By Nadia Rupniak, PhD
*That is an article from the Winter 2024 situation of Fight Stress
A letter discovered after my father’s dying led me to find his army decorations and the brutal retaliation inflicted on his household.
The transition from army service to civilian life presents many challenges for Servicemen and Servicewomen. They might have skilled fight trauma, the deaths of shut pals, and political modifications that seemingly negated their sacrifices. Lately, I found the horrible burden that my father, Captain Marcin Rupniak, took to his grave.
At my father’s funeral, I felt as if I’d by no means actually identified him. Why had a person together with his outstanding mind settled for menial work in a manufacturing unit that was far under his capabilities? Why had he not made extra of his life? At any time when I requested him about it, his clarification left me none the wiser: “Due to the battle, my woman.”
I had no concept what he meant by that as a result of he by no means spoke to me in regards to the battle. All I knew was that he had been a captain within the Polish military and will by no means return to Communist Poland as a result of he could be arrested and shot. I didn’t know that the Polish military had made heroic contributions to the allied liberation of Europe in 1944. Combating alongside American, British, and Canadian troops, they performed pivotal roles within the victories at Monte Cassino1 and Falaise.2
After the battle, my dad corresponded often together with his brother, Tomasz, in Poland, however the contents of their letters, written in Polish, had been a thriller to me. When the Soviet Union collapsed within the Nineties, Tomasz’s daughter, Helena, came over my dad. I couldn’t converse a phrase of Polish, nor she English, and so our restricted communications went by means of him. Consequently, I realized virtually nothing about her or the explanation for her journey.
It was not till each my dad and mom had died that I found my dad’s household had been victims of a Soviet genocide. Such was my dad’s secrecy about his household that my mom had written to Helena after her go to, requesting data. Amongst her private papers, I discovered Helena’s reply. It mentioned that through the battle, my grandmother (aged 68) and three uncles had been arrested and deported to Siberia as a result of my dad was an officer within the Polish military.
I discovered Helena’s letter really surprising. All these years, my dad lived with the guilt that his mom and brothers had been focused due to him. This Soviet aggression defined why he may by no means set foot in Poland once more. And my poor grandmother. How a lot struggling had this aged lady endured? No marvel he didn’t need to discuss it.
I organized to go to Helena to be taught what had occurred to our household. In case she was not on the identical deal with, I additionally looked for different Polish family on the web. After I typed “Rupniak” into the search engine, I used to be astonished to discover a web site itemizing my father as a recipient of the Virtuti Militari, the Polish equal of the Medal of Honor.3 I used to be in full disbelief. Absolutely, this needed to be an error. How was it doable that he had earned such excessive army distinction and by no means mentioned a phrase about it to me? I promptly requested a replica of his army information.
Some months later, a big manila envelope landed in my mailbox. Inside, a file contained dozens of pages that bore my dad’s {photograph}, the phrases “Virtuti Militari,” and a battle diary written in my dad’s distinctive handwriting. There had been no mistake. My father, a humble manufacturing unit employee, was certainly a Virtuti Militari.
My pals assumed that I have to really feel extremely proud, however that wasn’t how I felt in any respect. My probability discovery had pitched me into psychological turmoil. Why on earth didn’t he inform me about this? Why had he intentionally saved me at such a distance, his personal daughter? I used to be indignant with him and ashamed of the shortage of respect I’d proven him. I started to query the reliability of all my relationships. If I had misjudged him so badly, what number of different good folks had I dismissed?
Researching his service information, I realized that my dad was twice beneficial for the Virtuti Militari through the invasion of Poland in 1939. He had proven nice braveness and management by firing on advancing German tanks from an uncovered place, forcing them to retreat. Throughout intense preventing, he had maintained command of antitank weapons and took over communications when his phone operator was killed. His cool head within the thick of battle received him the respect of his males and his superiors.
I learn that Stalin had waited till the Polish Military was exhausted from weeks of steady preventing earlier than becoming a member of Hitler’s invasion.4 Unable to battle on two fronts, the Military acquired orders to evacuate. This march should have been agonizing for my dad, as he would have handed signposts to his hometown. The evacuation left Polish civilians, together with his household, defenseless towards the brutal German and Russian invaders.
My dad and 1000’s of different Polish Troopers later regrouped in Britain, the place they joined the Allied liberation of Europe in 1944. A whole lot of 1000’s extra of those Troopers, unable to flee, had been captured by the Soviets and tortured, executed, or deported to onerous labor camps in Siberia. Twenty-two thousand Polish officers had been executed on Stalin’s orders, their our bodies dumped in mass graves at Katyn.5 This bloodbath, rendering Poland incapable of launching a army rebellion towards its oppressors, was an act of genocide.
Whereas I used to be researching these occasions, I heard again from my cousin, Helena. Contemplating the obstacles in communication I’d skilled with my dad; I used to be greatly surprised by her openness. She mentioned that her father, Tomasz, liked his brother Marcin very a lot and had dearly wished to see him earlier than he died, however journey was unimaginable throughout Communist rule. When Poland regained independence, she had visited my dad to meet Tomasz’s final needs. Her letter added, “Marcin was very damage by what occurred to his mom, and he frightened about it very a lot. Please don’t be stunned that he didn’t discuss it.”
Quickly after this, I traveled to Poland and met with my cousins. They instructed me that it was not solely Polish troopers who had been arrested by the Soviets, but in addition the households of Polish Military officers and others that had been deemed enemies. From aged grandparents to new child infants, 1.7 million Poles had been rounded up and deported to Siberia, my grandmother and three uncles amongst them. Most disappeared with no hint.
Armed Soviet Troopers had come at the hours of darkness to arrest my grandmother and her sons Ludwik, Michał, and Józef. They had been taken to the closest railway station, the place the lads had been separated and despatched to onerous labor camps. Józef and Ludwik had been despatched to a timber logging camp close to the Arctic Circle. Whereas working within the forests felling bushes, Ludwik was killed by a bear. The dying toll from hunger, chilly, and illness was so excessive, that Józef knew he would additionally die until he escaped. A locksmith by commerce, the guards made use of him to restore locks on the perimeter gates. Twice, he broke out however was recaptured. Subjected to brutal beatings by the guards, he virtually died. On his third try, he succeeded.
A lot of the girls and youngsters had been deported to Kazakhstan, a journey lasting a number of weeks in crowded cattle automobiles with a gap within the ground for a bathroom. Upon arrival, they had been taken to distant settlements to work on collective farms. All the things they produced was surrendered to the Soviet directors in trade for hunger rations. Always bitten by parasites and dwelling in crowded, unsanitary circumstances, infectious ailments took many lives.6,7
When Hitler ordered an invasion of the Soviet Union, the Polish president, Władysław Sikorski, labored with Prime Minister Winston Churchill to safe the discharge of the prisoners to kind a military towards Hitler. Stalin agreed, however just one tenth of the Poles had been launched and evacuated to security in Iran, which was beneath British management. The evacuees had been in appalling bodily situation, emaciated by hunger, infested with parasites, and dying of typhus and different epidemics.8 Miraculously, my grandmother and her sons, Michał and Józef, reached Iran, however quickly after their arrival, she and Michał died. Józef, the one survivor, later served with distinction at Monte Cassino.
The optics weren’t good for the West’s newly cast alliance with Stalin and another clarification was manufactured to clarify the arrival of 170,000 Polish refugees in Iran. Newsreels in America and Britain portrayed the Poles as having escaped from Nazi oppression.9,10 When the our bodies of the murdered Polish officers had been later found at Katyn, the crime was once more reported within the West as a Nazi atrocity to protect our alliance with Stalin.11
In Iran, the Poles had been ordered by their British overseers to not reveal their therapy within the Soviet Union, blackmailed into silence to guard their households in occupied Poland and the prisoners nonetheless held in Siberia.12 The letters of Polish Servicemen had been censored for content material criticizing the Soviet Union and Troopers had been threatened with imprisonment in the event that they spoke out. Polish leaders acquired repeated assurances from American and British politicians that in return for his or her military’s loyal service, their nation could be liberated.
In 1944, Polish Troopers fought alongside their allies in Europe beneath nice psychological duress, not figuring out the destiny of their family members in Poland. Pursuing the fleeing German Military, the Poles constructed bridges throughout rivers and canals, naming them after Warsaw and different Polish cities. Every nation they liberated introduced them a step nearer to dwelling. In France, Belgium, and Holland they had been mobbed by jubilant crowds celebrating freedom.
When the Polish Military obtained so far as Germany, just a few hundred miles from the Polish border, they got orders to halt. The battle was over. Throughout secret conferences, the political leaders of America and Britain had ceded half of Poland to the Soviet Union. The impact on the Polish troops was devastating. My dad’s letters to Tomasz converse of betrayal and deceit, indicating that he felt “totally damaged and destroyed.” Some Polish officers dedicated suicide.
The American and British public noticed Stalin as pleasant “Uncle Joe,” who helped to rid Europe of Nazi tyranny. They had been unaware of the necessity to liberate Poland from Soviet rule. Political leaders reneged on their guarantees to make sure free elections and Poland remained subjugated beneath a Communist dictatorship for 5 many years. The deportation of entire households from Poland to Siberia continued and Tomasz’s affiliation with my dad put him in nice private hazard. When an area official got here to his home and seen an airmail letter, Tomasz was arrested, overwhelmed, and interrogated as a spy. He was fortunate to have been spared deportation. This was why my dad wouldn’t discuss to me in regards to the battle. He couldn’t danger any criticism or opposition of the Soviet Union, even from overseas, that may compromise his surviving household’s security.
I can solely think about my dad’s disillusionment. Regardless of large sacrifice and heroism, he would by no means see his household once more. Compelled to reside in exile overseas, Polish Veterans needed to accept no matter jobs they had been supplied. My dad’s superior officer, Normal Stanisław Maczek, probably the most distinguished commanders of the battle, earned a dwelling as a bartender in Scotland.
I want I had identified about this whereas my dad was nonetheless alive. At the least I may have supported him. Discovering what he endured fills me with admiration for his unimaginable resilience. Although he’s gone, I really feel nearer to him now than ever.
If you need to learn extra about my household’s experiences through the battle, please go to my web site www.nadiarupniak.com and YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEGGC43hyDPYQXJKuaBW46g.
References
- Anders W. An Military in Exile. (2004). The Battery Press, Nashville TN.
- McGilvray E. Man of Metal and Honour: Normal Stansław Maczek. (2015). Helion Research in Navy Historical past, Warwick, RI.
- Polish Order of the Virtuti Militari Recipients https://feefhs.org/useful resource/poland-virtuti-militari-recipients.
- Snyder T. Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. (2012). Primary Books, New York, NY.
- City T. The Katyn Bloodbath 1940: Historical past of a Crime. (2020). Pen & Sword Navy, Barnsley, UK.
- Sklenarz Ok. Two Trains from Poland. (2011). Xlibris Corp., Bloomington, IN.
- Piechuta A., Chmielowski E., Czapulonis, A., Synowiec-Tobis S.H., Yon B. The Mass Deportation of Poles to Siberia. (2009). Basic Printing, Chicago, IL.
- Polish refugees flee Poland and arrive in refugee camps in Iran (Persia) (1943) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49A2pImHJgQ.
- HD Inventory Footage WWII Polish Refugees in Iran Struggle for Freedom 1943 Newsreel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWTOVlqCO1o&record=PLE7F068B835C375E8&index=41&app=desktop.
- Memos present U.S. helped cowl up Soviet bloodbath https://www.cbsnews.com/information/memos-show-us-helped-cover-up-soviet-massacre/.
- Prazmowska A. Britain and Poland 1939-1943: The Betrayed Ally. (1995). Cambridge College Press, Cambridge, UK.
- Mikołajczyk S. The Rape of Poland. (2007). Kessinger Publishing LLC, Whitefish, MT.