It was only in the 1950s that they realized that they would not return to Volhynia. The quarrels and judgments have begun [BOOK EXCERPT]

The heroes born in 1918 and 1923 understood well the reality of the Volhynian countryside surrounded by Ukrainian and Jewish majorities. Three worlds - Polish, Jewish and Ukrainian - lived side by side, but as if separated by an invisible border, they interpenetrated very poorly. The poor rural existence was interrupted by the Soviet aggression in September 1939. In the summer of 1942, the Jews of Berezyń were murdered - only a few of them hid in the vast forests. Did it stop "rural anti-Semitism"?

The year 1943 brought the German crime of burning and destroying Rudnia Łęczyńska. 97 members of the author's family died. The UPA bands were already raging around and the murders of the Polish population continued. Those rescued from Rudnia spent two winters in the forest. The UPA spares their lives, but the so-called the partisans murdered several more relatives.

When deportations to Poland began in 1945, for them it was expulsion into the unknown. It was only in the 1950s that they realized that they would never return to Volhynia - quarrels and courts began over houses, lands and equipment. Gehenna in a Stalinist setting.

Photo: Prószyński and S-kaJan Kuriata, "Wołyniacy. One life"

Jan Kuriata - born in 1958 in Wrocław, doctor of humanities, rector of the State Higher Vocational School in Koszalin. Author of three volumes of poems and stories. In 1995, his novel for young people "Berlin Express" was published in France (published by Bayard Presse), and in 2019, the staging of his short story "Lie" (dir. M. Krom) was staged at the Dialog Proposal Theater in Koszalin. ).

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One of the Purists explained to us what historical mission we are fulfilling here, restoring the Piast lands to our homeland, People's Poland. The people's power gives us and gives us houses, farm buildings and everything that we find in these buildings for free.

- Look. He showed the buildings of the village of Gross Ossig in front of us. - There are houses, farms ... Choose the ones that suit you, and then we will register them and take the documents to the poviat. This village is now called Osiek Wielki and belongs to Poland.

People looked a little in disbelief and a little in surprise. Nobody said it out loud, but we were surprised to take someone's houses and who knows what else, just as if nothing had happened! Although we were so tired and hungry that no one dreamed of anything else but a home, a quiet place. So someone said out loud:

- There's no need to cry there. The Germans did not cry over us. It's all post-German and you have to take it, then we'll worry!

People seemed to be waiting for those words, and after that we went to the village to pick out some buildings to live in. After all, all this was supposed to happen for a while, before the English and Americans won the war - then we were supposed to return to our Rudnia.

Photo: Prószyński and S-ka's parents and sister Jadzia in 1946 or 1947 in Kąty Wrocławskie (sister was born in 1943 in Volhynia)

The village was completely deserted. There was no man or beast or anything. It was obvious that some people must have taken very carefully everything that could be used for something. In the middle of the farm we chose, there was a pile of dung, but the dunghill was surrounded by a wall, which we never had. The door of the house was wide open, so we went up the stairs and through a small corridor to the kitchen, and then two more rooms, stairs upstairs and there two more rooms, and some kind of storage room. Everything was empty except for bits of rags, about two stools, and in the kitchen a stove with a hob and such round wheels. It wasn't until later that we learned it was called fireworks. There was also a wooden table and a bench, and on the floor something we've never seen - tiles. Colorful, in various patterns. We stood for a long time looking at this mosaic. Everything surprised us.

This is how one of the purists found us.

- So what, I see you like it? he said encouragingly. - Take, take. It's a really nice farm! There's no need to hesitate.

The mother-in-law was the first to say:

- Let's stay here, right, Józia?

Józia looked at all of us and nodded.

– Let's stay. There are still farm buildings. There will be a place to keep cows…

- I'll be there near the narrow-gauge road. There will be all the records and issuing of documents, you know - purist zealously assured and left.

The truth was that we liked the buildings, brick, cement pavements in the cowshed, places for pigs and probably for horses, because the manger was high, we liked it very much. The buildings were covered with red tiles, and near the house there was a well with a built-up top, like a roof, and two opening wings, like windows. There was a beam above the water, and on it a bucket with a chain and a crank on the side. I quickly lowered the bucket and scooped up water. In the bucket we saw clean water, it smelled so good!

– Don't move! cried the mother-in-law. "Maybe poisoned or what?"

I put down the bucket and went to the station to ask the purist for water.

- No, the water's fine, he said calmly. “They checked, nobody was hurt. There were also Russians here before you, and for a few days there was a military hospital, so everyone took water.

We gave water to one cow first, but we noticed that our Halczuki neighbors drank it as if nothing had happened, and they also had a similar well to us. The cow was fine until the evening and we were fine. Tadźko secretly drank it anyway, because he was very thirsty.

Photo: Prószyński and S-kaThe author's parents praying in front of the monument

In the small building of the Osiek Wielki station, there were tables and officials wrote out documents confirming the occupation of a specific farm. I said that we had chosen a house with a certain number and outbuildings, for which I received the appropriate document and the seal of the poviat repatriation office. I also received official papers, i.e. documents that informed us that we had received such and such a farm for property left in the area of ​​the present Ukrainian SSR. The official also told me that if we resigned from this farm, because there are still so many vacancies around, we have to report all this, show the papers that I have now received, and if necessary, we will get new documents.

What we had with us, we moved to the new farm. It was only against the backdrop of pretty brick houses, colorful tile floors, painted wooden floors that we saw how pathetic our belongings looked. Even the cows had their chains and a manger to which we tied them. We arranged our rags on the floor, in the other room we placed sacks with grain that came with us from Rudnia, but there were no beds. We had some food, because the militiamen gave out bread and lard and a bit like jam, but not very sweet, there was also sugar and salt, but in very modest amounts. That was good, too, because they added a couple of fat candles to burn, but with a warning that they had to last a long time. Tadźko slyly noticed that they didn't write down anything, they didn't want to be confirmed anything.

- Mom - he said to his mother-in-law in the evening - they steal a lot, and they give us some scraps ...

We didn't say anything, because that help was invaluable to us at the time. We lit a fire under the kitchen, boiled water and milk and ate bread with jam or lard, whatever you wanted. This is what we waited for those long days during a journey that seemed to last forever, and sometimes we thought that we would never get anywhere, that our lives would end in those dingy, smelly cars. Now, when I was washed, with a full belly, I was lying on the rags on the floor - our bed - and I could see the starry sky through the window, I began to breathe more calmly, because I knew that in such conditions it would not be difficult to wait to return to Rudnia. Józia cried for Frankie in the corner, hugging Jadzia. Did we understand that this was the beginning of a new, irreversible one? Certainly not! The most important thing was to eradicate the ubiquitous fleas that poisoned everyone's life.

When I and others went to see what the whole village and the lake looked like, two kilometers beyond the village, Tadźko and younger Wicek invented two beds in an unoccupied cottage. People must have missed them, because they were in some utility room, and although they were terribly dirty, it was something. In addition, this whole group of militiamen and officials kept giving us something, mainly food, but also blankets, because it was already mid-September, true, exceptionally warm. We found out that our commune would be Żmigród, which is Trachenberg in German, and we would have to come there for identification cards and other papers, as well as food from the ration. Officials also said they would need people to work, and the fields here would also need to be tended to.

- You know - one of them joked in Russian - if you don't work, you don't tempt...

Photo: Prószyński and S-kaI inscription, we didn't know whether it was in Russian or Ukrainian, which said that it was a monument commemorating the inhabitants of the village of Rudnia Łęczyńska, murdered for helping Soviet partisans

The next day, a few of us went to see the fields. Earlier we understood that those who were here before us had thoroughly stripped the whole place. We didn't know what machinery or equipment we might be looking for, but there was nothing. Somewhere there was a rusted harrow or hammers or screwdrivers lost in the grass, but in general the area looked clean, even the fields were empty. In the evening, sitting by one candle, we wondered what it would be like.

- Empty fields, even a sheaf, nothing - I told once again. – What will we live on?

The mother-in-law just nodded.

– It's empty and you don't know where to get it all. Who to go to? Who to talk to?

Yes, the buildings and the residential house suited us very well, the cows, after all well fed and watered, repaid with liters of milk and even the first curds, but it was all in the short term, because what next?

I went to the two purists still in the village to tell us a bit about how to live here. Both, still very young officials, as soon as the militiamen were gone, became more talkative. In addition, I was not alone, there were also several other people.

- What can I tell you guys? One of them spread his hands. "Everyone is doing their best here! You're a bit unlucky, because this Gross Ossig is really looted. What the Russians did not steal, the Poles also did, and since no one was settled in the village, you can see that everything was lost. You have to go to the commune, look for work and help, because winter will come quickly.

We stood and talked until there were maybe five of us left in total, and then Franko Kuriata pulled out two bottles of moonshine, and the purists gave their bread and bacon and lard. We drank and talked until it got dark. Earlier, however, when moonshine gave me courage, I asked how to find out where the transports from Rudnia Łęczyńska were placed. The drunk official laughed into my nose:

- Stach! And who knows what your Rudnia Leszczyńska is or how you say it? Tell me what city.

- We were leaving Rokitno, Rivne, Kostopol, early June...

- Oh! At least, that's something. He looked at me. - I'll ask, because it's probably somewhere in these parts. So what is Rudnia, you say?

- Maybe three Rudnie - I wasn't drunk enough yet - Łęczyńska, Bobrowska and maybe Kniaźsielska.

Photo: Prószyński i S-kaThis is where houses once stood in the village of Rudnia Łęczyńska

A young purowiec solemnly promised me that he would ask questions wherever he could. But nothing happened. Our situation became more and more difficult because we did not know how to survive the coming winter without grain, without straw or hay or anything. People remained disoriented and we looked diligently for anything that might help us survive. Every other day we went to the PUR, but even there the donations were smaller and the impatience of the officials was increasing. They told us to work, to do whatever it took not to bother them.

The day finally came when luck smiled on us. It turned out that people inquired about us in PUR and people who settled in Prawików near Wołów. They were people from Rudnia Bobrowska and partly from Rudnia Łęczyńska, as some official told me. And in this way we established contact with aunt Marianna, who took my younger sister Lonia with her. Our meeting in Osiek was poignant, but also our aunt told us that we should leave this Osiek where there is nothing, because thanks to Marian Żygadla, who works in PUR, many of us settled in the village of Saugwitz near the town of Kanth, a short distance from here, because on the other side of Breslau, i.e. Wrocław. Aunt and Lonia still lived in Praukau, which in Polish was Prawików, not so far from the city of Wohlau, i.e. Wołowa. But part of the Żygadło family moved to Saugwitz, a village that did not yet have a Polish name. Someone called it Żygadłowice, and so far everyone called it that. But more importantly, there was grain in the village, barns full of straw and hay, horses and cows. There were also some Germans who had not escaped or been deported. But my aunt reassured us: “Don't be afraid of them. It's just women, children and some old people. They're going to take them out soon..."

After talking to officials, we found out that we can go to Saugwitz, we will arrange the papers, because there will be a new grant in this new village, and we must have our evacuation cards and a certificate that we have given up what we were assigned in Osiek big. The entire organization was taken care of by the Żygadłów, we drove to Żmigród in a cart and a horse, and from there we got to Wrocław in a covered railway car, and from Wrocław straight to the Kanth station. Everything was arranged and the cart with the horses was waiting for us. We arrived in a small village three kilometers away, or maybe not, from the railway station in Kanth, which was already called Kąty Wrocławskie. A field road, cobbled in large sections, led through the village of Koslau, which was also called Kozłów, to Żygadłowice. It was late, November, dark and cold. We stayed at the Żygadłów house, tied the cows in the barn, and went to sleep ourselves. Earlier still moonshine, greetings and tears, still tears, this time on the occasion of the meeting.