The tragedy of Volhynia is simply unimaginable. Poles died under the blows of their torturers regardless of their age - old people, adults and even babies. Sometimes the only family members who survived were children. What was the fate of Polish orphans saved from the Volhynia massacre in 1943?
In the modern world, when a child experiences the trauma of losing a parent, a team of specialists deals with it. He can count on therapy, the help of a psychologist, educator and support from the closest environment. But what about the children whose entire immediate environment has just been murdered? What if the devastating war is still going on or the communists are ruling, for whom Volhynia is not Poland?
For the little ones who survived the hell of the Volhynian massacre and were left alone like a finger, rescue was usually the beginning of a bumpy road. Their fates could have gone differently. We present three stories in which the fates of thousands of other victims of the Volyn tragedy are reflected as if in a lens.
In the hands of Ukrainians or relatives
When a neighbor warned Rozalia's family that a crowd of Ukrainians who definitely had no peace intentions were coming, they bolted the house and fell to their knees in front of the holy picture. When the nationalists tried to get in, the girl and her brother started looking for a hiding place in panic. They hastily hid in the basement.
Soon after, the UPA burst into the building; without hesitating, they hacked Rosalia's parents and baby sister. Then they went to the entrance to the basement and tried to scare the children away. The brother who left first was killed immediately. Rozalia was stopped by something, and at that time the bandit left, assuming that there was only one person inside ...
When the perpetrators of the massacre left, the girl left the hiding place and found a terrible picture. Walls splattered with the blood of her relatives, her family home is devastated. She found her mother's rosary on the floor, hung it around her neck, and decided to run away. She went to a neighbor, from where a man referred her to the village administrator. The Ukrainians gathered there decided to let her live. From then on, she was to be the servant of the village administrator. For a year she was a bullet and a victim of abuse, but she was alive.
Rozalia Wielosz. The photo comes from the book by Anna Herbich "Girls from Wołynia", which has just been released by the Znak Horyzont publishing house. (photo:Rafał Guz, press materials of Znak Horyzont publishing house)
She had to do the hardest work on the farm, worked from morning to night on a slice of bread, lice ate her alive. Although the village leader and her family were proud to wear things stolen from Rozalia's house, the girl, at her mercy, had neither shoes nor decent clothes. She was always freezing, she looked like a little tramp. While staying only with Ukrainians, she quickly forgot the Polish language.
The fact that the girl had survived the murderous attack was finally discovered by some miracle by her father's brother. As Rozalia recalls in Anna Herbich's book "Girls from Wołynia" :
If it weren't for him, I would probably be Ukrainian today. I would still live in Volhynia and speak Ukrainian. I would not remember that I was once Polish. But my uncle didn't forget about me. First, he sent people for me, but the head of the village council, upon hearing about their arrival, took me away and ran away from home. Of course, she didn't do it because she became so attached to me. She just didn't want to get rid of the free servant.
The man did not let go. Moreover, on the way to the village he met the sister of the girl's mother, who was also pregnant. They both went to pick up Rozalia. When they arrived, the girl was gone because she was herding cows. Determined relatives waited, and when she showed up, they informed her that they were taking her. Although the village leader treated her like the worst rubbish, the terrified Rozalia grabbed her and said Aunt, ja ne pidu! (Aunt I won't go!)
Many inhabitants of Volhynia cautiously escaped from their homes, Rozalia's family did not want to abandon their wealth. The photo shows a cart, one of the basic vehicles used by the inhabitants of Volhynia (photo:press materials of the Znak Horyzont publishing house).
The traumatized child was intimidated and preferred to cling to what he knew, even if it meant further ill-treatment. Father's brother banged on the girl and shook the belt at her. It worked. Rozalia went with them. Soon they found themselves across the Bug and felt safe. Years later, Rozalia decided that what happened to her from the village leader was not the worst possible fate anyway. As she stated in "Girls from Volhynia":
About this Ukrainian girl. She treated me badly, that's a fact. On the other hand, she might have killed me. Or to hand over to the Banderites. In our neighborhood, there were cases where Ukrainian hosts took surviving Polish children, but soon gave them up out of fear. Banderites came and murdered these children.
Orphanage
Janina is not even sure if her last name is Sokół. She knows, however, that the date of her birth appearing in the documents is entered there at random. The parents who died in the Funduma colony are not well-remembered either. He remembers only scraps from his childhood in Volhynia. When the UPA came for the Poles living in the village, she was saved by a Ukrainian, and later a stranger took her to Włodzimierz Wołyński. From there she was taken by the Germans to work in the Reich together with the couple who adopted her. Until the end of the war, she worked for a bauer.
In the photo, Stefan and Stanisława Bojko with their children Rozalia and Edward. Only a girl survived the Volhynian massacre (photo:press materials of the Znak Horyzont publishing house)
When the Americans arrived and she was liberated, she ended up in a refugee camp. It was there that her guardian had a serious conversation with her. He tried to explain to the heroine the book by Anna Herbich "Girls from Volhynia" that she was left alone in the world and her family died. Her guardians decided to return to Poland and took her with them. Unfortunately, the people who started from scratch were unable to take care of her and gave her to their family, who started treating Janina like a free servant.
In the end, the overworked girl fell so seriously ill that she was taken to the hospital, and the doctors gave her no chance. The child who survived the Volhynian slaughter did not give up and also survived severe pneumonia. After leaving the hospital, she ended up in an orphanage, like thousands of other children. She went through several places that she remembered variously. In one of the centers, the manager personally made sure that the children drank cod liver oil and nibbled on it. This blast of vitamins tasted terrible, so the woman stood at the door of the cafeteria and let only those who forced themselves to swallow "delicious".
Janina Kalinowska. The photo comes from the book by Anna Herbich "Girls from Volhynia" , which has just been released by the Znak Horyzont publishing house. (photo:Rafał Guz, press materials of the Znak Horyzont publishing house).
Polish orphans received foreign support. It was, for example, clothing from Canada. Girls from the orphanage where Janina stayed called their clothes "canadians". In these uniforms, consisting of a light blouse and a navy blue skirt, they went to church, and later collected money for their maintenance. As a woman recalls years later:
After breakfast, we went in pairs to the church, to the collegiate church. […] After the mass, we would pick up cans and walk along the streets of the city. People were throwing us money to support us. Us and the entire orphanage. My usual route was from the orphanage to the town hall in the Old Town Square and back. And so several times.
Raised to be Ukrainians
The pre-war village of Gaj was large and full of Poles until 1943. Today there is almost no trace of it. Hanna, although she lived only a few kilometers away, in Kaszówka, learned a little throughout her life that someone lived in a now abandoned place; that they were Poles who were murdered almost every one. Only as an adult woman, she also found out that she was the only survivor of the massacre, although children at school called her Polish, they would find her Polish.
Files of the Municipal Court in Zamość regarding Janina (photo:press materials of the Znak Horyzont publishing house)
Two days after the pogrom in Kaszówka, Ukrainian nationalists returned and ordered the inhabitants of a neighboring village to bury the dead, because they were already beginning to smell. A two-year-old girl was found among the corpses, who miraculously survived. The baby was saved in secret from the UPA and taken to Kaszówka. There she went to the family of Fedor and Katerina, who could not have children themselves. The whole village knew about the girl, little Hania, known as Hania Polaczek. There was an enormous risk that the nationalists would return to complete the extermination of the Poles from the Grove by killing the child they had previously escaped.
Nevertheless, the Ukrainian foster parents took Hania over and treated her like their own daughter. As the woman recalls, they loved and pampered her, trembling for her to the end. As a result, they had problems with the UPA, and Fedor was still afraid that they would come for the little one, especially when he went to the front. Her mother's greatest fear was that one day a distant relative would show up and take the little girl away. As he recalls in the book by Witold Szabłowski, "Righteous Traitors. Neighbors from Volhynia ”:
God, how must they be afraid of that if they loved me so much ... They always bought me the best fabric for clothes. And the best toys:bears, rabbits ... Whoever was new to the village - a surveyor, forester, someone from the office - they were shaking, that someone had come to take their Hania.
There is not even a trace of Rozalia Wielosz's hometown (photo:press materials of the Znak Horyzont publishing house)
Polish orphans lived in many villages in Volhynia in Ukrainian families who had not succumbed to the madness of nationalism. Hanna recalled that after the war, many of these victims came from close and distant relatives. At that time, the children left their uncertain lives and went away with them. This is why Katerina chose to keep the truth from her daughter all her life.
When her mother was an old woman, Hanka was pityed by her aunt, who said that she had a right to know where she came from in the world. Unfortunately, the woman never found out the name of her Polish parents who died at the hands of the UPA. It was too late to find out the details.
Information sources:
- Herbich A., Girls from Volhynia , Horizon 2018 sign.
- Koprowski M.A, Wołyń. Memories of survivors , vol. 1, Replika 2016.
- Koprowski M.A, Wołyń. Memories of survivors , vol. 2, Replica 2016.
- Motyka G., Wołyń ’43 , Wydawnictwo Literackie 2016.
- Szablowski W., Righteous traitors. Neighbors from Volhynia , Mark 2017.