First Teruo in 2024 and then Wieslaw in 2026. They are both gone now, dead at 81 and 80 years of age and I am very, very sad. Teruo Matsumoto and Wieslaw Theiss were collaborators in research of "Siberian Children", 765 Polish children rescued from Siberia by Japan in 1920-1922 during the violence and misery of the Russian Civil War. They came from widely different backgrounds; Wieslaw was a Polish sociologist and educator, Teruo was Japanese and a journalist who came to Poland as a graduate student to document life in the Soviet system. He remained for his entire career. The Siberian Children story reflects poorly on Russia, hence it was repressed for fifty years, from 1940 to 1990 while Russia controlled Poland. The story became poorly known - but not forgotten.
The Siberian children who survived World War II were pleased to encounter a Japanese person in Poland, to tell Teruo of their treasured time in the "land of cherry blossoms". They responded to him just as my father responded to a Japanese furnace repairman in Canada in 1960 to salute him by singing Kimigayo, the Japanese anthem. Teruo Matsumoto's instinct as a journalist told him there was an important story to be found.
Wieslaw Theiss studied how totalitarian regimes of Russia and Germany corrupted education and socialization of Polish children during and after the War. They were deprived of personal memory of their parents and cultural memory. Theiss characterized the "wandering child" as one deprived of roots, denationalized and without cultural memory. This analysis gave me better understanding of my father's personality.
The research interests of Teruo Matsumoto and Wieslaw Theiss were a perfect match, they worked together closely for more than 40 years in their study of the Siberian Children. Teruo unearthed forgotten records in Japan, in cooperation with Eiko Uto, Professor Emeritus at the University of Senshu, one of the most respected institutions in Japan. Wieslaw interviewed dozens of the grown-up children to document their memories of life and family in Siberia, their experience and emotions in Japan, and their arrival in Poland. To rebuild free Poland was the dream of parents and rescuers.
My father was a Polish orphan unable to tell me about his early life. There were memory fragments from Japan and America like scattered fall leaves, from which I had to imagine the tree from whence they came. It was impossible - until Teruo Matsumoto confirmed my father's name on the list of Siberian Children, first rescue mission. That enabled me to glimpse the tree that shed those clues, those fall leaves. The tree trunk was his journey from Siberia to Fukudenkai, St Joseph care home in Milwaukee, and then Poland. Wieslaw Theiss explained many children went from a Polish orphanage, probably Mielzyn for my father, to a farm as a child-labourer. Branches of the tree are still missing and I cannot see the roots, his family origins in Poland.
I met Teruo and Wieslaw for the first time in 2019 at Wejherowo, the wonderful care home where one-half of the Siberian Children were housed in the 1920s. I have retraced my father's journey by visiting Tsuruga, the Port of Humanity Museum, Fukudenkai and Polish Museum of America in Chicago. I have been to the Manghaa Museum in Krakow and the Sybir Museum in Bialystok. I have attended gatherings of descendants in Warsaw and Tokyo, and made many friends among them. I wrote my father's life story - Escape from Siberia, Escape from Memory, and presented it at libraries, conferences and even to the Ambassadors of Japan and Poland.
All my accomplishments began from Teruo Matsumoto and Wieslaw Theiss. I am deeply grateful and I lament their loss.
The Siberian children who survived World War II were pleased to encounter a Japanese person in Poland, to tell Teruo of their treasured time in the "land of cherry blossoms". They responded to him just as my father responded to a Japanese furnace repairman in Canada in 1960 to salute him by singing Kimigayo, the Japanese anthem. Teruo Matsumoto's instinct as a journalist told him there was an important story to be found.
Wieslaw Theiss studied how totalitarian regimes of Russia and Germany corrupted education and socialization of Polish children during and after the War. They were deprived of personal memory of their parents and cultural memory. Theiss characterized the "wandering child" as one deprived of roots, denationalized and without cultural memory. This analysis gave me better understanding of my father's personality.
The research interests of Teruo Matsumoto and Wieslaw Theiss were a perfect match, they worked together closely for more than 40 years in their study of the Siberian Children. Teruo unearthed forgotten records in Japan, in cooperation with Eiko Uto, Professor Emeritus at the University of Senshu, one of the most respected institutions in Japan. Wieslaw interviewed dozens of the grown-up children to document their memories of life and family in Siberia, their experience and emotions in Japan, and their arrival in Poland. To rebuild free Poland was the dream of parents and rescuers.
My father was a Polish orphan unable to tell me about his early life. There were memory fragments from Japan and America like scattered fall leaves, from which I had to imagine the tree from whence they came. It was impossible - until Teruo Matsumoto confirmed my father's name on the list of Siberian Children, first rescue mission. That enabled me to glimpse the tree that shed those clues, those fall leaves. The tree trunk was his journey from Siberia to Fukudenkai, St Joseph care home in Milwaukee, and then Poland. Wieslaw Theiss explained many children went from a Polish orphanage, probably Mielzyn for my father, to a farm as a child-labourer. Branches of the tree are still missing and I cannot see the roots, his family origins in Poland.
I met Teruo and Wieslaw for the first time in 2019 at Wejherowo, the wonderful care home where one-half of the Siberian Children were housed in the 1920s. I have retraced my father's journey by visiting Tsuruga, the Port of Humanity Museum, Fukudenkai and Polish Museum of America in Chicago. I have been to the Manghaa Museum in Krakow and the Sybir Museum in Bialystok. I have attended gatherings of descendants in Warsaw and Tokyo, and made many friends among them. I wrote my father's life story - Escape from Siberia, Escape from Memory, and presented it at libraries, conferences and even to the Ambassadors of Japan and Poland.
All my accomplishments began from Teruo Matsumoto and Wieslaw Theiss. I am deeply grateful and I lament their loss.
