The end of war - 8th May 1945

• During the war, behind the front-line Soviet troops, NKVD - the Soviet communist party atrocity machine entered Polish territory and began the persecution of Polish patriots.
• In 1945, the Stalinist night descended upon Poland, followed by the drama and farce of the communist "Polish People's Republic" (Polska Republika Ludowa - PRL).
• New waves of arrests and deportations to gulags took place, similar to those during the occupation of the Eastern Poland (1939-1941) when I was deported. This time members of Polish Underground Army who, in contact with Free Polish Government in London, resisted German occupation, were especially targeted as well as their families.
• During the period from 1944 to 1953 around 750 000 people were deported from Poland to slave camps in the USSR. Very few survived.
• The whole population was trapped inside the country under communist dictatorship and was ruled by fear hunger and lies.
• The communist way of operating always followed three steps : deceit, crime and lie.
     step 1 - planning an effective DECEIT
     step 2 - executing a ruthless CRIME
     step 3 - justifying with a gross LIE

A Soviet-controlled communist government ruled Poland from 1945 to 1989.

My younger brother Zbigniew, born on 8 May 1926, was deported to USSR by Soviet Secret Police from Pinsk, Poland on 13 April 1940. He was sent to Siberia as a slave labourer, a convict, still being a boy not quite 14 years old. What was his crime? In the eyes of Communism he was the son of a "class enemy", a son of a postal public servant , who "served" the Polish capitalist society.

When the Soviet Union got involved in the war with Germany, Zbigniew, with Soviet citizenship imposed on him, was called up to the Red Army in 1943 as a 17 year old recruit. Soon he was sent to fight on the Eastern front in Europe with hardly any training. He was wounded in Budapest, Hungary, by the river Nisa.

In 1946, at the end of the war, he was sent to USSR to be demobilized. But on his way back passing through Czechoslovakia he jumped his military train and, in the post war chaos of refugee movements, made his way to Poland.

20 year old Zbigniew had no home to go to in Poland. His family and Pinsk were no longer in Poland and he was alone. He met a girl, 5 years older than himself, married her two years later in 1948, and they lived in apartment in Lódz, at 23/10 Poludniowa Street, moving later to apartment at 45/10 Wschodnia Street.

In Communist Poland, he had difficulties with access to education and advancement in employment because he was former convict deportee - a son of "class enemy", and later was blacklisted by discovery that he had two brothers abroad in a capitalist, i.e. "enemy" country, who served in the Polish Army and did not return to Poland after the war.

Around 1952, still in Stalinist times, he wrote on the toilet wall at his place of work a short sarcastic rhyme referring to hard life in the country. It was something like that: "Poor unfortunate hen, she hung herself on a tree branch, she could not endure the socialist 5-year egg production plan". Without explanation, all personnel in his workplace were required to write then and there their CV ("curriculum vitae"). Such order was not an unusual occurrence under communism and did not create any suspicion. Zbigniew's handwriting was compared with the graffiti on the wall and was recognized. He was arrested by the secret political police, accused of anti state "propaganda" i.e. criticizing the People's Republic, sentenced and served one year imprisonment.

Photo of Zbigniew in 1952 - aged 26


Photo of Zbigniew working in
a dairy products factory

His health was ruined by hardships in Siberia, Soviet military war service and misery of Communist Poland. He died in hospital during an operation on 13 January 1986 at the age of 59, same as his wife Frania. He was buried at St.Anna cemetery in Zarzew, Lódz (grave location 85.8.10).

Franciszka (Frania) was born on 12 January 1921 in Marcanowo near Warsaw. Frania worked as an intercity and international telephonist in Lódz Post Office and Telephone Exchange.

Zbyszek's wife, Frania,died in 1980 at the age of 59, six years before Zbyszek.

Frania in 1952 - aged 31

1946 - REPATRIATION  OF  POLES  FROM  THE  FORMER EASTERN  POLAND  
AND  THE  USSR  AFTER  THE WAR

After the end of war, many surviving Polish convicts and deportees to the USSR, as well as Poles living in the eastern part of Poland occupied by the Soviets from 1939 to 1941 and again after the end of war (the lands of Rymaszewski families), all former Polish citizens, were repatriated to post war Poland by Soviet rulers in a deceitful "gesture of goodwill". This move was calculated to ethnically cleanse the occupied lands and to consolidate influence and absolute control and communization of post war Poland which they planned to include in their Soviet empire.

The repatriates from the remote areas of the USSR, like my mother and my relatives, were not returned to their own homes and possessions. Their lands in Eastern Poland were officially annexed as part of the USSR proper, as a result of the Soviet-Nazi collusion in 1939, and later confirmed by the Yalta agreement between Russia and the Allies in 1945.

Most of the repatriates were settled in the west of Poland in the so called "Regained Territories".

Note : In 1956, after Stalin's death, there was another repatriation of former Polish citizens from the eastern part of Poland annexed by the USSR.

After the war in 1946 Bronislawa's family was repatriated from the Soviet Union to communist Poland and was settled in the "regained territories". They lived in a village Wielka Bieda, near Biernatowo and Trzcianka, Poznan province. Wielka Bieda was later renamed to Jedrzejewo. Some of the descendants still live there. They all became farmers.

Bronislawa and her husband Pawel Sloka had two daughters : Irena (Irka) and Lodzia.   Irena married Mr. Glodny in Wielka Bieda. They had three children (girl, boy and an infant).

Lodzia, her second daughter, was repatriated to Poland from Soviet occupied Pinsk in 1956, with her two children Witek, aged 11 and Lucyna, aged 3. Ref: Email 034. Lodzia went to live with her parents and work on their farm in Wielka Bieda. (Lodzia married again and had two small boys with her second husband).

Lucyna, Lodzia's daughter married Edward Papiez and had four children, all boys, and four grandchildren. Most of them now live in Senguin, Texas, USA. See photo of Lucyna's Family in the USA.

Apart from their daughters, Bronislawa and her husband Pawel also had two sons. The youngest son Maniek had a job in a large town of Wroclaw, but he later died, living a wife and two children, a boy and a girl. The son Ryszard now lives in town Gniezno.

Bronislawa lived long on the farm with the families of her daughters, and died in 1997, outliving her husband by many years.

After the war Jadwiga returned with her two children from Siberia to communist Poland and was taken to town Nowa SóI in the "regained territories". The whereabouts of her husband Feliks, arrested by KGB, was not known.

Her son Eugeniusz (Gienek) who, after experiences of the Soviet exile and and the loss of his father, was suffering from melancholy and depression, died very young.

The daughter Boguslawa (Bogusia) also died young. Bogusia got married few years before her death and left some small children. I don't know their fate. At present Jadwiga, the mother, is also deceased.

After the war Emilia was similarly repatriated from her exile and slavery in Siberia to the "regained territories" in communist Poland. She found her sister Bronka in Wielka Bieda near Biernatowo and settled down next to her family.

The whereabouts of her husband Czeslaw and eldest son Witold, arrested by KGB, were not known to her at that time. She had no news of her second son Mieczyslaw (Mietek) since he left home in 1939 escaping from Communism. (His memoirs are on this website). The youngest son Romuald was conscripted, while still in Siberia, to Soviet run Polish "Kosciuszko" army.

In the Sixties Emilia moved to town Nowa Sól, district of Zielona Góra where her son Romuald was living, as well as her younger sister Jadwiga with the children .

Emilia lived long and died about 1997. She was my best auntie. She led a really Christian life, always helping and caring for others, never thinking about herself. Maybe that was the secret of her longevity.

My cousin Witold is the eldest son of my father's sister Emilia (66.13) and my uncle Czeslaw Rymaszewski (67.11) from Malkowicze.

After late release from Soviet gulag in the north of USSR, Witold did not make it to the general Anders Army which was already evacuated to the Middle East. Instead he was sent to a Polish army which was formed by the Russians, called "Kosciuszko Army". The army was under Soviet Command. He took part in the fighting on the Eastern war front on Polish and German soil and in the liberation of Berlin. He was wounded twice and reached the rank of captain.

Returning from the war he settled in the "regained territories", got married with Anna and lived in town Wroclaw.

Witold died on 4 July 2004. As an officer war veteran he had a military funeral and was buried in the Combatants Alley in Wroclaw cemetery on 9 July. His army superior, a colonel, was present at the ceremony

67.111 w - Anna Zieleniewska (1921 ? - )  (wife).

Witold and Anna had 2 sons and 1 daughter:
67.1111 - Ryszard (Rysiek), first son (see below).
67.1112 - Leon (Lolek), second son. I have no information of his fate.
67.1113 - Irena (Irka), the youngest child, married Janusz Czerniecki and they had a son Marcin and a daughter Martynka. Unfortunately Irena died early at the age of 52 due to illness.

Ryszard (Rysiek), the eldest son of Witold (67.111) above , married Barbara (Basia ) and they had a son:
67.1111.1 - Marjusz (pronounced Maryush).

Ryszard's second wife was Elzbieta (Elisabeth) and they had a son named:
67.1111.2 - Witold (after his grandfather).

Ryszard lives in Wroclaw, ul. Igielna 17 m.2, and now provides general building services. Telephone (71) 3723282. He and his son Marjusz can speak English.

At the age of 14, Romuald (Romek) was deported by the Soviets to Siberia as a slave labourer with his mother and grandfather. Grandfather died in Siberia from hard work and starvation. Romek's father Czeslaw perished in Soviet prison.

During the German-Soviet war he was too young in 1942 to reach and join the Polish general Anders army in Russia which was evacuated abroad. But at the age of 17 he was enlisted into the Soviet controlled Polish "Kosciuszko Army" and sent to the eastern war front. In the army he advanced to the rank of sergeant.

After the war Romek found his mother Emilia repatriated to Poland to the "regained territories", joined her in Wielka Bieda, and for some time worked there on his uncle and aunt's Bronislawa farm

Romuald married Lucyna from Jacyna family and moved to a town Nowa Sól in the district of Zielona Góra where he lived at ul. Zielonogórska 2 m 3. They had a daughter and a son:
67.1131 - Teresa, born about 1952.
67.1132 - Andrzej. Andrzej died young in suspicious circumstances.

Romuald's second wife was Maria and their only child was : 67.1133 - Grzegorz (PREVIOUS — MORE) .
He was born on 19 July 1970 in Nowa Sól. When his father and mother died, Grzegorz emigrated to Canada.

Romuald died on 24 June 1988, aged 62. The hardships of Siberia and Chernobyl took their toll. During the last year of his life he suffered from cancer of the throat.

In 1989 Poland was the first country in Eastern Europe to throw off the shackles of communist tyranny. Full national sovereignty was regained by 1992 with the withdrawal from Poland of most of the Soviet occupation troops (a process finally completed in August 1993).

Poland returned to Western civilization and Christianity where she always belonged. She gave the world the first non-Italian pope, John Paul II.

In 2000 Poland entered the third millennium with a feeling and a guarantee of security. In 1997 she became a full Member of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and on 1 May 2004 Poland became a full member of the European Union.

But the Poles decided to hold their own Victory Parade first. The first parade since the end of war that would see veterans from all the war fronts that the Poles fought from 1939 to 1945, marching together in free Warsaw, was held on 15th August 1992.

THE ONLY DESCENDANTS OF THE RYMASZEWSKI FAMILY FROM PINSK LIVING IN POLAND

Edward is my nephew, the son of my younger brother Zbigniew from Pinsk (66.124). Edward was born in Lódz in 1956 and lives in Lódz.

He endured hard life in the Polish People's Republic during which time his mother and father prematurely died. His sister Ewa (66.1241) managed to move away to England.

Edward completed secondary education at a Technical School, majoring in Economics. Later he changed his interests and qualified as a Master Tailor. After the return of democracy and introduction of free market economy in Poland, Edward started his own small tailoring business. He worked hard and saved hard and bought a plot of land in a suburb. Then, with great effort and masses of family sacrifices, he gradually built on this plot a nice house.

Unfortunately, years later when the children grew up, the parents divorced. Edward has moved to London nearer his sister Ewa. He worked for London Transport, renting a room in Edgeware. Recently he got a job as a private security man on the British island Jersey in the English Channel, close to France mainland.

66.1242 w - Iwona LOS   (wife)
Iwona was born on 8 December 1962 in Lódz
.

Iwona, in front of their house, and Eva, Edward's sister visiting from London in August 1999.

Photo of Iwona taken in August 1999 >>>

Michal was born on 6 July 1980 in Lódz.

At the suggestion of his grandfather (66.124), he was named after his great-grandfather Michal (66.12) who lived in Pinsk before the war and after Soviet invasion in 1939 had been executed by communist secret police.

Michal was interested in computers from an early age. Designing his first website entitled "Rymasz", he obtained good results in the all-Polish competition in Information Technology (ogólnopolska olimpiada informatyczna), at the age of 18.

Then Michal enrolled at the Faculty of Electronics and Electrical Engineering at the Lódz Technical University (Politechnika Lódzka). As his spare time hobby, Michal had set up at home his own server on which he was experimenting. He also studied English and now has a working knowledge of the language.

After successfully completing the second year in 2001, he was awarded a modest scholarship to continue his studies, and started to specialize in Internet technology and server applications.

On 6 December 2004 Michal completed his final year of studies with very good result and is now working for an IT firm in Lódz.

August 1999 : photo of 19 years old Michal

His email address is: mrymasz@poczta.onet.pl

Adrian was born on 4 April 1987 in Lódz.

Like Michal, he is interested in computers.
Apart from that, he is very good with his hands and his hobby is model making or model assembling.

Adrian attends Secondary College (Lyceum) in Lódz, studying mathematics and physics and achieving good results. He is now half way through his studies.

12 years old Adrian, August 1999 >>>