The Polish Odyssey
‘The Chocolate Suitcase’ is a novel, but it is closely based on the personal stories of Anna and Bronek Baranek and their Polish family during the Second World War. Their recollections were surprisingly vivid and agreed with the historical record.
Shortly after Hitler launched the German attack on western Poland in 1939, Stalin’s forces invaded from the east. Poland was partitioned and Russian forces began ethnic cleansing Poles from the border regions to labour camps in Siberia. About 1.5 million Poles were taken from their homes, often with just forty minutes to gather food and clothes, before being put on to cattle wagons for a twenty-one day journey to a gulag in Siberia. Manual work, mainly tree felling and mining awaited them. The winter conditions were a torment and many died.
When Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, Stalin declared an ‘amnesty’ for the Poles and some were released so that they could form a Polish army in the south. There followed a mass migration of potential Polish soldiers and their families through the Persian corridor to Uzbekistan. After two winters of privation in Siberia the exiles were in a dreadful condition, plagued by disease and malnutrition. This did not improve during the months of cotton picking on the collective farms around Samarkand, Tashkent and the other city regions.
Eventually the men were directed by Russian soldiers to Polish army recruitment centres, such as Kermine. Once enlisted not only did the soldiers receive regular rations, but so did their families. The Sikorsky Institute in London houses a huge number of original documents detailing the Polish experience of the Second World War, including lists of Polish soldiers with names, periods of service and pay. On receipt of money signatures were, no doubt, scribbled and forgotten by the troops, but they are lovingly preserved there for posterity.
Preserved there also are the names of the returning exiles who crossed the Caspian Sea in two waves in March/April and August/September 1942, in overcrowded paddle steamers, barely fit for human cargo. By this time the 78,470 army recruits and 37,272 civilians had separated, but both disembarked over time in Pahlevi, courtesy of the Shah of Persia. Now under British protection, the Poles received medical care and good quality food.
General Anders, whose portrait graces the wall of many Polish clubs throughout the English speaking world, was given the task of forming the Second Polish Corps. Having been recently released from the Lubyanka prison in Moscow, he well understood the appalling suffering that his countrymen had undergone. As they moved south to Tehran, then west to Bagdad and Palestine, his soldiers gradually developed the health necessary to complement their steely resolve. By the end of 1942 they had taken part in the field exercises near Nazareth, the greatest firing of artillery in military history and were deemed ready for action. After redeployment to Egypt, the Second Polish Corps was shipped from Alexandria to Italy.
The morale of the troops was addressed by ensuring that military families were sent to purpose built camps in safe areas. Valivade, near Bombay, India, housed over five thousand refugees and many stayed there for more than four years. Others waited out the war in one of the many camps of East Africa.
Pets were also a source of comfort to soldiers, but only one was given a rank and inducted into the Polish army. Wojtek, the bear was so beloved by the troops that he was allowed to travel with them to Italy. Bought as a cub in Iraq, he grew to be a huge bear and was present at the battle of Monte Cassino, in Italy. By this time the bear thought that it was a soldier and helped to unload shells for the artillery. This image became the emblem painted on to each 22nd transport company truck after the battle.
Brutal as the battles of Italy undoubtedly were, they were matched by the catastrophe that was Arnhem. Major-General Sosabowski gathered the fittest of the exiles from Siberia and guided them halfway around the world, from Persia to Scotland by way of South Africa. There they trained to become the 1st Polish Parachute Brigade. The Poles dropped into Holland a few days after the initial parachute assault and immediately came under heavy fire. The lucky ones were able to withdraw a week later.
‘The Chocolate Suitcase’ spans these historical events and takes readers on a moving emotional odyssey that is as informative as it is gripping.
Bryan Wiles is the author of The Chocolate Suitcase.
