Siberian labour camp survivor found refuge in NZ
Almost six decades after a girl was forced from a rural settlement on the eastern borderlands of Poland, a woman returns to the village of Szczurzyn.
It’s the first time she has been back since she was taken from there as a child, in February 1940. Post-war border changes mean the village is now part of Ukraine. Inquiries among locals have led her to a small hut, where she finds a greyhaired old woman bent over her garden.
That woman was once the young house-girl who helped in the home where Dioniza (Iza) Choros´ grew up, before the family’s lives were torn apart by invasion at the outbreak of World War II.
Tears flowed from both women’s eyes as they embraced, aware how different their lives could have been had they not been separated by forces outside their control.
After many questions, and the old woman’s assertion that she always believed the whole family could not have perished in Siberia, a short drive takes them to what had been Choros´’ family farm. It had become part of a collective, and the house had since been repurposed as aworkshop.
Choros´ stands and stares at the remnants of her birth-home.
The third of four girls, Choros´ was born to Witold and Janina Gradzik, 11 years before Soviet soldiers abetted the murder of Witold. They later marched the family on to cattlewagons and transported them to labour camps in
Siberia, as part of the first wave of wartime ethnic cleansing.
The Szczurzyn farm was on land granted to soldiers who fought for and helped to regain Poland’s independence. As a young girl, Choros´ was acutely aware of this fact, and was intensely patriotic until her death some eight decades later on the other side of the world.
Siberia was hell. Surviving the freezing temperatures and starvation rations became a daily trial for the next 18 months. Choros´, her mother and her sisters Bronia, Halka and Bogda foraged for extra food, took on whatever paid work they could, and sold some possessions they managed to bring with them in order to survive.
Choros´’ hatred of food waste remained throughout her life. If food was no longer fit for human consumption, the birds became the winners.
The deprivation in the extreme Soviet conditions was met with eventual reprieve upon the signing of an agreement between the Soviets and the Polish government-in-exile to form a Polish army on Russian soil to fight the now-common enemy, the Nazis.
Choros´ and her family, along with thousands of other Poles, were allowed to leave the labour camps. They made their way to and through the southern Soviet states and, after some months, managed to sail across the Caspian Sea to Persia, now Iran.
Within days of arriving in the Middle East, Choros´ was orphaned by the death of her mother, who was buried in Tehran.
With Poland a battleground, its government-in-exile appealed for help to find temporary homes for refugee children such as Choros´. Fifteen thousand kilometres away, New Zealand prime minister Peter Fraser announced the country would accept some of the children and their caregivers.
On October 31, 1944, Choros´ wasoneof 733 children who sailed into Wellington Harbour to begin a new life in Pahı¯atua’s ‘‘Little Poland’’ camp, in Wairarapa. She was one of the older girls and served as second in command in the Polish Girl Guides Company, established almost immediately after arrival.
At the end of the war, Choros´ accepted New Zealand’s offer to stay permanently, as the eastern part of their homeland had been annexed by the Soviets.
Although she always wanted to be a doctor, Choros´ had no-one to support her
while she studied, so opted for nursing instead, as she could live in the nurses’ home. While nursing in Wellington, she began her long service to the Polish community abroad, as a committee member of the Polish Association.
During this time she started exchanging letters with Tadeusz (Tadek), a Polish ex-serviceman who had emigrated to Australia.
Although she loved nursing, two years later Choros´ travelled to Brisbane to meet Tadeusz. He was waiting for her at the dock and was shorter than she had imagined.
A few months later theymarried and had their first two children, Barbara and Chris. Choros´ and Tadeusz were highly involved within the sub-groups of the Polish Association in Brisbane but, in 1966, her health forced amove to a cooler climate.
They settled in Lower Hutt and, before long, had another daughter, Liz. Polish was spoken in the family home and cultural traditions always observed. Over the years, Choros´ went on to become a grandmother and great-grandmother.
Involvement in the Polish community continued, with Choros´ serving as president of the women’s league and also as president of the association, being the second woman to do so.
She also became a businesswoman, buying the Continental Delicatessen in Lower Hutt with Tadek. She loved gardening and the arts, particularly poetry, and was well known for her passionate declamations of Polish epic poems, from memory.
It was that memory which allowed her later in life to document her experiences during the war years in exact and often excruciating detail.
Choros´ was a devout Catholic, and believed her faith helped her survive the horrors she’d experienced.
She also loved travelling, and went back to Iran twice to visit her mother’s grave, just as she had promised her she would. She was unable to visit her father’s, as she had no idea of where his body was disposed of after hewas executed.
On a trip to Turkey aged 71, she slept on a beach under the stars, saying it was too hot in the tent. But she also hated the cold, having seen enough snow to last a lifetime. – By Andre Chumko