The end of war
8th May 1945 :


During the war, behind the front-line Red Army troops the Soviet communist party atrocity machine, called NKVD (later KGB) entered Polish territory and began the persecution of Polish patriots.

• In 1945, the Stalinist night descended upon Poland, followed by the drama and farce of the communist "Polish People's Republic" (Polska Republika Ludowa - PRL).
  
  
• New waves of arrests and deportations to gulags took place, similar to those during the occupation of the Eastern Poland (1939-1941) when I was deported. This time members of Polish Underground Army who resisted German occupation, were especially targeted as well as their families. This was because they were in contact with Free Polish Government in London and represented free and democratic Poland.
  
  
• During the period from 1944 to 1953 additionaly around 750 000 people were deported from Poland to slave camps in the USSR. Very few survived.
  
  
  
• The communist way of operating always followed three steps :
  deceit, crime and lie.
  
  step 1 - planning an effective DECEIT
  step 2 - executing a ruthless CRIME
  step 3 - justifying with a gross LIE
  

Pre war and post war Poland

Outline maps of pre-war Poland, where I come from (1938),
and post- war Poland (1945).

Poland's border changes after the war

SOVIET OCCUPATION OF EASTERN EUROPE: 1945 - 1989

• Dark areas are territories totally annexed as part of the Soviet Union.
• The shaded area shows the extent of Soviet imperialism and the "Iron Curtain" in Europe.
• The "curtain" originally included Yougoslvia which afterwards nevertheless remained communist.

The whole population of Poland was trapped inside the country under communist dictatorship which claimed to represent "the People", i.e. the workers and peasants classes. All others were the "enemies of the people".

All aspects of life were controlled by the Soviet trained communist government under Kremlin's direction, assisted by the secret police, militia and party bureaucrats. Their method of control was fear, hunger and lies.

* Picture of brick wall after an image on book cover "Before the Solidarity sprung into existence" by Tadeusz Nowak

My younger brother Zbigniew, born on 8 May 1926, was deported to USSR by Soviet Secret Police from Pinsk, Poland on 13 April 1940. He was sent to Siberia as a slave labourer, a convict, still being a boy not quite 14 years old. What was his crime? In the eyes of Communism he was the son of a "class enemy", a son of a postal public servant , who "served" the Polish capitalist society.

When the Soviet Union got involved in the war with Germany, Zbigniew, with Soviet citizenship imposed on him, was called up to the Red Army in 1943 as a 17 year old recruit. Soon he was sent to fight on the Eastern front in Europe with hardly any training. He was wounded in Budapest, Hungary, by the river Nisa.

In 1946, at the end of the war, he was sent to USSR to be demobilized. But on his way back passing through Czechoslovakia he jumped his military train and, in the post war chaos of refugee movements, made his way to Poland.

20 year old Zbigniew had no home to go to in Poland. His family and Pinsk were no longer in Poland and he was alone. He met a girl, 5 years older than himself, married her two years later in 1948, and they lived in apartment in Lódz, at 23/10 Poludniowa Street, moving later to apartment at 45/10 Wschodnia Street.

His health was ruined by hardships in Siberia, Soviet military war service and misery of Communist Poland. He died in hospital during an operation on 13 January 1986 at the age of 59, same age as his wife Frania died before him.

Photo of Zbigniew Rymaszewski aged 26 in 1952


Zbigniew was buried at St.Anna cemetery in Zarzew, Lódz (grave location 85.8.10).

In Communist Poland, Zbigniew had difficulties with access to education and advancement in employment because he was former convict deportee - a son of "class enemy". Later he was blacklisted by discovery that he had two brothers abroad in a capitalist, i.e. "enemy" country, who served in the Polish Army in England and did not return to Poland after the war.

Around 1952, still in Stalinist times, he wrote on the toilet wall at his place of work a short sarcastic rhyme referring to hard life in the country. It was something like that: "Poor, unfortunate hen, she hung herself on a tree branch, she could not endure the Five Year egg production plan". Without explanation, all personnel in his workplace were required to write then and there their CV ("curriculum vitae"). Such order was not an unusual occurrence under communism and did not create any suspicion. Zbigniew's handwriting was compared with the graffiti on the wall and was recognized. He was arrested by the secret police, accused of criticizing the People's Republic (anti state propaganda), sentenced, and served one year imprisonment.

Photo of Zbigniew working in a state dairy products factory

Franciszka (Frania) was born on 12 January 1921 in Marcanowo near Warsaw.

Frania worked as an intercity and international telephonist in Lódz Post Office and Telephone Exchange.

Zbyszek's wife, Frania died in 1980 at the age of 59, six years before Zbyszek.

Frania, Zbigniew's wife aged 31 in 1952

Ewa was born on 1 December 1949 in Lódz.

Edward was born in 1956 in Lódz.

1946 :
POST WAR REPATRIATION  OF  POLES FROM  FORMER EASTERN  POLAND ("KRESY")  INCLUDING  SOME DEPORTEES FROM THE USSR

After the end of war Poles living in the former eastern part of Poland occupied by the Soviets from 1939 to 1941 and annexed as part of the Soviet Union after the end of war (the lands of Rymaszewski families), as well as many surviving Polish convicts and deportees to the USSR, all as former Polish citizens, were repatriated to post war Poland by Soviet rulers in a deceitful "gesture of goodwill". This move was calculated to ethnically cleanse the occupied lands and to consolidate influence and absolute control and communization of post war Poland which they planned to include in their Soviet empire.

The repatriates from the remote areas of the USSR, like my mother and my relatives, were not returned to their own homes and possessions. Their lands in Eastern Poland were officially annexed as part of the USSR proper, as a result of the Soviet-Nazi collusion in 1939, and later confirmed by the Yalta agreement between Russia and the Allies in 1945.

Most of the repatriates were settled in the west of Poland in the so called "Regained Territories".

In 1956, after Stalin's death, there was another repatriation of former Polish citizens from the eastern part of Poland annexed by the USSR.

Loading of repatriants in Baranowicze, former Poland, now Belarussian Soviet Republic

Families repatriated from Kresy in freight wagons being unloaded in the west of Poland

After the war in 1946 Bronislawa's family was repatriated from the Soviet Union to communist Poland and was settled in the "Regained territories".

They lived in a village Wielka Bieda, near Biernatowo and Trzcianka, Poznan province. Wielka Bieda was later renamed to Jedrzejewo. Some of the descendants still live there. They all became farmers.

Bronislawa and her husband Pawel Sloka had two daughters : Irena (Irka) and Lodzia.   Irena married Mr. Glodny in Wielka Bieda. They had three children (girl, boy and an infant).

Lodzia, her second daughter, was repatriated to Poland from Soviet occupied Pinsk in 1956, with her two children Witek, aged 11 and Lucyna, aged 3. Ref: Email 034.

Lodzia went to live with her parents and work on their farm in Wielka Bieda. (Lodzia married again and had two small boys with her second husband).

Lodzia's daughter, Lucyna married Edward Papiez and had four children, all boys, and four grandchildren. Most of them now live in Senguin, Texas, USA.

See photo of Lucyna's family in the USA

Apart from their daughters, Bronislawa and her husband Pawel also had two sons.

The youngest son Maniek had a job in a large town of Wroclaw, but he later died, living a wife and two children, a boy and a girl.

The son Ryszard now lives in town Gniezno.

Bronislawa lived long on the farm with the families of her daughters, and died in 1997, outliving her husband by many years.

After the war Jadwiga returned with her two children from Siberia to communist Poland and was taken to town Nowa SóI in the "Regained territories". The whereabouts of her husband Feliks, arrested by KGB, was not known.

Her son Eugeniusz (Gienek) who, after experiences of the Soviet exile and and the loss of his father, was suffering from melancholy and depression, died very young.

The daughter Boguslawa (Bogusia) also died young. Bogusia got married few years before her death and left some small children. I don't know their fate. At present Jadwiga, the mother, is also deceased.

Many years after the war, there was news that her husband Feliks Sarnacki, who was imprisoned by the Soviets before his family was deported to Siberia, was seen in Sweden, where he died.

After the war Emilia was similarly repatriated from her exile and slavery in Siberia to the "regained territories" in communist Poland. She found her sister Bronka in Wielka Bieda near Biernatowo and settled down next to her family.

The whereabouts of her husband Czeslaw arrested by KGB and eldest son Witold were not known to her at that time. She had no news of her second son Mieczyslaw (Mietek) since he left home in 1939 trying to escape from Communism. (His memoirs are on this website). The youngest son Romuald was conscripted, while still in Siberia, to Soviet run Polish "Kosciuszko" army.

In the Sixties, Emilia moved to town Nowa Sól in a district of Zielona Góra where her son Romuald was now living, as well as her younger sister Jadwiga with the children .

Emilia lived long and died about 1997. She was my best auntie. She led a really Christian life, always helping and caring for others, never thinking about herself. Maybe that was the secret of her longevity.

My cousin Witold is the eldest son of my father's sister Emilia (66.13) and my uncle Czeslaw Rymaszewski (67.11) from Malkowicze.

After late release from Soviet gulag in the north of USSR, Witold did not make it to the general Anders Army which was already evacuated to the Middle East. Instead he was sent to a Polish army which was formed by the Russians, called "Kosciuszko Army". The army was under Soviet Command. He took part in the fighting on the Eastern war front on Polish and German soil and in the liberation of Berlin. He was wounded twice and reached the rank of captain.

Returning from the war he settled in the "regained territories", got married with Anna and lived in town Wroclaw.

Witold died on 4 July 2004. As an officer war veteran he had a military funeral and was buried in the Combatants Alley in Wroclaw cemetery on 9 July. His army superior, a colonel, was present at the ceremony

67.111 w - Anna Zieleniewska (wife)
(1921 ? - )  

Witold and Anna had 2 sons and 1 daughter :

67.1111 - Ryszard (Rysiek), first son (see below).

67.1112 - Leon (Lolek), second son. I have no information of his fate.

67.1113 - Irena (Irka), the youngest child.
She married Janusz Czerniecki and they had a son Marcin and a daughter Martynka.

Unfortunately Irena died early at the age of 52 due to illness.

Ryszard (Rysiek), the eldest son of Witold (67.111) above , married Barbara (Basia ) and they had a son:
67.1111.1 - Marjusz (pronounced Maryush).

Ryszard and his son Marjusz can speak English.

Ryszard's second wife was Elzbieta (Elisabeth) and they had a son named:
67.1111.2 - Witold (after his grandfather).

Ryszard lives in Wroclaw, ul. Igielna 17 m.2, and now provides general building services. Telephone (71) 3723282.

At the age of 14, Romuald (Romek) was deported by the Soviets to Siberia as a slave labourer with his mother and grandfather. Grandfather died in Siberia from hard work and starvation. Romek's father Czeslaw perished in the Soviet prison.

During the German-Soviet war he was too young in 1942 to reach and join the Polish general Anders army in Russia which was evacuated abroad. But at the age of 17 he was enlisted into the Soviet controlled Polish "Kosciuszko Army" and sent to the eastern war front. In the army he advanced to the rank of sergeant.

After the war Romek found his mother Emilia repatriated to Poland to the "regained territories", joined her in Wielka Bieda, and for some time worked there on his uncle and aunt's Bronislawa farm

Romuald married Lucyna from Jacyna family and moved to a town Nowa Sól in the district of Zielona Góra where he lived at ul. Zielonogórska 2 m 3.

They had a daughter and a son:
67.1131 - Teresa, born about 1952.
67.1132 - Andrzej. Andrzej died young in suspicious circumstances.

Romuald's second wife was Maria and their only child was :
67.1133 - Grzegorz (PREVIOUS — MORE) .
He was born on 19 July 1970 in Nowa Sól.
When his father and mother died, Grzegorz emigrated to Canada.

Romuald died on 24 June 1988, aged 62.
The hardships of Siberia and Chernobyl took their toll. During the last year of his life he suffered from cancer of the throat.

34 years old Romuald in Wielka Bieda in 1960

In 1989 Poland was the first country in Eastern Europe to throw off the shackles of communist tyranny.

Full national sovereignty was regained by 1992 with the withdrawal from Poland of most of the Soviet occupation troops (a process finally completed in August 1993).

Poland returned to Western civilization and Christianity where she always belonged. She gave the world the first non-Italian pope, John Paul II.

In 2000 Poland entered the third millennium with a feeling and a guarantee of security.

In 1997 she became a full Member of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization).

On 1 May 2004 Poland became a full member of the European Union.

"The end of the Second World War for Poland"

WW2  POLISH VICTORY PARADE HELD IN FREE WARSAW 46 YEARS LATE !

After the end of war in 1946, to appease Stalin, the British Government decided not to invite Free Polish Forces present in England to take part in the Allied Victory Parade held in London in 1946 at which Soviet diplomats were present among the Allies.

Members of Free Polish Army abroad, like myself, my brother Edward and cousin Mietek, who fought alongside the British during the war and have not returned to Soviet occupied Poland, have been vilified for many years by the Communists in Poland and Russia. Many that did return were arrested.


However, after the victory of Solidarity and the collapse of communism in central and eastern Europe, it suddenly became politically correct in England to invite Polish wartime veterans to wartime anniversaries.

But the Poles decided to hold their own Victory Parade first. The first parade since the end of war that would see veterans from all the war fronts that the Poles fought from 1939 to 1945, marching together in free Warsaw, was held on 15th August 1992.

THE ONLY DESCENDANTS OF THE RYMASZEWSKI FAMILY FROM PINSK LIVING IN POLAND

Location of town Pinsk can be seen in Belarus.

The town Lódz, where the descendants of my younger brother Zbigniew
now live, is south west of Warsaw.

Edward is my nephew, the son of my younger brother Zbigniew from Pinsk (66.124).

Edward was born in Lódz on 18 March 1956 and lives in Lódz.

Edward in his youth endured hard life in the Polish People's Republic during which time his mother and father prematurely died.

His sister Ewa (66.1241) managed to move away to England.

Edward completed secondary education at a Technical School, majoring in Economics.

Later he changed his interests and qualified as a Master Tailor.

After the return of democracy and introduction of free market economy in Poland, Edward started his own small tailoring business.

He worked hard and saved hard and bought a plot of land in a Lódz suburb. Then, with great effort and masses of family sacrifices, he gradually built on this plot a nice house. (See photo of the house below)

Unfortunately, years later, when the children grew up, the parents divorced and Edward has moved to London to live nearer his sister Ewa.

Easter 2000.
Photo of Edward in London, during his visit to his sister Eva.

66.1242 w - Iwona LOS  (wife)
Iwona was born on 8 December 1962 in Lódz



Photo of Iwona taken in August 1999

Michal was born on 6 July 1980 in Lódz.

At the suggestion of his grandfather Zbigniew (66.124), he was named after his great-grandfather Michal (66.12) who lived in Pinsk in Poland before the war and after Soviet invasion in 1939 had been executed by communist secret police.

Michal was interested in computers from an early age. Designing his first website entitled "Rymasz", he obtained good results in the all-Polish competition in Information Technology (ogólnopolska olimpiada informatyczna), at the age of 18.

Then Michal enrolled at the Faculty of Electronics and Electrical Engineering at the Lódz Technical University (Politechnika Lódzka). As his spare time hobby, Michal had set up at home his own server on which he was experimenting. He also studied English and now has a working knowledge of the language.

After successfully completing the second year in 2001, he was awarded a modest scholarship to continue his studies, and started to specialize in Internet technology and server applications.

On 6 December 2004 Michal completed his final year of studies with very good result and is now working for an IT firm in Lódz.

Michal's email address is: rymasz@data.pl

Photo of 19 years old Michal with his 12 years old brother Adrian in August 1999

Adrian was born on 4 April 1987 in Lódz.

Like Michal, he is interested in computers.
Apart from that, he is very good with his hands and his hobby is model making or model assembling.

Adrian attends Secondary College (Lyceum) in Lódz, studying mathematics and physics and achieving good results. He is now half way through his studies.

12 years old Adrian, August 1999

Michal studied at the Lódz Technical University for five years from October 1999 to December 2004, majoring in Information Technology at a Master's degree level (mgr-inz).

Initially he had work experience with a company Viktoria Sp. z o.o, as a computer scientist from June 2006 to June 2007. Then he attended the following courses :
- Consolidation of server centers in the companies
- Assistance to companies in their Internet activities

Now, from July 2007, Michal is employed by the HERKULES PC Components, in a position of a specialist for Internet technologies. His areas are IT/Administration, I/T Programming, and Internet/ E-Commerce. He is a Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP).

Apart from IT, his hobby is motoring, and he has an AB category Driving Licence.

Michal in 2008

Natalia was born in September 2012 in Lódz.

Little Natalka is a wonderful child, intelligent, kind, polite and independent.

Photo of Natalka below was taken in December 2013.