Kresy-Siberia "Keep Their Memory Alive"

Thank you for your generous ongoing support of Kresy-Siberia. Here is our quarterly report on how your donations are being put to work in running and strengthening the Kresy-Siberia Virtual Museum www.Kresy-Siberia.org and our other efforts to research, remember and recognize Poland's citizens fighting for survival and freedom in eastern Poland’s “Kresy” and in forced exile during World War II.

World-wide discussion group growing

Our Kresy-Siberia discussion group (now hosted on Facebook continues to grow, reaching 1,300 members in March. This friendly and supportive world-wide online community brings together Survivors, Descendants and others interested in learning and sharing these histories. Please refer your friends and family to join the Kresy-Siberia Group at www.facebook.com/groups/KresySiberiaGroup/.

Virtual Museum recovery

Our last report explained that your donations enabled us to bring the Virtual Museum back online after it was brought off-line by a malicious software attack. We are now working on finding a new IT firm to repair the remaining small glitches, like being unable to add a photo to a Wall of Tribute profile. Please visit the Virtual Museum now that it is back online, and add your family members and their details to the Wall of Tribute www.kresy-siberia.org/wonand scans of their photographs and documents to the Hall of Memories www.kresy-siberia.org/hom.

New names, biographical profiles and photos can now be added and updated by museum visitors.You can view the most recently added biographies for persons such as Julia Jakubowska, Czesaw Madej, Bernard Pawowski, Jan Stanisaw Jankowski, Franciszek Nowak, Tomasz Ferus, Manny Glass, and many others on the Wall of Tribute. The latest of over 15,000 preserved photos can also be viewed in the Hall of Memories.

Virtual Museum upgrading

We are also preparing to do a full up-grade to the website to improve online visitor interactions and bring the computer programming up to date. Though this will required thousands of dollars in investment, it will improve our security against future hacking and ensure the preservation and ongoing health of the Virtual Museum through 2017 and beyond. 

New Survivor Testimonies and profiles

Work continues on an important part of our Virtual Museum, the Hall of Testimonies www.kresy-siberia.org/hot. As well safeguarding and completing the processing of over 800 Survivor Testimony interviews recorded over the past few years, we continue adding new interviews with Survivors such as Stanisaw Bajkowski in England. If you know of any Surviving Sybiraks, residents of pre-WW2 eastern Poland or WW2 Veterans who can be film interviewed anywhere in the world, please let us know right away at Foundation@kresy-siberia.org so that we can arrange to preserve their wartime testimonies while we still can.

Local Kresy-Siberia gatherings

Several group members organized local gatherings of Kresy-Siberia members and supporters in recent months. We encourage and support such gatherings all over the world, so if you would like to organise an event please contact us at foundation@kresy-siberia.org or leave a message in the Facebook group so that we can help with contact details, publicity and other support.

Thank you to Barbara Gillett, Barbara Johnson, Barbara Gdowski and Fiona (“Barbara”) Paige for organising a "Generations Remember" mini-conference and information booth at the Polish Festival in Melbourne, Australia in November.

• Fr. Wiesaw Sowik provided the Polish Jesuit Centre in Richmond for our meeting, where we discussed recent activities, shared family histories and tips on Polish Family Research, as well as how to apply for Polish Citizenship, Passports and the “Cross of Siberian Exiles” Medal.
• Our guest of honour, Poland’s Ambassador in Australia, Pawe Milewski, joined us in watching Wanda Koscia’s moving documentary film, "My Friend My Enemy" about Polish survivors of the massacre by Ukrainian nationalists in 1943, returning to the lands from which they fled and meeting the descendants of Ukrainians who risked their lives to save their Polish neighbours.
• Volunteers wearing matching Kresy-Siberia tee-shirts answered questions for over 6 hours at the Polish Festival and hundreds of visitors checked out the KSVM exhibits created by Jackie Rzepka and brought from New Zealand by Irena Lowe.

Thank you to Iwona and Mark Krason for organising our annual February Deportation Commemoration luncheon in Balham, London, England.

• Over 50 Kresy-Siberia members and supporters, including Survivors, attended.
• Our guest of honour, Poland’s Ambassador in the UK, Arkady Rzegocki, said that younger generations of Polish descent needed to be made aware of their heritage and the history of their parents and grandparents. 
• Award-winning journalist, Julia Devlin, said that the Soviet Deportations are not well known in Germany and interviewed Siberian survivors and the Ambassador for a radio programme to be broadcast on German radio over Easter.
• Participants viewed displays of historical newspapers and articles of interest by Jan Korzeniowski, and of Kresy–Siberia UK member activities at the 2016 Conference in Warsaw, the Commemorative March of Living Memory in Biaystok and Tim Bucknall’s talk on “Wojtek the Bear” at Palestine’s Ramellah University.
• Musical entertainment was provided by opera singer Iwona Januszajtis and a spontaneous “backing group” assembled from the guests.
• Group member Irena Kossakowski talked about her book “A Homeland Denied” about her late father’s life from student days in 1939, prison in Kozielsk, deportation to Siberia, Anders Army at Monte Cassino, and life in England after the war.

Thank you to Anita Cwynar, Alexandra Adamczuk and Halina Alexander for organising an Afternoon Tea in Toronto to mark the anniversary of the Deportations.

• Over a dozen Kresy-Siberia members and supporters, including Survivors, braved a savage winter blizzard to attend.
• Anita Cwynar made a presentation and led the singing of the ‘Sybirak Hymn’, translated into English, to mark the anniversary.
• Our guest of honour, Poland’s Consul for Polonia Affairs in Toronto, Andrzej Szydo, said that he was impressed by the efforts of our worldwide community. He also offered the Consulate General as the event venue for next year’s commemoration event.
• Participants shared remarkable stories and honoured the legacy of each ‘Sybirak’.
• Veteran Jan Gasztold described what he witnessed during the war years and spoke about his book “Znad Berezyny do Toronto”, which traced the interwar period in the Eastern Kresy.
• Also attending was legendary Toronto media personality Ziggy Lorenc, whose father was a Siberian deportee.
• The afternoon finished with a visit to the Toronto SPK (Polish Combatants’ Association), with exhibits of the Polish experience during World War Two.

Annual gathering in Warsaw

Kresy-Siberia members have met for the last 3 years in Warsaw for a Conference around the ceremonies on the September 17 Day of the Sybiraks, the anniversary of the 1939 Soviet invasion. These have been great opportunities to meet each other as well as Survivors living in Poland, hear interesting speakers on our area of interest, participate in memorial ceremonies and tour institutions like the Senate, the Katyn Museum and the History Meeting House.

We may have a more modest event in 2017, perhaps a luncheon or dinner with a couple of guest speakers, as the past organizers have exhausted their ability to put on another  major conference so soon. Please write to foundation@kresy-siberia.org as soon as possible if you are interested in joining a gathering in Poland on or around September 17, 2017 and if you are willing and able to take on a role helping to organize such an event.

Iranian Archive (1942-1945)

We have recently put a series of archival documents from the "Iranian Archive 1942-1945" online at https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B67_kLJuHoVKTjhYdXhCb0JraUE. These were sent to us several years ago by Andrzej Prewoznik, Secretary of the Council for Protecting the Memory of Struggle and Martyrdom (Rada Ochrony Pamieci Walki i Meczestwa). Sadly, he died in the April 2010 Smolensk airplane tragedy and the Council was dissolved last year.

These priceless documents were discovered at Poland’s Embassy in Tehran after 60 years. They document the fate of more than 120,000 Poles whose wartime exile tossed them into Iran, including the 2,900 military and civilians whose journey of exile ended in Iran. They include:

• birth and baptism registries (2 volumes)
• indexes of civilians who died in Iran and the USSR (3 volumes)
• indexes and registers of military who died in Iran and Iraq (3 volumes)
• lists of those who died in Iran during the years 1942-1944
• indexes of refugee names and passport records as of August 26, 1946
• lists of refugees, including those evacuated to East Africa, India, Mexico and New Zealand.

So it has been a busy and productive time, thanks to your generous contribution to the survival and strengthening of Kresy-Siberia’s special mission.

With gratitude and warm regards, 
The Kresy-Siberia Foundation team

Links:

• Kresy-Siberia Virtual Museum
• Kresy-Siberia discussion group