Authors: Slavomir Rawicz
There was no argument. We walked for four or five miles along the tree-fringed river. I saw the girl several times looking at Smith. She did not speak to him. I think she sensed that in this
calm and thoughtful man was the only likely opposition to her presence among us. We Poles talked to her. Smith said nothing.
It was quite dark when we found a place to rest. We built a hide against a fallen log. We laid down our food sacks for her and she curled up among us, completely trustful, and slept. Ours was a
more fitful rest. Throughout the dark hours we took sentry duty in turn, according to our practice. She slept on like a tired child, oblivious of the chill of the night. She still had not awakened
when, in the first hint of day, Mister Smith touched me on the shoulder and beckoned me away from the group.
He came to the point at once. ‘What are we going to do with this young woman, Slav?’ I had known it was coming and I did not know what to say. It might be a good thing, I said, to
find out from her what were her plans. It was evading the question and I was well aware of it. Out of the tail of my eye I saw Makowski talking to Paluchowicz. They strolled over to us. On their
heels came Kolemenos. A minute later the other two left the hide and joined us. ‘Very well,’ said the American, ‘we’ll make it a full conference.’ We talked, but we
did not come to the point. Were we going to take the girl with us? That was the only question. The only result of our talk was that we would talk to Kristina and reach some decision afterwards.
We woke her gently. She yawned and stretched. She sat up and looked at us all. She smiled in real happiness to see us. We grinned back through our beards and basked in that rare smile. Busily we
fussed around to rake out some food and we all quietly breakfasted together as day began to break. Paluchowicz, clearing his throat embarrassedly, asked her then how she came to be where we found
her and where she was heading.
‘I was trying to get to Irkutsk,’ she said, ‘because a man who gave me a lift on a farm lorry and was sorry for me told me that if I got to the big railway junction there I
might steal a ride on a train going west. He dropped me on the road a few miles away and I was trying to find a way round the town.’
Her glance rested on the American. He returned the look gravely. Her fingers fluttered to the strands of hair straying outside her cap, tucked them away in a gesture pathetically and engagingly
feminine. ‘I think I should tell you about myself,’ she said. We nodded.
It was a variation of a story we all knew. The prison camps were filled with men who could tell of similar experiences. The location and the details might differ, but the horror and the leaden
misery were common ingredients and stemmed from the same authorship.
After the First World War Kristina Polanska’s father had been rewarded for his war services by a grant of land in the Ukraine under the reorganization of Central European territory. He had
fought against the Bolsheviks, and General Pilsudski was thus able to give a practical expression of Polish gratitude. The girl was an only child. They were a hardworking couple, these parents, and
they intended that Kristina should have every advantage their industry could provide. In 1939 she was attending high school in Luck and the Polanskas were well pleased with the progress she was
making.
Came September 1939. The Russians started moving in. Ahead of the Red Army ‘Liberators’ the news of their coming reached the Ukrainian farm workers. The well-organized Communist
underground was ready. It needed only a few inflammatory speeches on the theme of the overthrow of foreign landowners and restoration of the land to the workers, and the Ukrainian peasants were
transformed into killer mobs. The Polanskas knew their position was desperate. They knew the mob would come for them. They hid Kristina in a loft and waited. ‘Whatever happens, stay there
until we come back for you,’ said her mother.
She heard the arrival of the mob, the shouts of men, the sounds of destruction as hammers and axes were swung in a wrecking orgy among the equipment in the surrounding farm buildings. She
thought she recognized the voices of men from the nearest village. Outside in the yard Polanska called by name to some of the men he knew. The appeal came through clearly to the terrified child in
the loft. ‘Take away what you want, but don’t destroy our home and land.’ Silence for a minute or two after this. A growling murmur followed, increasing as the men bunched
together and advanced towards the house and Polanska. Kristina heard nothing from her mother, but she was sure she was there beside her father. Someone began to harangue the men. The phrases were
violent and venomous. She heard her father’s voice once more, but it was drowned in a sudden uproar. Her mother screamed once and then Kristina pressed her hands over her ears and shivered
and moaned to herself.
Kristina stayed in the loft for what seemed like hours but she thought perhaps it was not really very long. The men had gone. The house was very still. All the personal servants had fled the day
before. Her mother and father never came for her. She thought the villagers might have taken them away. Kristina crept down through the silent house and into the yard. Polanska and his wife lay
dead in the yard, close against the side of the house. She crept to them and looked upon them for the last time. They had been beaten and then strangled with barbed wire.
I watched her white face closely as she told of the horror of that bright September morning. She spoke flatly, with little change of expression, as a person does who is still under the influence
of profound shock.
‘I went back into the house then,’ she said, ‘and I picked up some food and wrapped it in a cloth. I ran very hard for a long time.’
She did not remember the next few days in detail. Some compassionate people in villages she passed through gave her a night’s shelter and some food. She was obsessed with the idea of
having to keep ahead of the Russians and out of their hands. Ironically they caught her in the act of crossing the border when she did not even know she was near it. The Red Army handed her over to
a civilian court which swiftly sentenced her to be deported to Russia as a
kolhoz
worker in the Yenisei River area of Western Siberia.
More vividly she described her life on the Soviet farm. This was a sharper and more recent experience. Most of the workers were strapping, big-bosomed, tough Russian women, and Kristina was the
only Pole among them. On the second day after her arrival she was set to threshing and moving huge sacks of corn. The other women taunted her for her refinement and her weakness. They laughed at
her failure to do the heavy work they managed themselves with ease. Aching from head to foot, she would cry herself to sleep at night. Food was poor and the main item was one kilo of bread a day
– for her as for the other workers.
But it was not the women who eventually caused Kristina to run. The farm was controlled by a foreman, whose attentions the other women were always inviting. Kristina was frightened of him and
tried always to keep out of his way. He was a big fellow, she said, tall, swarthy and powerful. He would occasionally seek out the girl and try out some heavy pleasantries, tell her how different
she was from the Russian women and that she needed someone to look after her. And after he had spoken to her the Russian women would joke coarsely, remark on the skinniness of her body, warn her
she had better look out for herself.
There came the day when she was told she would not accompany the other workers in the horse-drawn farm cart but would report to the foreman’s house ‘for interrogation’. His
intentions were obvious from the start. He promised there would be no more heavy work for her if she were kind to him, Kristina panicked, appealed to him to let her go after the others and join
them. What followed was a plain attempt at rape. She screamed, clawed at his face and frenziedly kicked out with her heavy boots. Surprised at the fury of her resistance, he relaxed his hold just
long enough for her to break away and bolt blindly out and back to the women’s quarters. He called vile names after her and threatened that he had means to make her change her mind.
She waited until the light began to fade in the afternoon, expecting all the time that he would come for her, but he did not show up. When she felt that the return of the other women must be
imminent, she slipped out, keeping the
kolhoz
buildings between her and the foreman’s house, and ran. She slept that night in reeds by a river, and after following the river along for
many miles the next day, finally reached a road, and was given the first of two long lifts eastwards by drivers of big farm lorries.
‘All Russians are not bad,’ said Kristina. ‘These two were sorry for me and gave me some of their bread to eat. The second one told me to try to get to Irkutsk, but he could
not take me any further.’
She looked round at us all and her eyes finally rested on Mister Smith. ‘So that is how I came to be here,’ she added.
The American dug his hands into his
fufaika
pockets. He spoke levelly. ‘We are not going anywhere near Irkutsk; we are heading south around the other side of the lake. What are you
going to do now?’
Kristina looked surprised and taken aback. She turned an appealing gaze on the other six of us. We said nothing. We knew what we wanted but were content to let Mister Smith handle this his own
way. Her lips trembled slightly. Then she jutted out her little chin. ‘I am coming with you. You can’t leave me on my own.’
The American looked over her head for some moments at the river beyond. ‘Can you swim?’
‘I swim very well,’ she said, and there was no mistaking the note of pride. ‘In school I was a very good swimmer.’
Through Mister Smith’s grey-streaked beard came the flash of a smile. We relaxed as we heard him tell her, ‘Forgive me, child, if my questions have seemed to be abrupt. We just
thought you might have plans of your own. All we can offer you is a lot of hardship. Our food has run very low and we have a great distance to travel. You must consider, too, that if you are caught
with us you will not get off so lightly as you would if you remained on your own. If you want to join us, however, we accept you completely.’
‘Thank you,’ replied Kristina simply. ‘The only thing I wanted was to be with you.’
The girl went away from us then into a screen of bushes and in her absence I called for a check on food. All seven sacks were opened up, the rolled-up skins set on one side and the food brought
out. We were, as we feared, badly off. There remained perhaps a couple of pounds between the lot of us of barley, a little flour, some salt and a few pounds of almost black deer meat. We decided on
strict rationing to one small meal a day until we could replenish our stocks. The only stores item still in plentiful supply was the
gubka
moss for fire-lighting. At least, we had the means
of warmth.
Probably each one of us had, in addition to the communal food openly displayed, at least one piece of hard, dried bread, stuffed deep down in his long jacket pocket. I know I had one, and there
was evidence later that the others also had this tiny personal cache. There was nothing dishonest or anti-social about it. To hide away bread was a prisoner reflex, a symptom of captivity. A
prisoner holding one crust of bread felt that he still had a hold on life, as a man in civilized surroundings will carry round with him a lucky coin to insure that he will never be penniless. It
was a measure of the great affection we developed for this waif Polish girl that later on one and another of us would dig out this last piece of bread to allay her hunger.
We ate hurriedly there that morning and decided to make an immediate river crossing. This first hour of daylight gave promise of a fine spring day and we had a common desire to make distance
fast and to return as soon as possible to a straight course to the south.
For the girl this first river was a new ordeal. We persuaded her to take off her warm jacket, trousers and boots. I had a moment of great pity for her as she stood with us in the shelter of the
trees in her faded purple dress. I went carefully out to the edge of the ice with the line paying out behind me, the axe stuck firmly in the back waistband of my trousers, and I made it fairly
quickly across the open channel to the other side. Kolemenos crossed, holding her rolled-up clothes with some difficulty above water. Paluchowicz and Makowski came over together, the girl behind
them with the bight of a length of spare line about her, the ends held by the two Poles. The other three followed, one of them bringing the girl’s boots. We ran for cover, winding in the line
as we went.
Kristina was blue with cold and she could not stop her teeth chattering. Kolemenos handed her her clothes. ‘Don’t stand still, child,’ the American told her. ‘Run off
from us now and take that dress off. Wring it out quickly, wipe off the water as much as you can and jump into your dry trousers and
fufaika
.’ She nodded and ran. We stripped off,
danced around, wringing out our garments as we did so. The operation did not take long and in our wet rags we waited a few minutes for the girl to rejoin us. She came running, with her dress and
underwear under her arm in a soggy bundle.
‘Did you see? I
can
swim, can’t I?’
Mister Smith grinned. ‘Yes. I saw.’ And, aside to me, ‘The little lady is not going to be much trouble, after all.’
We walked hard all through that day, halting for only the briefest rests, and Kristina kept up with us uncomplainingly. The midday May sun was pleasantly warm, helping, with the heat of our
exertions, to dry out our clothes. We must have covered thirty miles north-east away from Lake Baikal by nightfall and we slept easier for being back among tall timber.
On the third day after leaving the lakeside, I judged we were in a position for turning south on a route which would take us down to the border, with Baikal lying some fifty miles to our right.
It was guesswork, but I don’t think the estimate was far out, although it would have been impossible to maintain a truly parallel course. The country was hilly and well wooded and our
progress was a series of stiffish climbs, with scrambles down into steep-sided valleys carrying small rivers and streams down to the lake. The valleys ran almost uniformly south-west. Many of the
streams were fordable, although the current, swollen by the break-up of the ice, was strong. Kolemenos led the way across these, prodding ahead of him with a long sounding pole.