"I just finished your book, and I wanted to pass along a huge thank you for your work - I enjoyed your book immensely. I enjoy reading biographies of "local" people and the combination of world history, an amazing journey of survival all through the compassionate and loving lens of a son looking for answers about his father was pretty special. Your book is really a stand out. Thank you for sharing."
-JM-
"I enjoyed your book, [it] serves as an inspiration towards working on my family history.
My father's family identified as Polish, but lived in the general vicinity of Minsk. My grandfather took part in the Russian / Polish border war of 1920-21. He ended up on the Polish side of the border that was eventually established, though his parents and siblings ended up in what became Byellorussia and eventually Belarus. My grandfather lost contact with his family. Travel was very restricted across the Polish / Soviet border. He was granted 20 hectares of bush for his service which he turned into a small farm, which is where my father spent his early years. My grandfather died of pneumonia in 1938. When WWII started, my father's area was occupied by Soviet forces. Although my grandfather had already died, the family was deported to the Gulag in February 1940. Families of veterans of that war, as well as other groups that tended to be nationalistic tended to be the target of deportation. A few years ago, a member of the family did some research and found records of my great-grandmother and some of my grandfather's siblings. It turned out that most had been executed by the NKVD about 1938 because my grandfather had served on the Polish side during the 1920-21 border war. It is probably a blessing that my grandfather would never have known about that.
My father, his mother, one brother and two sisters spent some time at the Gulag camp at Kotlas.just west of the Ural mountains. It was a labour camp where the men had to go logging. My father was a young teen and the oldest of the family. He and his siblings were sent to school where they were taught Russian and taught positive things about the USSR and Stalin.
My father eventually ended up in Anders' Army, though underage. Since he joined the army, the rest of the family was able to follow along. The females (my grandmother and two aunts spent time in Isfahan in Iran) supported by the British. My dad and his brother became Junaks (sort of like cadets) and spent some time in Palestine. My dad eventually ended up in a Polish unit of the Royal Air Force. He was 17 when the war ended, but had been trained as an instrument technician on planes.
The area the family lived in became part of Belarus when the border was moved after WWII.
Once he was demobbed after the war, he ended up in England. He did construction work for a few years. His brother did some work too. His mother and sisters spent some time at a Polish Resettlement Corps camp. My dad didn't feel like he would fit in in England and in 1949, went to Argentina with some friends. He met my mother (who is of Polish background) there. The rest of the family went to Toronto in 1952. My parents joined them in 1956 and I was born two years later.
I have some research ideas from your book, such as looking up British military records. I've been working on my family history for some years."
-JH-
