Rafaela Wróblewska

"I used to clean filters and wetted my hands, it was crackling cold, my skin got frozen and then … it was war, there was no help, nothing to spread with. Living hands. And a sister, not a doctor, nurse, but a sister had to cut them off, do the surgery, because there was nothing. But I did not fell. To die, today or tomorrow, does not matter. With or without hands, to stand before God with an examination of conscience. It was difficult first, but I got used to it. First with my mum, then my mum died, and I was left alone.'

"God willing, somehow we survived, 1934, 1935, to 1936. In 1936, it was around the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary on the 8th, but we were expelled on the 6th. They gave us three days, and it’s time for you to go! They took our passports away, they took our documents away, Stanisław did not have his passport yet, only a birth certificate. My sister Józefa and I were in our mum’s passport as children. Clear off, they are throwing all people out for transportation to Kazakhstan! And they threw us away. They came at night, took away what our mum had, a bit of everything. At night they brought us to the train to Kamianets, filled the train and we left in the morning. We were travelling 18 days. Such a freight train, not the one they have now, maybe one that carries rubble. Shelves , some people here, others there, with small kids. They closed the doors and the militiamen stood around to watch that nobody jumps out, that nobody runs away. Eighteen days passed in this way. We were eating bread and lard and drinking water, and, then, we ate all the bread and only hardtacks were left, and, then, we could not eat any more. People were dying terribly, small kids, old people, they would die right away. So many of them died that only few were left. They expelled us from our village…; it was the village of Janczyki and not Kolybaivka… There was a piece of a small meadow, from the khutor, from the statue, such a small piece between cottages. They expelled 87… It was a bunch of people with children, elderly people, altogether. It was a big train, all packed. And they threw us all out on the snow, it was already white there, snow, cold. Children were crying. Cossacks came to us on such ox-driven carriages with caissons. They put us on those carriages and drove 100 kilometres into an endless steppe."