The interview was recorded by the PILECKI INSTITUTE as part of the WITNESSES TO THE AGE project.
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Our today’s interviewee:
Andrzej Bohdanowicz (1932-2021), an exile to Siberia, one of the most famous poker players in communist Poland. He was born to a land-owning family from the Wilno region, who owned large estates near the border between Poland and the USSR. In the summer of 1939, his mother left for a sanatorium in Rabka Zdrój to receive a treatment. Right before the outbreak of the war, Andrzej’s father went to visit her, leaving Andrzej with his grandmother at their family palace in the Wilno region. Following the outbreak of the war, when Poland was divided in half between the Third Reich and the USSR, Andrzej’s parents were unable to return home. They hired a smuggler who was supposed to get Andrzej to Warsaw, where the family would reunite. The smuggler was two hours late - the NKVD had already taken little Andrzej and his grandmother to the Dolginovo station, from where they were transported in cattle cars to Siberia. The grandmother looked after the boy, but in the first winter she fell ill with pneumonia. While hospitalized, she gave all of the hospital food to her grandchild. Soon she passed away, leaving the 9-year-old to fend for himself. At first, he made a living hunting gophers. Following the Sikorski-Mayski Agreement, Andrzej was placed at a Polish orphanage. For a while he also lived with a Russian woman, whose 14 sons fought were fighting the Germans. The fifteenth son was at home - he became Andrzej’s older brother. Andrzej did various jobs to get food. He could jump onto a moving train and shovel coal from the car onto the ground. Later he would have to fight over the coal with other boys. The coal could be exchanged for food. In 1946, when Andrzej returned to Poland, the Polish passengers were kissing the ground at the first railway station beyond the Bug River. The 14-year-old Andrzej noticed the sign on one of the buildings: “Rano kasza, wieczór kluski, Polska nasza, rząd ruski”, which roughly translates to “Breakfast, dinner - Poland’s ours, but it’s under Soviet power.” Only after a while did he understand the meaning of the second part. In communist Poland he was reunited with his father. Sadly, his mother was no longer alive - she died of a heart disease at the age of 35.
Copyright by Instytut Solidarności i Męstwa im. Witolda Pileckiego.
Негізгі бет Two hours late... A 9-year-old alone in Siberia - Andrzej Bohdanowicz. Witnesses to the Age
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