For our family, our journey begins 13,000km away from our home in Australia - Warszawa or Warsaw, Poland.
Poland has a long and turbulent history. "Always a struggle", one might say. Much too long and involved for us to recall here, but the video animation Historia Polksi does a fantastic job of explaining it, so please watch this video to see what we are talking about.
Prior to invading Poland in 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union had signed a pact - the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact - which divided Poland between the two countries. The Germans came in from the west and the Soviets came in from the east. The Soviets hadn't forgotten that these kresy ex-servicemen had beaten them in 1920 and they made sure they knew it. In came the NKVD (the People's Commisariat of Internal Affairs - forerunner to the KGB) and the arrests and attacks started. Landowners were to be crushed. Luckily Ignacz and his family were well liked and respected and for the most part seemed to avoid too much trauma.
Born in Maków Mazowiecki in the Masovian Voivodeship (part of the Warsaw Metropolitan Area), perhaps the death of her father (how, when and where we do not know) was the reason for Lucyna's move to Warsaw where she was living and working as a kindergarden teacher when World War II broke out in 1939. As Lucyna's mother was living in Ostrow with Lucyna's sister Zofia at the time of their deportation, perhaps this is why she too moved from Maków. Lucyna's sister Ana was also living in Warsaw, in the then notorious Praga district.
Lucyna went to visit her mother, sister and family in Ostrow. She would not see Warsaw again for almost thirty years later.
At the end of World War II in 1945, very little was left of Poland's cities. In fact Warsaw was 85% raised to the ground (the percentage varies depending on what you read). It was Hitler's plan to erase Warsaw from the map. To flatten it to the ground - Glattraziert - would provide a "terrifying example to the rest of Europe".
Hitler and Himmler decided in one evening that the "entire population remaining in one of Europe's great capital cities was to be murdered in cold blood. Then the city - which Himmler referred to as 'that great abscess' - was to be completely destroyed".
Warsaw 1944, Alexandra Richie
The Old Town (Stary Miasto) you see today is in fact only around 60 years old - having been totally rebuilt using drawings and paintings to it's original glory. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage Centre.
The video City of Ruins shows the extent of the devastation - a city of open-mouthed ghost buildings, piles of rubble and burnt open spaces. A scene which never fails to hurt the heart. You can see this video in 3D if you visit the Warsaw Uprising Museum.
Many of the Sybiraks never returned home to Poland. Apart from the devastation, Stalin installed a communist government. After five years trying to survive the horrors of the gulags in the USSR, most Poles had simply had enough of the Soviets.
