"Mój ojciec płakał gdy się dowiedział co się stało z Polską o którą tak walczył. Pozostał za granicą z całą rodziną w nadzieji, że stan polityczny po WWII zmieni losy Polski,gdyby nawet zaszła potrzeba dalszego poświęcenia. Zmarł w Ameryce jako Polak. Pod żadnym względem nie chciał przyjąć Amerykańskiego obywatelstwa. Mógł mieć wszystkie prawa i przywileje weterańskie, ale on nie ,sprzeda własnej Ojczyzny.'"
Barbara Kocuba Bik, Florida, USA. Born 1929, Lwów, deported to Russia in 1940; lived in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon from 1942-46; 1947-51 lived in England and then emigrated to the USA in 1951.
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Polish Orphanage, Santa Rosa, Mexico.
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"My daughter found out what had happened to my father in 1993. He was captured by the Germans in 1939 and imprisoned in Stalag 7-A, number 1968. After the War ended they, (the Americans), left those who were very ill behind in the camp; my father must have been very ill and so he died there."
Maria Zak Szklarz, Illinois, USA. Born 1926 in Nowogródek, Poland, deported to Russia in 1940. From 1940 to 1943 she was in Russia, Iran, and India, arriving in Mexico in 1943. She emigrated to the USA in 1948.
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High School girls at the Polish Orphanage in Mexico.
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Field trip in Santa Rosa, Mexico. From the collection of Maria Zak Szklarz.
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Anita Paschwa-Kozicka and friends at the Polish Orphanage in Mexico, 1944.
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Maria Zak Szklarz and friends in Santa Rosa, Mexico.
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“I remember a visit from the ‘Old Polonia’ to the orphanage (in Chicago). Some women came to see what these Polish orphans looked like. We were standing in a circle and one of them threw a 5 cent coin on the floor: she wanted to see which one of us would pick it up and keep it. None of us picked it up, so she said: “you’re not hungry, you’re from Poland, from Siberia, but you don’t want to pick up the money.’
They (the Old Polonia) treated us badly; we were called ‘DPs’, the words hurt a lot. They used to say that they had been sent DPs from Chicago whom they didn’t need as we would eat their bread.
The orphanage had given us to understand that we would finish our schooling in the USA. Instead we were sent out as servants to the wealthy in the suburbs. I used to go to sleep every night in tears saying: ‘I will not be a Polish maid.’”
Anita Paschwa-Kozicka, Michigan, USA. Born 1929, Rokitno, Poland. Deported to Siberia in 1940. In 1942 she was placed in an orphanage in Iran from where she was sent to a Polish orphanage in Mexico. In 1946 she came to the USA and eventually received a BA and MA.
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New Orphanage Building, Santa Rosa, Mexico, 1945.
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Panorama of Santa Rosa Colony, New Mexico.
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Stella Synowiec-Tobis at the orphanage, Santa Rosa, Mexico, 1944.
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“I want to leave you, dear reader, with the following thought:
I hope that reading my book has left you with a positive feeling about us Poles. After so many years of suffering and longing for our Homeland, we still carry love for Poland in our hearts.
I am hopeful that the pain brought on by reliving my past will serve everyone in a positive way, by showing how we should love and treasure the country in which we live…. I am hopeful that there will be more respect, love, and appreciation for your moms and dads, who are always there to help and give you all that is within their means and possibilities. I have written this book with love and respect for my parents, teachers, for Poland, and for my adopted country, the United States.
Allow me, dear reader, to finish my books with this thought:
My Dearest Mother,
For 55 years, I carried you in my heart. For 55 years, I searched for the site of your grave, where, exhausted and heartbroken from the loss of your two little girls, you died. For 55 years, my sister and I shed tears on all the continents of the world for you. For 55 years, I could not place flowers on your grave.
Now, at the time when I am concluding this book, I am placing a bouquet of wild Polish flowers on your grave, wherever it might be. The same wildflowers, which I picked for you during the summer of 1939. The same flowers, which you took with a smile and placed on our family’s small altar in the corner of our dining room, that summer when we were all happy, free and in our beloved HOMELAND, Poland.”
Stella Synowiec-Tobis, ‘The Fulfillment of Visionary Return.’ ARTPOL Printing, USA, 2nd edition 2002. She was born in 1928 in Brantowce, Poland, in 1940 deported to Siberia; her mother was lost to her during the journey to Iran: she got off the train at Vologda Station to look for food for her children and the train left without her. Stella and her sister were at the Santa Rosa Polish Orphanage in Mexico from 1943-46, at which point she emigrated to the USA.
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