Rafal, my great-grandfather lived in the middle of the 19th century, in a region of the former Kingdom of Poland called the Grand Duchy of Litva, which after the third partition of Poland in 1795 became a province of the Tsarist Imperial Russia.

Great-grandfather was Polish and Roman Catholic. He lived on his landed property in Lachowicze area (now Lyakhovichi), but his parents and ancestors owned a large estate near Darewo in the Baranowicze (Baranovichi) district (see map below).

According to my father's story half of that estate was confiscated as a punishment for two family members taking part in the Polish "November Uprising" against Russian rule in 1831. The guilty had been deported to a remote part of Arctic Russia. The rest of the estate was later sold by the family.

After that my great-grandfather Rafal bought land in Nacz and later in Burakowce between (and near) Lachowicze and Kleck (see map below).

Other relatives from Darewo bought or leased small properties in the area between Baranowicze, Nowogródek (Navahradak) and Nieswiez (Nesvizh).

I could not remember my great-grandfather's name.
I only remember my father saying to me that my appearance and manner were similar to grandfather's. Was it his grandfather's or mine, I am now not sure.

But thanks to the internet search and unexpected contact with Jadwiga Rymaszewska, our relative now living in Belarus in Lyakhovichi, I discovered that great grandfather's name was Rafal.

I also confirmed with Jadwiga that Rafal had two sons : Aleksander, my grandfather and a younger son called also Rafal, Jadwiga's grandfather, as well as a daughter named Józefa.

Rafal's younger son Rafal had number of children, including son Mieczyslaw (my father's cousin) and the youngest granddaughter Jadwiga, still living - my contact.

(See below, and see Chapter 14)

BURAKOWCE estate (also called Burakowcy, Burakoucy, Burakovtsy), where Rafal's Rymaszewski family had lived, is shown on this old map of Central Europe (in a circle), published by the Military Surveys of Austria-Hungarian Empire about 1890-1900. Notice next to many name-places letters H.H. In the Austrian/German language the letters H.H. mean "herrenhaus", in English "manor house", in Polish "dwór".

Also notice at the top-left corner near Darewo a place-name "Rymaszewski", no doubt so called after its owners, the Rymaszewski family. This could be a remaining part of a large estate where my great grandfather Rafal's ancestors had lived as was told to me by my late father. The placename Rymaszewski is described in "Geographic Dictionary of Polish Kingdom" (published in Warsaw from 1880) as a grange with fertile soil and some forests in Darewo parish, Nowogródek District, situated by the roadside from Darewo to Odachowszczyzna.

 

Current map of Belarus on the right (1990) does not show the estate Burakowce >>> It's not there. It has been confiscated by the Soviet occupiers in 1940 and completely eliminated during the collectivization of land.

Below is the recent photo (May 2009) where BURAKOWCE were.

First son of Rafal, my grandfather. See Family 66.1 below

• The second son of Rafal, also called Rafal, was born in 1873. His wife was Emilia Czerepowicka.
  They had the following 7 children : Mieczyslaw (1906), Aleksander (1908), Zofia (1910), Maria ( ), Wanda (1916), Sabinka and Józefa.
  The wife, Emilia Czerepowicka, died in 1933. And Rafal died on 10 January 1958 aged 85.
  

Rafal's family photo taken in Burakowce about the start of the First World War in 1914.
From left: Aleksander (Olek) b.1908 - died young in an accident while serving in the Polish cavalry in pre-war Poland. Next Mieczyslaw (Mietek) b.1906. Then Rafal Rymaszewski and his wife Emilia Czerepowicka. The girls are Maria (Marysia) and Zofia (Zosia) b.1910.
Not yet born: Wanda born 1916 (died in 1993), Sabinka (died as a young child) and the youngest Józefa (Zunia) - see photo on the right.

Józefa (Zunia)
in Poland - 28 March 1952

Sister of Mieczyslaw, the youngest daughter of Rafal.

Józefa (Zunia), went from Kresy to Poland by the end of the Second World War, where she completed a University and married Jerzy Czarnocki. Later she became ill and died young.

Rafal Rymaszewski, born in 1873, the brother of my grandfather Aleksander.


His father was also called Rafal.

This is his last photo.
He died in 1958, aged 85.

(66.3) Józefa Rymaszewska - Rafal's sister. She married Mr. Snacki and moved to live near Stolowicze, not far from Zaosie, the birthplace of Adam Mickiewicz. They had two children Mieczyslaw and Zygmunt.

Rafal's sister - Józefa Rymaszewska.
She married Mr. Snacki

• Mieczyslaw Rymaszewski, the son of Rafal and Emilia Czerepowicka.
  
  He was born on 28 March 1906
  
  
  
  Mieczyslaw died on 20 August 1978 in Lachowicze (Lyakhovichi).
  
  More photos in Chapter 14

EARLY SPRING IN BURAKOWCE
EASTERN POLAND

Poland in 1931. 25 years old Mieczyslaw Rymaszewski and his girlfriend Jadwiga, while he was employed by baron Kronberg as a surveyor of forestry works being done on his forest properties.

Mieczyslaw Rymaszewski under a blossoming pear tree in the orchard of his estate Burakowce, near Lachowicze in Poland just before the war. Under Soviet occupation the estate, including the farm animals (horse and cows), have been taken away by the Soviet Socialist Dictatorship.

CONTACT AFTER 70 YEARS ......

Thanks to the internet, I found on the website of Janusz Kielak information about Jadwiga Rymaszewska, the surviving daughter of Mieczyslaw Rymaszewski above, still living in Belarus. Last time I saw her was 70 years ago just before the war broke out, while she was 3 years old, living in Burakowce, then Poland ( her photo how she was is below).

After contacting Jadwiga, the exciting news was that she still had our family photo and and two postcards - - sent before the war by my father in Pinsk to her father. The postcards are reproduced below . They are like relics to me - to see again something from my childhood and my home, to see again my father's neat handwriting, the dates, etc.

After Soviets occupied Pinsk, imposing their reign of terror (see Chapter 5), all our possessions, photo albums, souvenirs, etc. were lost during our uprooting from our home in Pinsk and deportation to Siberia. After that a heavy Communist "Iron Curtain" separated me for ever from my short but happy life in Eastern Poland.

Postcard sent by my father, his first cousin, to Mieczyslaw Rymaszewski in Burakowce near Lachowicze on the occasion of Mieczyslaw's marriage to Emilia Gruszewska in 1934.

Reverse side with my father's wishes

Postcard sent from Pinsk, in an envelope, dated 17 February 1934 - the date of Mieczyslaw's wedding.

The picture is a painting titled "Love", with a guardian angel in the background.

It is from a series of paintings called Faith, Hope and Love. In Polish they are called Wiara, Nadzieja and Milosc.

Also well known in old Russia as Vyera, Nadiozhda and Lubov (and often used as Russian girls names)

The wishes written on the back of the card are in a form of a rhyme composed by my father.

 

Christmas card sent by my father to his first cousin Mieczyslaw Rymaszewski in Burakowce near Lachowicze in 1936.

Polish Christmas card is in a form of a postcard.
The card shows a side table with oplatki, the traditional thin Christmas wafers that are shared on Christmas Eve . One wafer is called oplatek.

On the card is handwritten:

Merry Christmas ! (Wesolych Swiat ! )
Sincerely wished by Rymaszewski family.
Pinsk. 25 / XII (December) 1936 r. (rok)

The postcard has a 5 groszy (5 cents) postage stamp. It was sent from Pinsk by my father to Mieczyslaw's family in Burakowce estate, with a date 25 December (XII) 1936 r. (r = abbreviation of rok = year)

W.P. stands for "Wielmozni Panstwo" - an obsolete form of polite address : Your honor Rymaszewskis

Lachowicze k / (near) Baranowicze
maj. Burakowce (Burakowce estate)

• Emilja Rymaszewska (Gruszewska), Mieczyslaw's wife, the daughter of Józef Gruszewski and Rozalia Ussowska. She was born on 7 January 1908 and died on 5 March 1987 in Lachowicze. (photo >)
  
  
  More photos in Chapter 14

• Jadwiga (Jadzia) Rymaszewska, the daughter of Mieczyslaw Rymaszewski and Emilia Gruszewska, was born on 17 August 1936 in Burakowce.
  
  She is now living in Lyakhovichi in Belarus.
  
  Jadwiga worked all her life as a school teacher in languages.
  
  Jadwiga has now retired and lives in an apartment in Lachowicze

University days in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg).

• Zofia Rymaszewska - Mieczyslaw's sister, daughter of Rafal, born on 2 June 1910.
  
  In 1934 she married Emilia's brother, Wladyslaw Gruszewski, born in 1901 in Nacza Bryndzowska.
  
  Zofia and her brother Mieczyslaw married a brother and his sister from Gruszewski family.
  
  Mieczyslaw Rymaszewski married Emilja Gruszewska on 17 February 1934,
  and Zofia Rymaszewska married Emilja's brother Wladyslaw Gruszewski the next day.
  
  
  
  She had 3 children : Bogdan, Halina and Grigoriy.
  
  More photos in Chapter 14
  
  Zofia died on 28 January 2003 in Pierechrestie.
  
  

My paternal grandfather Aleksander, the son of no.66, was born around 1868.
At the end of the 19th century, Aleksander had some connection with an estate Nacz (Nach), in Lachowicze area, Baranovichi district, because I knew for sure that my father Michal, his son, was born in estate Nacz in 1894. Perhaps it was the property where Aleksander's father, my great-grandfather Rafal lived with his children. This I confirmed later through unexpected contact on the internet with Jadwiga mentioned above.

A detailed military map, published between 1925-1935 in free Poland, shows in this part of Eastern Poland (eastwards from LACHOWICZE, or westwards from KLECK) the location of nine places named Fw. Nacz or D. Nacz . "Fw." is an abbreviation for "folwark", meaning "a grange", and "D." is an abbreviation for "dwór", meaning "estate manor".

The NACZ grange close to Burakowce grange (arrow in a circle) is the place of birth of my father, where his father Aleksander, the brother of Rafal, who owned the adjoining Burakowce grange, originally lived.

Later, however, my grandfather Aleksander, with his young family, moved from Lachowicze area to live on his own estate called Zascianek in Polesie district, next to the village Plotnica, later described as Mala Plotnica (Little Polotnitsa), because there is another Plotnica in the south of Polesie. Mala Plotnica was located to the north of PINSK, about 9 km north-east from Dobroslawka (Dobroslavka), 17 km southwest from Malkowicze (Malkovichi). See map below.

After the fall of Tsarist Russia, the family continued to live in Zascianek for 21 years in free and independent Poland between the first and second world wars. Everything ended during the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland in 1939. Aleksander's estate was confiscated by the communists and the family destroyed. The estate was converted to a "collective" farm owned in effect not by the people but by the Soviet state and its rulers. As an infant I have visited Zascianek with my parents and I remember it.

GRANDFATHER ALEKSANDER's "ZASCIANEK" ESTATE NEAR PLOTNICA, POLESIE, POLAND

The estate of Zascianek consisted of an extended single story family house, a lot of outbuildings such as stables, barns with hay lofts and stork nests on roofs, cowsheds, piggeries, poultry houses, etc.

And a separate stand-alone big cellar, like a dugout, part of which was filled with ice in the winter and used as a cold store.

Ice blocks were cut out in the winter on the nearby river and transported to the cellar by horse drawn cart. (The sack hanging on the left of the horse contains common oats for the horse)

The rest of cold cellar was used for storing potatoes, beetroots, turnips, carrots, as well as barrels of soured cabbage, pickled cucumbers, dried mushrooms, bilberries, cherries, cranberries and so on.

There was also a smoke-house where they used to dry and cure hams, sausages and other meats. Then there was a log cabin where they were making butter and cottage cheeses, some of which were dried.

Behind the farmhouse was a vegetable garden and a orchard with some beehives on one side.

Beyond that was a field of hemp which was used for making ropes. The family toddlers were always warned not to stay near the hemp field as it would give them nasty dreams.

In front of the farmhouse were fields where wheat, rye, oats, potatoes, millet, buckwheat and peas were grown.

Beyond the corn fields was a meadow, on which there was a row of oak trees growing, and beyond that was a wet meadow.

On the southern side of the estate was a canal which had a ford where cattle used to cross.

On the western side was a thick forest of ash, oaks, pines and some maple trees, where they used to go to pick bilberries and mushrooms.

On the southern side was a paddock for horses and a dark woodland of spruce and fir trees and beyond that was the village of Plotnica , or Mala Plotnica (Little Plotnitsa).

Paddock for horses

The family house


The barn with storks nest


The blooming orchard with beehives

The row of oak trees on the meadow

Forest of ash, oaks, pines and some maple trees

The dirt road to Mala Plotnica

Aleksander's wife was Ewelina Piotrowska (66.1 w), my grandmother.
Ewelina and Aleksander had four children, one of whom was my father.

Grandfather Aleksander died around 1929. There was only Orthodox cemetery at Plotnica, close to Zascianek, so grandfather was buried at Ploskinia (Ploskin, Ploskino) about 5 kilometers from Plotnica, at a Catholic cemetery.
Grandmother Ewelina died some years before him, due to illness, and was buried at the same cemetery at Ploskinia.

66.11 - The eldest daughter Bronislawa (Bronka) married Pawel Sloka. They lived on her father's property in Zascianek near Mala Plotnica, helping to manage the estate. They had four children: 2 daughters and 2 sons.

66.12 - Michal, my father, was the only son in the family. He was born on 20 October 1894 in "Nacz (Nach) estate" in Lachowicze area, Baranowicze district. Being a son, after the Primary school, he was sent to a college to receive further education. He went to Pinsk and studied in a College run by the catholic church (Jesuits). Later he went to a Russian Higher Technical College. At home, my father and his sisters had additional private lessons in Polish language and history which was not taught in schools during Russian times. The family attended church on Sundays, riding there in a light carriage drawn by horses.

66.13 - Emilia, the second daughter was born on 15 August 1897. She married Czeslaw, also Rymaszewski from the Rymaszewski clan, and moved to live in Malkowicze (Malkovichi). They had three sons. Click "More" to Family 67.11.

66.14 - Jadwiga (Jadzia), the youngest of three daughters, married Feliks Sarnacki. They had two children, a daughter and a younger son. They also continued to live in "Zascianek" estate.

===============================================

On grandfather Aleksander's death, his land was not divided among his children, as often was the contemporary practice.

My father, was not interested in farming. He had a good public service position, left the family land, and eventually settled in the main town Pinsk.

Emilia, the middle daughter, moved with her husband Czeslaw to Malkowicze where they had their own property, and Czeslaw was employed as a government forest ranger.

Only the eldest and the youngest daughters Bronia and Jadzia, with their husbands, continued to farm on grandfather's property in Zascianek.

In his youth, during school terms my father lived away from his country home in Zascianek. He was boarding in Pinsk, where he studied.

He completed 7 year Polish Private Secondary College (Gimnazjum) attached to the Jesuit Fathers Church and run by the Jesuits.

Market square with Jesuit Fathers' Church and College behind.
Pinsk : 1910

Street scene in Pinsk in 1912

Afterwards, my father attended a Russian Higher Technical College where he studied new sciences and technology of telegraphy, telephony and radio.

After graduation, at the age of 21, he obtained a job in the government Communications Services ("Svyazi sluzba") in Pinsk. He had a technical staff position in the Telephone and Cable Telegraph Office that used Morse code.

In Pinsk he met my mother Aleksandra Leszczynska who was native of Pinsk. Late in 1916 he married my mother. They were both aged 22.

Jesuit Fathers' Church and College in Pinsk circa 1920. The church was founded in 1646 by Polish prince A.St. Radziwill when Eastern Borderlands (Kresy) and Pinsk were part of Poland.

N.B. The church on the left was purposely destroyed (blown up) in 1953 by Communists during the Soviet occupation of Pinsk after the Second World War.

My mother Aleksandra (pet name OLESIA) aged 21 years and 9 months. Photo taken in Pinsk in 1916. 

This photo of Olesia is dated 30 August 1916, not long before marriage.  

Market square in Pinsk in 1910, when my mother was 16 year old.
Behind is Jesuit Fathers' Church and College.

 

• My parents married in the Polish Catholic church in Pinsk, still under Russian Tsarist rule.
  
  I remember seeing my parents' marriage certificate, written in Russian, dated 1916.
  
  
• On the certificate, my father's status was written as "dvoryanin" i.e. nobleman ("szlachcic") and my mother's as townswoman ("mieszczanka").
  
  
• 5 years later, the Constitution of newly independent and democratic Poland (post 1914 - 1918 war) made all people equal in law and finally discontinued the noble status in 1921.
  
  
• In 1940, during the Soviet occupation of Pinsk and my father's arrest and imprisonment the marriage certificate, together with other family documents were taken away by the Soviet Secret Police (NKVD).

During the First World War, Russia was engaged in the war with Germany. After two years, since late 1915, the Eastern Front came close to the territory where all Rymaszewski families lived. It become an arena of close combat between Germans and Russians. Living conditions drastically worsened for the population. The shifting frontiers left in their wake considerable damage and famine.

As the world war, the Russian revolution, and the civil war in Russia raged, the eastern frontier was in turmoil. Hundreds of thousands of inhabitants became refugees.

In March 1917 the Emperor of Russia, Tsar Nicholas II was overthrown, and later, in October, during the Bolshevik Revolution, was murdered by the communists together with all his family.

Then the Bolshevik Russia, a former member of Entente alliance, pulled out of the war with Germany and signed a separate armistice in December 1917. By the Treaty of Brest Litovsk in March 1918, they ceded Eastern Poland, the territory where the Rymaszewski families lived, to Germany.

My father got a postal job further east, in a small town named Zytkowicze (Zhitkovichi) on the railway line between Pinsk via Luniniec and Mozyr to Gomel. Their first son, Edward, was born to my parents in Zytkowicze on 11 July 1918. The country was then under German military and political occupation. By the end of 1918 however, Germany and Austria (the Central Powers), collapsed themselves.

The Poles then proclaimed an independent Polish republic and began, from November 1918, to disarm the Germans and form Polish local councils.

The eastern frontiers of Poland then became a theater of war against Bolshevik "Red" Army by anti-Bolshevik "White" Russian armies and others. My parents moved west with the refugees, past Warsaw to Lódz to now independent Polish territory.

German troops wearing Prussian spiked helmets entering Pinsk during WWI. On the left, a Jewish merchant in a horse cart.

Typical residents of Pinsk during the First World War under administration of German Garrison

In 1919 the Bolshevik Red Army, having crushed all counterrevolutionary forces inside Russia, now aimed to spread the international communism to Germany and Europe, but Poland stood in a way because Polish workers and peasants were too patriotic and religious to be interested in the communist revolution. So the Red Army attacked Poland.

POLISH - BOLSHEVIK WAR 1919 - 1920

During the Bolshevik attack, my father answered marshal Pilsudski's call for volunteers to save the newly won independence. He joined the Polish army. After the decisive battle near Warsaw, called "the Miracle of the Vistula", Russian Bolshevik armies were defeated and were driven back to Russia. An armistice between Poland and Russia was signed on 12 October 1920.

Father returned from the war front to my mother in Lódz for Christmas in 1920, to see for the first time his second son born in his absence. Zygmunt was born on 3 October 1920 in Stryków near Lódz.

In March 1921, by the Peace Treaty with the Soviets, Poland established her eastern frontiers which included many native areas of the Rymaszewski families. In the spring of 1921 my parents returned to family property in Zascianek in Polesie, Eastern Poland (Kresy). Then father got a Polish government position as the Postmaster in Hancewicze.

My mother's family was missing and their house in Pinsk was destroyed. Her father died, and her mother and one step-sister, escaping eastwards from the war front found themselves trapped in the Bolshevik Russia in Gomel.

My mother, as the only surviving heiress, successfully claimed her family's large block of town land in Pinsk.

<<<
MAP OF NORTH-EAST POLAND (1918 - 1939) WHERE THE RYMASZEWSKI FAMILIES LIVED.

 

In the north one can find Wilno (now Vilnius in Lithuania).

 

Then going south by train, past Lida and Baranowicze further down is Hancewicze (where I was born) and Malkowicze (where my father's sister Emilia lived with her family).

 

 

Then changing trains in Luniniec go west to Pinsk where we had our house and property, and I went to college. All places are now in Belarus.

My father, demobilized from Pilsudski's army, after Poland's armistice with the Bolshevik Russia, returned from Lódz with my mother and two infants Edward and Zygmunt to his parents land property in Zascianek, in 1921.

Father, with his technical qualifications, previous telecommunications experience (under Russia), and Polish army volunteer service, was offered a government position as the Postmaster in charge of the Post and Telegraph Office in Hancewicze (now Gantsevichi).

Hancewicze (is a town, situated on the railway line between bigger town of Baranowicze in the north and Luniniec in the south. I was born in Hancewicze in 1923, then my younger brother Zbyszek in 1926.

We had government accommodation. The front half of a large single storey building near the railway station was the Post Office and the other half at the back was our home. We also had a domestic servant.

HANCEWICZE : year approx. 1926

My father, the Postmaster in charge of the Post and Telegraph Office in Hancewicze, sitting at his desk in his office. His assistant, Mr Ansilewski, is standing beside him.

Notice the huge ledgers they used. On my father's left is his personal cable telegraph equipment. At that time the invention of the telegraph communications was regarded as modern a technology as the present day Internet.

Hancewicze springtime, about 1926.

My father (with a mustache, sitting on the right) during a visit on Easter Monday to Mr and Mrs Rusiecki (on the left).

Coloured Easter eggs on elevated glass plate in front of my father, and carafes of Polish vodka of various flavours including "krupnik".

My father's signature dated 23 June 1931 (rubber stamp underneath)

With Polish national flags displayed, a crowd in old Hancewicze is awaiting for somebody important to arrive - I was too young then to remember.

Catholic Church in Hancewicze

PHOTOS BELOW are of a friend of our family in Hancewicze Mrs. WERONIKA WOJTKIEWICZ (Pani Wojtkiewiczowa).

My First Communion in Hancewicze. I am sitting in the centre on the grass in front of the first priest on the left in a black cassock.

Thanks to an unexpected email sent to me in April 2007 by Mr. L. Blaszczyk from Poland, the photo below was miraculously retrieved from the perished records of my childhood and my past destroyed by Soviet Communism.

SEE Email No. 022


Myself with a young roe-deer and pani Wojtkiewiczowa in her garden next to her home and railway line in Hancewicze.
Circa 1930.

OF MY GRANDFATHER

I remember when my grandfather Aleksander (66.1), who lived in the country in Zascianek, visited us in Hancewicze around 1926. I was almost 3 years old.

It was summer and the two of us were standing together, outside the house. I remember the scene because, for the first time in my life, I saw something new in the sky. I saw a biplane! It was flying overhead in our path, making frightening noise! We both were craning our necks watching the thundering flying machine.

Grandfather died approximately two years later. I was around five years old and I also remember the night when he died. Father received a telephone-telegram and came home looking very pale and said to us: Children, "dziadek" has died. Kneel down and say a prayer for "dziadek", please.

I remember this event because the night sky over whole, mostly timber built Hancewicze was lit up with a bright glow. Somewhere, there was a very large fire in our town! The two events combined into a terrifying night for me. This fire glow, I thought, must have something to do with "the Death" in a white robe, with a scythe, who came to take "dziadek" away.

Later, when we lived in Pinsk and I was 15 just before the second world war broke out, I visited my grandfather's grave in Ploskinia (Ploskin) in the country with my father. When we knelt at the grave and quietly prayed, I glanced at my father and saw him..... crying. It was the first time in my life that I saw my father cry.

It was the last time too. In only 7 months time, it was I, who cried for my father when he was arrested in the middle of the cold winter night and led away into the darkness and snow by the invading Communist apparatus of terror - never to see him or hear from him again!

Coat of arms of Polish town Pinsk

Late autumn in 1931 my father was promoted to a position in Pinsk and we moved there by train, the furniture was loaded and sent beforehand by a freight-car. There was not much road transport in marshy Polesie. I was almost eight years old and I remember the day of departure, because the very first fine snow, heralding the coming winter, was gently falling and melting on the railway platform in Hancewicze while we waited for the train.

My father planned this move to give his children education and better opportunities in the district's large main town.

MAP OF PINSK published by Army Geographical Institute in a year 1925.

Our own, new house had just been built in Pinsk at no. 3, Ochowska street in 1931. Its loacation is marked thus:

Ochowska street is the diagonal street with the short left turn into Wodociagowa street.
No. 3 was on the inside corner of the street, where the star is.

Council's aproval to build our own house in Pinsk

PINSK

Pinsk and the river Pina

Pinsk and the bridge over river Pina

Market on market day

Pinsk Synagogue

STREET MAP OF PINSK dated 1936

My father was born on 20 October 1894 in "Nacz estate" near Lachowicze, Baranowicze district.

He held a position of General Manager of the Telephones and Telegraphs Office in Pinsk, a Department of the Public (Civil) Service.

Photo dated 1935

My father was a good man caring for his family and very kind to all. He was popular with his subordinates and neighbours, and had many friends, also among clergy. He was modest and rather shy person, definitely not an extrovert. Perhaps for this reason he did not accept a good offer for a position of a Regional Controller of Posts & Telegraphs, involving frequent travel to other Offices throughout the region.

Year 1936 - faded Kodak photo
My father, General Manager of the Telephones and Telegraphs Office in Pinsk, sitting at his desk in his office, and his personal secretary Irena (?).

Note the early telephone set (box on his left, with not visible handset on top), ink-stand, blotter, and abacus on the desk.

This photo was taken during Opening Day of a modern, new Main Post Office building in Pinsk built at Oginski's street. Selected members of the public were invited to inspect the offices and facilities.

Father, normally in a suit, wears a uniform of a senior postal officer. The uniforms were customarily worn for special official occasions like national anniversaries, ceremonies, etc.

My mother was born on 29 November 1894 in Pinsk.

Her parents owned a large block of land in Pinsk and a house, not far from the railway station. Her mother Anna, a widow with two daughters, married Mikolaj Leszczynski and my mother Aleksandra was their child.

Photo dated 1935

Aleksandra married my father in 1916 at the age of 22. At the outbreak of the Polish-Soviet war (1919-1920) my parents, with their one year old son Edward, moved with the refugees westwards past Warsaw to Lódz.

After their return to my father's family estate in Zascianek in 1921, mother discovered that during the war her family's house in Pinsk was destroyed and her elderly father died. Her mother Anna and one surviving step sister were caught up in the war upheaval and were swept by the Bolshevik troops into the USSR. Anna was not allowed to leave Communist Russia, where every citizen was practically a prisoner, and the contact with her was cut off during Stalin's terror. Anna lived and died in Gomel, Soviet Russia. My mother claimed inheritance of her family land in Pinsk.

Aleksandra, like most women of World War One generation, had only primary education. During our life in Pinsk she stayed at home looking after our family. At times we also had a sleep-in domestic servant.

We had no close relatives on my mother's side in independent Poland, except some family who lived in Pohost Zahorodski, Polesie (by a large lake), and I called them "uncle Jan and auntie".

They had two daughters, an elder one called Janinka(?) and a younger Malwinka, and their surname was Juszkiewicz, I think.

Their photo above, around 1926.

 

Edward (Edek), the first son, was born on 11 July 1918 in Zytkowicze (Zytkovichi), 150 km east of Pinsk - the place remained in Russia after the war just beyond the new 1921 Polish-Soviet border.

Edek had a domineering personality and he was a bit of a delinquent. He kept bad company and once run away from home. He liked outdoors, football, swimming, circus, movies. He kept rabbits in cages in our garden and had lots of pigeons in the roof of our storehouse. He was setting traps to catch birds with bright plumage.

He was quite intelligent but had frequent problems with schooling. So father sent him to a boarding college run by Salesian Fathers in Oswiecim near Cracow (During the war, under Nazi occupation the town Oswiecim became the notorious German Auschwitz).

Edward returned home much changed. He did a course in Warsaw, paid by father, and obtained combined Driving Licence and Motor Mechanic Diploma, which for those times was quite useful.

Then, with his driving ability in not yet very motorized Poland (railway was the main transport), Edward got a job in Parcels Department of the Main Post Office in Pinsk, no doubt recommended by my father.

This photo of 18 year old Edward was copied from his Motor Mechanic Diploma combined with Driving Licence, awarded on 2 October 1936 in Warsaw.

Zygmunt was born on 3 October 1920 in Lódz (Stryków), Poland.
Zygmunt was musical and liked singing, so father bought him a violin and arranged violin lessons for him.

However, he did rather poorly at School. So father decided to send him to an Agricultural College. It was a good boarding college in Duboy near Pinsk, which he attended till the war broke out in 1939.

 

Zygmunt, around 1938, age 18.

Zbigniew (Zbyszek), the youngest of four boys, was born on 8 May 1926 in Hancewicze, Polesie.

He went to State Primary School No.2 in Pinsk.

He was very close to me and used me as his mentor.

 

Zbyszek, 10 years old in 1936

I am 11 years old and I have just completed year 5 of Primary School in Pinsk in June 1935


6 July 1936. I am 12 years old and I had just completed year 6. Also I had passed tough entrance exams to enter a Grammar College "gimnazjum" in Pinsk.

Prewar Polish 30 groszy postage stamp: Ignacy Moscicki, the President of Poland

Prewar Polish 25 groszy postage stamp: Smigly-Rydz, marshal of the Polish Army

Prewar Polish banknote, value two zlotys, dated 1936

Prewar Polish 20 groszy coin

I was born on 25 October 1923 in Hancewicze, Polesie.

I was called Franek and I was praised at school and home for very good study results. I was chosen for school plays, student's committees, etc. Father regarded me as his "namiestnik" (deputy and successor). They forecast good future for me. It was a bit worrying to live up to these expectations. But I always did my best as I did not want to disappoint my father.

Being the only reliable son, I did responsible errands for my father such as, for example, taking money to the bank to pay his bills of exchange, etc. On the other hand I had privileges. I had my own new bicycle. I had a Savings Bank passbook (PKO) to deposit my allowances which were to be used for school necessities. But sometimes I got tempted to buy gellato ice-cream and had to fiddle my records. Father bought me a full 12 volumes Gutenberg Encyclopedia. He also announced that all his books in his library are now mine and I could subscribe to a book club. Sometimes he took me to cinema to an educational film and often we went on bicycle trips to nearby forest (he had a bicycle too, to go to office). We rode on footpaths alongside the railway tracks. During our trips I learned a lot of interesting things from our discussions.

My Colege:
A modern Grammar school preparing for the university, which I attended for four years from 1 September 1936 till my arrest by the Soviet Terror Police and deportation to Siberia on 13 April 1940.

Photo: The Józef Pilsudski College (Gimnazjum and Liceum) at Kosciuszko Street in Pinsk. Photo, taken from a small park on the opposite side of Kosciuszko street, in 1935.

Photo of myself at home in our garden during summer vacation in 1939.
Five weeks before the outbreak of war on 1st September 1939.
I am 15 years old and I have passed to final matriculation year of "gimnazjum". I am wearing my college jacket with college badge on my left upper arm.

My certificate of compulsory smallpox vaccination issued on 2 July 1935 by the Pinsk City Council Health Centre, signed by Dr. A. Michaylov.

Catholic church in Pinsk, a cathedral at Kosciuszko street built in 1396, 14th century Kingdom of Poland. Photo taken about 1930 when it was renamed Saint Virgin Mary Cathedral.

The shop in front of bell tower belonged to Stefan Bednarski whose son Jerzy was my classmate in Gimnazjum and a friend. The shop was moved to 31, Kosciuszko Street on the other side. It was a bookshop and stationary shop. See the student's pocket diary opposite which I bought there. They also were an agency for Travel Bureau "Orbis", I think.

The cover of my student's pocket diary prepared on a patriotic theme in anticipation of an approaching war with Germany. Published when the war started in 1939, just before the Red Army invaded Poland and entered Pinsk, when it was forbidden to be sold.

Above, from left :
66.12w - Aleksandra (my mother, age 42)
66.123 - Franek (myself, age 13)
66.121 - Edek (my brother, age 18)
66.124 - Zbyszek (my brother, age 10)
66.122 - Zygmunt (my brother, age 16)
66.12   - Michal (my father, age 42)

My parents in 1934, and the view of our large back garden. Our white little dog "Sniezek" is at mother's feet sniffing something in the grass.

We had a very large block of land filled with beautiful gardens each end of our house. Also a separately fenced flower garden with two benches in it, on which I sat reading books, while admiring and smelling flowers.

In the gardens there were raspberry and other berry bushes, nut and fruit trees, sunflowers, all the vegetables you can imagine, even lots of potatoes which we stored in the cellar for the winter. Also we stored large barrels of sauerkraut and Polish dill cucumbers, all grown in our garden. The gardens had a deep black soil.

We picked cherries from our own cherry trees for father to make the wines and for mother to make candied cherries.

The gardens with its insects, caterpillars, butterflies, dragon flies, birds, etc. and the nice fresh things to pick and eat, were my enchanting land and a wonderful world of discovery of life around me.

What has become of our home
and garden in PINSK?

Typical river scene in Pinsk in 1930s.
Transport of timber logs on river Pina assembled as floating rafts.

Two Orthodox Jews poring over a Hebrew religious book in Pinsk, 1924

IMAGES OF PREWAR PINSK
AND POLESIE - 1938

THE GYPSIES IN PINSK - 1938

Boleslaw was living with his wife and family on his own estate probably in the Lachowicze area, Baranowicze district. He married Izabela Dziedzielewicz. Boleslaw and his wife Izabela had three children. When the children grew up and left home, Boleslaw moved to live with his son Czeslaw in Malkowicze.

THEIR CHILDREN : 2 SONS AND 1 DAUGHTER

67.11 - Czeslaw RYMASZEWSKI (1897 ? - 1946). The eldest son, married Emilia Rymaszewska, my father's sister, and moved to live in Malkowicze. See (MORE

67.12 - Konstanty RYMASZEWSKI (1898? - ?). Second son, emigrated to the USA in the early 20 century and lived in New York, where he owned a hotel.

67.13 - Janina RYMASZEWSKA (1900? - ?). Daughter Janina became a schoolteacher in Kartuska Bereza. She married an army officer named Adamczyk who was an army topographic surveyor. Czeslaw's son (67.112), my cousin Mietek, vaguely remembers that Adamczyk's son probably emigrated to Australia.

Czeslaw volunteered to the Polish Army under marshal Pilsudski during the Polish-Soviet war in 1919-1920, same as my father did, and he was wounded at Bobrujsk (Belarus).

After the war Czeslaw had a government position as a ranger in the forestry department in Malkowicze. Also he owned a house and a farm.

Malkowicze (now Malkavichi) is a small town in the very heart of the Polesian forest, situated on the railway line between bigger town of Baranowicze in the north (now Baranavichi) and Luniniec in the south (now Luninets). There were huge forests all around Malkowicze with lots of various wild life.

Emilia, was the younger sister of my father. She was my best and loved aunt. She married Czeslaw, from the Rymaszewski clan, with the same surname as ours. See also "Previous" (Emilia 66.13).

 

They had three boys, as follows

THEIR CHILDREN : 3 SONS

Photo of Emilia, aged 20 years, and her husband Czeslaw taken in Luniniec about 1917 still in Russian tsarist times by a Jewish photographer Globerman

Witold, their first son was born on 11 November 1919.

Mietek, the second son was born on 1 February 1921. He was talented and imaginative. He loved exploring forests around Malkowicze. In year 2000 he sent me a letter from England, where he now lives, in which he described those times (see below).  

The letter includes a photo of the church in Malkowicze built by his grandfather Boleslaw Rymaszewski. Under the Soviet occupation the communists, implementing their policy of robbing Eastern Poland, demolished the church and removed the materials to Russia.

Romuald, the youngest son was born in 1926.

PHOTO: Storks were migrating to Zascianek every summer. There were plenty of frogs, etc. in the marshes nearby to feed their young.



• Bronislawa, my father's eldest sister (1893 ? - 1997) married Pawel SLOKA (1893 ? - 1975). They lived on land in Zascianek, which was my grandfather's estate.
  They had two girls Irena and Lodzia, and two boys Rysiek and Maniek.
  
• Jadwiga, my father's youngest of three sisters (1900 ? - 1975 ?) married Feliks SARNACKI (1900 ? - 1945 ?). They had a daughter Bogusia (Boguslawa) and younger son Gienek.
  They also lived on land in Zascianek.

A BIT OF HISTORY:
I remember how my father was telling us that our Rymaszewski family was descended from a family of Polish knights. The descendants became a nobility that held lands in the area of Grand Duchy of Litva.

During the partition of Poland, between Austria, Germany and Russia, that part of Poland was held by Russia.

After the infamous Confederacy of Targowice, which was attended by the Radziwill family, my family's ancestors had joined the Confederation of Bar, led by the family's neighbour Tadeusz Reytan. This resulted in substantial confiscation of their lands by the Russians, but the traitors of Targowice held theirs. This was a very dark hour in the history of Poland.

After that Rymaszewskis spread out. Some achieved prominence in towns and held various positions. One of them was a professor of physics and chemistry in Moscow's university and was exiled to Siberia for working with the Polish underground for liberation of Poland.

My paternal grandfather, Boleslaw (67.1), was a builder and specialized in building churches, schools and other bigger buildings. My maternal grandfather, Aleksander (66.1), was running his farming estate.

Some of my childhood was spent on my maternal grandfather's estate called Zascianek. Even today when I'm over eighty, I almost see the mist over the meadows and among the oak trees on the estate. For description of the estate, see Aleksander Rymaszewski (66.1) above.

Later on, my father took the forester's job and we went to live in a place called Zawierzenie, in the middle of the forest, where there was a big house with an office and another smaller house where a ranger lived. The ranger was a Russian emigrant-exile, who was a policeman before the Bolshevik revolution. He lived with his wife and a daughter called Vala. They were teaching her Russian. She was about two years older than me and as children we were playing together and I was learning Russian even quicker than she did.

Later on I started going to school in nearby village called Lipsk. My older brother Witold and I had to go to that school through the forest some three kilometres away.

Then my father bought a house in Malkowicze, where we lived until the war. The house stood on the grounds of one and a half hectares. Father still worked as a forester as well as running our farm.

My paternal grandfather Boleslaw Rymaszewski built a church on a small hill next to our property (see photo >>). When nine years ago I saw my younger brother Romuald in western Poland, where he was removed from Kresy, he told me that our old house in Malkowicze was burned down and the Russians had dismantled the church and taken the materials away. This they did so as to remove anything that was Polish. He had seen the ruins of our house and the outbuildings. Only the apple tree which I have grafted when I was about fourteen, was still growing.

Looking back at my childhood, I had a hard, working life, but fulfilling. When off school I was working for the state forest, surveying wet-meadows and dividing them into plots of one to two hectares for sale as hay-making meadows, or in autumn assessing the volume of trees in compartments marked for felling, which amounted to millions of cubic meters.

I knew the forest and Pripet marshes well all around. In the summer time when I had any spare time after helping with hay-making and harvesting the corn, my favourite pastime was to take a canoe and paddle it along the canal to the river Cna (Tsna) which wound itself through the marshes, then to take one of many rivulets leading to small islands on the marshes, called "ostrowy", which were always well wooded and were frequented by deer, boar and other animals and were full of birds and insects. Get lost in the book and listen to the songs of birds of woods and marshes.

But the monsters like Stalin and Hitler put a stop to that tranquil peaceful existence, and fate took me across five continents.

A scene in Polesie marshes