Edgerton's Zofia Bialkowska honoured after wartime deportation

Oct 27 2009 By Barry Gibson

Edgerton woman Zofia Bialkowska honoured by Polish government after wartime deportation

Ten days after they left their home town, the family arrived in the Siberian town of Barnaul.

But while they had been on the train, Hitler had invaded the Soviet Union. From being enemies, the Poles and Russians were now technically on the same side.

Zofia and her family were placed in a barracks. Her father, who had been a book-keeper, was forced to make bricks while Zofia’s mother and grandmother sewed military uniforms.

Conditions in Siberia were tough. Zofia said: “When the winter came on they moved us to a house but there was no heating and it was -60C. We had to wear all our clothes.”

On November 1, 1941 Zofia’s father boarded a train heading south to find work. His family never saw him again.

The following year Zofia and her family were allowed to leave Barnaul to reunite with her brother Tadek, who was in the Polish Army’s 5th Infantry Division.

Zofia, whose maiden name was Stokarska, said: “The Polish government paid for families of soldiers to meet them in the Middle East.”

The family found Tadek in Uzbekistan. Zofia said: “We arrived in April 1942 and spent about five months there. It was very hot and there was no food ration. Every day we were hungry.”

From Uzbekistan the family moved on to a camp in Iran. Zofia said: “Polish people organise very quickly. We set up a school, but there were no books so the teachers taught from memory.”

In February 1945 the family moved again, to Lebanon where Tadek studied politics and Zofia completed her high school education in a Polish school.

However, the family were unable to return to Poland at the end of the war. Instead they travelled to the Palestinian port of Haifa where they boarded the Franconia for Liverpool.

Zofia moved to Leicester and met Witold Bialkowski, who had served in the Polish Cavalry during the war. The couple married in 1952 and moved to Huddersfield.

Zofia said: “We moved around a lot, from Spring Street, South Street, George Street. Every time we moved we had to report to the police.”

The couple eventually settled in Abbey Road in Fartown where they had nine children.

Zofia became a stalwart of Huddersfield’s Polish community, teaching in the Polish Club on Fitzwilliam Street. Witold passed away in 1985 and Zofia moved to her home on Imperial Road in Edgerton eight years later.

On Sunday she was honoured, along with 40 other survivors at a ceremony in Manchester. They each received a Siberian Cross from the Polish government.

Zofia said: “It’s good to receive the medal, but it’s a medal for suffering.”

Zofia has mixed feelings about the Russians.

She said: “The high-up people in Russia were really bad but with the ordinary people it was different. They also lived in very bad conditions and were deported from Ukraine to Siberia.”