS

PROLOGUE

Bryńce,

22nd May 1944

T ato, Tato, she gasped. Tato, she kept repeating as if the rhythm of her words helped the rhythm of her pounding feet. The buildings of Wybranówka appeared in the distance.

Her strength was failing. She knew. She had been running so fast up the hill through the fields and had been darting from side to side as she ran. Somewhere she remembered that that was how you dodged bullets because those firing could not get an even sight on their rifle.

Bullets flew past. She was not yet out of their sights. Others were running too. She could hear some fall.

She turned right towards the road. Surely, they would not be firing so far to the right of the village. She could smell the smoke, and she could still hear the screams and the shots.

She ran on. Now people from Wybranówka could be seen running towards her. Her father was there. She could see his outline.

Tato! Tato

He reached her.

You’re alive. Oh, God. I was … Mama?

Tato, Mama is dead. They shot her,

Her father stumbled, and she heard the sob.

She wouldn’t come with me. She said they wouldn’t kill her because she was married to you. They shot her. Tato, they shot her.

Her father engulfed her in his arms.

Hush, hush, darling. You are safe now.

Tato, they were animals. They killed. They killed and killed. With guns, axes, scythes, and clubs. Children, everyone. They killed and killed. Why Tato? They burnt the Polish houses. They burnt the Polish church.

Marysia was sobbing. She held on to her father. Behind her, the sky was red. Bryńce, their village burnt.

Darling. It is still not safe here. They might move to Wybranówka. I’m going to put you on the train to Lwów immediately. He was the station master.

No, Tato, no. I can’t leave. We have to get Mama. I left her. Tato.

We cannot do anything till the mad killing spree is over. Tomorrow, tomorrow I will go and bury her. My brave wife. My brave little wife. You must go to Lwów. Go to Aunt Rozalia. Tell her Mama is with God. Tell her, tell her. And then you can all come back here tomorrow. Tomorrow, we can do what we can.

Marysia still clung to her father. But when the train came, she got into the compartment.

PART ONE

Bronia,

September 1st 1939

Bronia stretched out in her small bed up in the attic. Today was her name day, Saint Bronisława and Mama would put out the tables in the orchard and fill them with assortments of food, cakes, and savouries, and while the adults would sit around the table with their vodka and blackcurrant juice, the young people, her friends, and family would sing and dance and cavort. It was going to be splendid as usual.

She was the forester’s daughter. Their house was the gajówka, the forester’s house. It was high on the hillside next to the beautiful forests surrounding Lwów. Their house was not big or grand. The front door led into the small hallway, which was usually filled with their overcoats, furs, and Tato’s guns. A steep flight of stairs on the left led to the loft space, which was Bronia’s room. Up there was also a small bathroom with a bath, which had not been plumbed yet, but which could be filled with hot water from the kitchen. Ahead downstairs was a small salon, which was appropriate for a forester’s house – a study in wood and greenery. There was a large, elegant table in the centre, with a beautifully hand-embroidered tablecloth and a large palm in the centre.

On the left, the room opened to the kitchen, and by the entrance stood the large floor-to-ceiling cream-tiled traditional fireplace, the kachelofen, and next to that, a sideboard with glass doors through which you could admire Mama’s collection of china and cutglass. On the other side of the table, under the window, was a desk which, like the table, was fashioned from beautifully varnished wood, and on it were the family photographs. To the right of the room was the door to Mama and Tato’s bedroom, which contained a large bed decorated with a beautiful bedspread made of green silk, a solid wardrobe, and a couple of velvet chairs. The windows and doors were dressed in heavy green velvet and contrasted with sparkling white lace curtains, starched and crisp. Placed around the room were more palms and a large pot of myrtle. On the stone floor was a Turkish rug, which gave colour and warmth to the elegant room.

But it was the kitchen, which was Mama’s and her maid, Zosia’s domain. It was large and warm and aromatic, its pantry filled with foods: pots of growing herbs and dried herbs in little sacks and great jars of sauerkraut and pickled gherkins. Mama made her own cheese, and so there were also muslin bags of white cheese hanging from hooks as the liquid in the cheese slowly evaporated. Her pantry was a veritable Aladdin’s cave of patés and sausages, cold meats, and hams, pickled fish and pickled mushrooms and meat in aspic, jars of jam, and preserves of fruit and of vegetables. As Mama made them, she would distribute them around the village. In fact, Mama distributed everything to everyone. The Jabłoński family was renowned for its generosity.

The house was always filled with flowers and plants, potted in winter and from her garden in summer. She loved, too, the newly discovered world of cinema and often dragged both Bronia and Tato to Lwów to view the latest musicals and romances of the 30s films. In fact, Mama was always excited at any new discovery and would instantly buy the latest technological wizardry as soon as it came on the market. They were the first in the village to have a radio – in fact, they were the first to have anything new. This meant that the house was filled with gadgets that Mama loved to try.

The gajówka was set high on a steep hillside. Below them, a kilometre downhill, were the village houses, with the Polish church spire above. All around were rolling hills. In spring, the air seemed to be filled with the scent of lilac, which grew in every village garden. In summer, there were roses, but in the winter months, snow covered the hills, the valley, and the forests and turned everything into a pristine, undiluted fairyland.

A road curved its way down the hill towards the narrow stream at the bottom, then turned left along the straight road, which wound its way through the surrounding fields to the village houses, the Ukrainian houses on the one side and the Polish on the other. They were mostly wooden, painted in bright colours, with wooden shutters and wooden roofs.

Bronia snuggled again under her thick duvet for one final snooze. She could hear the hustle and bustle of the forest workers around the house, seemingly getting ready to go to the forest to work.

Suddenly she became aware that something was wrong. She thought she heard someone weeping. Oh God, she thought, I hope no one has died. She pulled back her covers and ran to the door. People were gathered in the salon. Villagers were clustered around the radio, and she heard the announcer

It had happened. She realised that what they had all feared for some time but largely ignored had happened. The Germans had invaded Poland. Poland was at war. How could she have forgotten? They had been preparing for this moment for months, and Bronia wondered why everyone was so unhappy. Surely the Polish army and airforce would soon overcome the Germans and send them packing. Her stalwart aunt, Maria, Tato’s sister, always said that as soon as Britain and France joined Poland in the war, they would send the cockroaches back to their great Fatherland.

Bronia joined the others. It seemed that Warsaw was being bombed, and so were other Polish cities, and although the Polish army and air force were fighting bravely, they were finding it very difficult to stop the powerful German blitzkrieg.

The German tanks rolled into Poland. What is more, a general mobilisation had been announced, and all the men in the district, including Tato, had been told to report to Lwów to join their military units Tato was even now preparing to go to the station with the other men from the village. She could see immediately that there was no triumphant enemy-bashing, no optimistic voices, no proud exclamations of defiance. Downstairs, Bronia found only frightened villagers, many of them her family members.

The announcer sounded very calm and authoritative despite the huge explosions in the background interrupting his news bulletins. Every few minutes, the radio played the Dąbrowski Mazurka, the Polish National Anthem – Poland is still standing while we are alive…. There was also the Varsovienne, Today is a day of blood and honour and the Rota, the Oath, We shall not leave the land of our people. This may have helped resolve but, at the same time, reduced the gathered listeners to tears, and the calm voice of the announcer seemed only to add to the deepening fear:

Warsaw is being bombed heavily, but the mayor remains in his office. The Polish army is making some inroads, and the Airforce has scored many hits. The Government is determined not to give way to the bullies from Germany.

Bronia was now ashamed of the excitement that she felt with her friends when they first heard that war was imminent. The naïve thirteen-year-olds had even giggled uncontrollably when they were trying on their gas masks. How romantic. How they dreamed of the gallant Polish soldiers who would soon quash the enemy. How these men would kill the Germans and send them scurrying back to their country. How the pilots would bomb the German tanks to smithereens. What nonsense they had talked.

Now Tato was preparing to join in the fighting, Mama was crying, and Bronia realised that her own father could be killed, and nothing was romantic.

She was more like her father in character, quiet, solemn, and meticulous. Also, like her father, she often appeared sad and thoughtful. In fact, when her lively mother, Kasia, was first courted by the tall, very poor student of forestry, Kasia’s parents, Bronia’s grandparents, were concerned that Antoni was too morose for their Kasia and tried to talk her out of the romance. They told her that he lacked social graces and certainly did not use flattery and compliments to woo her parents as the other suitors had. Mama of course, had her heart set on Tato – Tosiu, as she called him. She had fallen in love with his gentle ways, his considered, thoughtful opinions, and his shy smile. And what Mama wanted…

It was a blissful marriage. Mama’s exuberance and impetuousness were balanced by Tato, Antoni’s dependability, and steadfastness. From being the poor student who came courting without even a shirt to his back, only able to afford a shirt-front held round his neck by the collar and tucked under a threadbare suit, Tato had done well. He was a popular man and much liked by the Forestry Authorities. He loved the forest and seemed born to the job. Meticulousness and care seemed to go hand in hand with his feeling for rearing the trees and administering to the animals in the forest. He and Mama were soon doing well, and the family prospered.

Then tragedy struck. Bronia’s younger sister Józefa, at five, had gone out with Bronia, then aged seven, and both girls played outside, taking their hats off in the fierce midday sun. Józefa was struck down with sunstroke, and even though the best doctors in Lwów were called in to save her, she died after a few days, and Bronia was left with the guilt that she, the elder one, had been responsible. Her mother, totally thoughtless to the last, had, in effect, charged Bronia with that death at the time. No matter what she said or did afterwards, trying to explain that her accusations were merely borne of grief and certainly a seven-year-old was not responsible for the death of her little sister, Bronia still carried the scars of the guilt. Mama’s heart broke when Józefa died, but gradually she returned to something resembling normality. Mama who collapsed physically and emotionally when she was faced with tragedy, was also very resilient and, when there was little option to do otherwise, was able to carry on with life as best as she could.

She had persuaded Tato to buy some private land around the gajówka, and she employed people to help with the livestock and the farming and threw herself into that business, and life went on, and Mama’s little enterprise prospered.

She was petite and what one would call rounded. Her face was nearly always lit by a smile, and she loved life. When she smiled and laughed, her round face would be dimpled and lively, set off by a pair of shining bright eyes. Her hair was beautiful. It fell in long tresses down her back, which she plaited severely off her face and coiled