Andrzej Zajaczkowski's wartime experiences

My father's story: his wartime experiences and how he ended up in the UK.

My father's name was Andrzej Zajaczkowski. He was born in 1926, and grew up in Eastern Poland (now present day Western Ukraine) on land that his father had been awarded for his service in the Soviet-Polish War of 1920 (when Bolsheviks invaded Poland as part of an attempt to overrun the country following the Russian revolution). My grandfather served in the Polish Army that managed to repel the Soviet invasion. Following this, land which had previously been Russian-owned (controlled by the Russian Empire) was awarded to the Polish state. Poles were encouraged to settle in the captured areas, which formed part of the borders of the new state with Soviet Ukraine (part of borders/territorial borders changed).

Grandfather was, therefore, awarded the land where my father was born in 1926. He had to work hard growing up, but had a good life until 1939, when the Germans invaded on 1 September, and the Soviets invaded on 17th September. The Soviets later incorporated that region of Eastern Poland into the Soviet Union.

On 10 February 1940, the Soviets began the mass deportation of Poles living in that area. Ultimately, one million Poles were deported eastwards into the Soviet Union, e.g. Siberia, Kazakhstan. At the time this happened, my father was 13 years old and attending school in the local town (Krzemieniec - now in modern Ukraine). My family (including parents) were taken from home in the middle of the night. Father, Andrzej, taken directly from school in daytime the very next day. He was taken to a railway station, loaded into cattle wagons (in middle of winter). Wagon had a wood burner and a hole in the floor (as a toilet). About 60 people were distributed per wagon, in a train with perhaps a group of 30 wagons - wagons as compartments - and they were locked in these wagons for one month.

Arrived in town of Kotlas, a town in the Archangel region of Russia, and then for a further two weeks they walked, or were transported on sledges (for the young or elderly) to the camp where they spent the next year and a half. The camp was called Oktym (Uktym) - here they were set to work logging (cutting down trees and sending them down rivers.

They were there until 1941, when Germany invaded Russia (USSR) after which they were released to form the Polish Army (Soviets agreed to arrangements for Poles to fight the Germans). They travelled south to Kazhakstan in 1942 and were evacuated to Persia (Iran) and then onto Palestine.

Grandparents remained in Palestine. Father (aged 16) was sent to a Cadet school in Palestine. In 1944, father (aged 18) joined the Polish RAF and came to England. He planned to become a pilot, but instead became a technician doing aircraft maintenance. In 1945, by the time he had finished his training, the war came to an end.

He stayed in the UK as the family couldn't return home because their region was now in Soviet control and they feared that (if they returned) they would be sent to Siberia. Grandparents joined father in UK in 1946 and the family settled there.