Polish War Veterans in Alberta by Aldona Jaworska

Author:Aldona Jaworska [Jaworska, Aldona]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, History, Canada, European General, Military, World War II
ISBN: 9781772124309
Publisher: The University of Alberta Press
Published: 2019-01-03T05:00:00+00:00

Niewiński (R) wearing a Soviet military uniform after he was forcefully drafted into the Soviet army. [Courtesy of Władysław Niewiński]

In Gorky, we were put into military barracks, and soon after, we started military training to prepare for a transfer to the front line. Before going to the front line, we were told that we had to take Russian citizenship. “How come? We have Polish citizenship,” we protested. Most of those Red Army recruits of Polish origin like me refused to take Soviet citizenship.

After we had finished the two-week training, we were loaded into a train that took us to the front line. The train stopped in a forest near Harkov (Kharkiv) where the front line was so close that we could hear the roar of the artillery and see the flashes of explosions. We thought that if there was an opportunity, we would surrender to the Germans as POWS, or we would hide somewhere on the front line. We were careful to keep our plans to ourselves since we were assigned to military units with soldiers of various nationalities. That evening, after we unloaded the heavy military equipment, the unit commander called an emergency muster, during which he started reading aloud soldiers’ names from a big long list. One by one, those who were called out had to step forward. After he had finished reading, there were about five hundred of us standing in front of the rest of the soldiers. We were ordered to march to the forest. I realized that all men called out by the officer were Poles who refused to give up Polish citizenship. We were being withdrawn from the front line. Our weapons, ammunition, maps and compasses were taken away from us. We were allowed to keep our military uniforms. Again, they loaded us onto a train that took us back east. The atmosphere on the train was quiet. We started to have different thoughts and worries about our situation, especially that they took away our weapons. We felt gloomier coming back from the front line than when we were going there because at least in the chaos of a battle we had some hope of breaking free from the Red Army.

I remember that our train arrived in Moscow at night. That was the first time the Germans bombarded Moscow. At the beginning of the attack, a squadron of German aircraft dropped spotlights to illuminate the city. It was so bright that one could find a needle on the ground. We jumped out of the boxcars, seeking cover in the nearby anti-aircraft trenches. We were so overtaken by panic that, instead of sitting in the trenches, we were jumping from one dugout to the other. We heard the buzzing of the planes flying above us, and the roar of the anti-aircraft artillery shooting at them. The railroad tracks were destroyed, and our train could not leave Moscow. Almost five hundred of us were left without any commanding officer or anyone else in charge. We stayed

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