Escape from Siberia, Escape from Memory An Odyssey Across Two Oceans & Nine Countries to Arrive Home
Pawel Wojdak (pronounced Voy-dak) was Polish - but born in Siberia, probably in 1912. His life-story is interwoven with, and inseparable from the course of Polish-Russian history. Poles in Russia were caught in the cross-hairs of world war, shifting alliances, and the birth of communism. They were unfairly denounced as enemies of the Russian people. Cruelty, rampant disease and severe cold compounded the troubles of the many thousands of Polish refugees in Siberia. Pawel Wojdak's mother and father died, somewhere, under these conditions. A Polish Rescue Committee in Vladivostok, in far eastern Siberia, searched for the children of desperate, collapsing families, knowing not everyone could be saved. Seven-year-old Pawel Wojdak was found in Manchuria, his birth date was unknown and his identity uncertain. The Rescue Committee appealed to Japan. Japan responded by transporting 765 Polish children, aged 2 to 16 and including Pawel Wojdak, to Japan to restore them to good health and facilitate their travel to Poland. The children's stay in Japan was only three months but the warmth, medical care and kindness they received left an indelible mark. Virtually all of them recalled their Japanese experience fondly. Pawel Wojdak was able to proudly sing the national anthem, Kimi Ga Yo, forty years later. Poland was reborn as a free country in 1919 by international treaty, from the wreckage of world war. But Russia did not accept the new nation, the Polish-Soviet war prevented the children's travel to their native land for nearly two years. Pawel Wojdak and over 300 Siberian children went to America, distributed among a dozen orphanages. Some remained there but most went to Poland, despite never having lived there and having no family. The Siberian children were young adults when Poland was invaded by Germany and Russia to begin World War II. Their lives were profoundly affected again, either during the German occupation or by the subsequent Russian "liberation." After military service in Italy, Pawel Wojdak was unable to return safely to a Poland, once again ruled by Russia. Like many other Poles, he went to the United Kingdom and subsequently to Canada. Under Russian rule, the story of the Siberian children was suppressed in Poland and forgotten in Japan. However, the bond of friendship formed between Poland and Japan endured. Since released from the Russian yoke in 1990, the story of the Siberian Children is being told openly by people in Poland, Japan and elsewhere. People who experienced emotional trauma, such as soldiers in war, are averse to speaking of it. Many experience post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD), an umbrella term for a host of symptoms that includes memory loss. Forgetting a bad experience is a means of survival. The effects of emotional trauma on children are more severe, such as witnessing the death of a parent. Memory is fluid, it can be reshaped, reformed. A traumatized mind can create an alternative reality, or adopt the experience of another person. These phenomena were evident in Pawel Wojdak. He was unable to tell me about his early life. Consequently, my book utilizes the experiences of other Siberian children to relate what he could not. Investigation of his family origins in Poland are intriguing but inconclusive. Many questions concerning Pawel Wojdak's life remain - can we ever truly know and understand the past?
