Deportation Trains 1940-1941
I recently came across some important information that expands upon details in my book, From Exile to Eden. These details are in regard to the actual deportation train that took my father (Tadeusz), my mother (Helena), and my brother (Eugeniusz) to Archangielsk, Siberia. This list (which I will attach to my post in its entirety) was compiled by Aleksander Gurjanow. It details the 229 trains that carried 300,000 Polish people from their homeland in Eastern Poland to the Russian Siberian gulag prison camps. The Russian NKVD organized these trains in the later part of 1939. They compiled the names of all the Poles living in the eastern part of Poland… people they intended to deport while confiscating their properties. The Russians physically removed and imprisoned Polish people whose only crime was that they were Polish. Among these prisoners were also people of Belarussian origin who considered themselves Russian. That classification did not spare them from deportation along with the Poles. The four waves of deportation were established between 2/1/1940 thru 6/20/1941.
While perusing dates and locations on this list, I discovered that the train which took my captive family was the 27th on the list. They were among the first deportation group headed to Siberia. The info is as follows:
- Date: 2/5/1940
- Departure Station: Wysokie Litew.
- Departure County: Brzesc
- Departure Province: Poleskie
- Arrival Station: Archangielsk
- Arrival Oblast: Archangielska
- No of People on train: 1,350
- Escort (Russian): Brigade #15
- Escort (Russian): Battalion #132
- Guards: 23
- Commanding officer: Streblin
I am attaching the Train Deportation List to this post in case others, reading my website, might find out which train took their relatives into the horrors of Siberian exile.
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