WWII: 'Never let such tyranny happen again'

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The horrors of the Second World War are well documented, but one of the less- publicised atrocities was the treatment of Polish civilians by Russia in Siberian camps.

Gulag in Siberia

Lech Gerak, chairman of the polish community has been awarded a medal after surviving a Siberian POW camp in WWII

LECH Gierak lovingly cradles his Cross of Deportees medal in his palm as he speaks of the ordeal it commemorates.

“In 1939 Poland was occupied by the Germans and the Russians,” recalls the 80-year-old. “The Russians said they had come to help us – but it wasn’t true. They sent more than four million of us to Siberian camps and two million never came home.

“I was sent there with my mother on April 13, 1940. People may think that this medal is just a piece of metal, but it is a reminder for future generations of how we suffered.”

The Polish government last week awarded the Cross of Deportees to Lech and 15 other local men from Derby’s Polish community in recognition of their hardship in the Second World War.

Lech, who lives in St Chad’s Road, Normanton, was born in Wilno, Poland, in 1926. His father was a bank manager and his mother a schoolteacher. This comfortable life was shattered in November 1939 when Russian soldiers came to Lech’s home and arrested his father because he fought against the Bolsheviks in the First World War. He was sentenced to 25 years’ imprisonment and taken to a slave labour camp, called a Gulag.

“When the Russians came for me and my mother we were given an hour to pack,” recalled Lech (80). “They put us on to a truck with around nine other families crammed into it.

“We didn’t know where we were going. We had one bucket in the corner that we all had to use as the toilet.

“Each day, a couple of the women were allowed to empty it. We were given a bucket of water between us and soup and bread to eat.

“That was how we lived for about four weeks while they took us from Poland to Sib- eria.”

Lech and his mother were taken to a camp between Omsk and Novosibirsk in south-west Siberia. On arrival, Lech was woken and a shovel thrust into his hands. He was told to start digging trenches under the supervision of Russian soldiers.

“They were laughing at us,” said Lech. “They said look at all the capitalists working for a change instead of living off the working class.

“There was no hygiene in the camp at all. We couldn’t get any soap and everyone was covered in lice and bugs.

“About five families had to share a bungalow where the walls and roof were made from turf.

“The place was covered in slugs and bugs that bit you very hard. The lice were as big as my thumbnail.”

Lech recalls leaving one of his lice-covered shirts out during the winter when temperatures dropped to -50. Even though the lice were frozen, once the weather warmed he was amazed to see them moving again.

“People were dying from dysentery, typhoid and starvation,” said Lech. “I used to go and collect grain from the fields and take it to the warehouse.

“The warehouse was always guarded until the night. On my last trip there was nobody there. I told all of the women to wait for me and I gave them grain and potatoes.”

When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, the Russians joined the Allies. Britain, together with exiled Polish leaders arranged an amnesty for all Poles on Russian territory.

“I jumped on a train and ran away to Tashkent where the Polish Army was recruiting,” said Lech.

“Then, I went to England in 1943 and joined the RAF. I was part of Squadron 303, a Polish fighter squadron famous for the highest number of kills in the Battle of Britain.

“The squadron was awarded the Virtuti Militari – Poland’s equivalent of the Victoria Cross.”

After the war, Lech came to Derby and married. He and wife Barbara, now aged 74, had three children Maxine, who is 56, Francis, now 53, and Roland, who became a Catholic priest but died of leukaemia in 1996. Lech also has six grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.

His father died in the 1950s in a Russian prison and his mother returned to Poland.

Lech visited her for the first time since the war in 1963, but she refused to return with him to the UK. She died in 1967.

“The Cross of Deportees is available to anyone who survived the Siberian camps,” said Lech. “I hope it will help my grandchildren understand the tyranny we were up against and ensure it never happens again.”

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This article is from the Derby Evening Telegraph and is reproduced online here.