Svetlana

She was just an old woman, who lived alone. She used a cane to hobble to the door, or to make her lunch in the kitchen. But, this story she told me one day – in just the most matter of fact way – made my jaw drop in astonishment.

She made me promise that I’d never tell her story to anyone while she was still alive, since she was a very private woman who just wanted to live the quiet life. Sometimes, it seems as if we get caught up in our daily workaday worlds, and don’t even recognize the extraordinary people living ordinary lives all around us. But she certainly was one of them. Her amazing story that I can now tell is this:

“I was born in the Eastern half of Poland in 1923, and so when Hitler invaded from the West, Stalin invaded from the East, and took our farm from us. My brother managed to escape on one of our big draft horses in the barn. When he saw the Soviet Army enter the farmhouse, he unhitched the horse from the plow, and rode off under a hail of bullets. He spent the rest of the war as part of the Polish underground, blowing things up. I never saw him again, since he was killed during the last days of the war, but he became one of the leaders of the Polish underground. He fought both the Soviets, and then later the Nazis like a tiger.

But, my mother, and I were taken to Siberia to work as slaves near the Arctic Circle. Everybody talks about how bad, and horribly cruel the Nazis were to the Jews, but nobody ever says a word about how badly Stalin treated us Poles. We were herded on cattle cars, just like the Jews were, and taken to Siberia, no food, no water, no heat. It was a very long trip, and there were people who died along the way.

We were taken to a work camp to dig in a Soviet gold mine. After about a week, I was brought in to the commandant, who was a dirty, filthy swine of a Cossack. You would not know it today to look at me, but back then I was beautiful young woman, and he offered me a warm bed, enough food, and an easy warm life, if I provided him with certain services. I tell him then to go kiss mule since he had many mules outside – but I said it not politely enough to suit him, and he got very angry with me.

He beat me with his riding crop, and kicked me with his boots. He said he wanted me to see what it was like to be mule. When he was done, he asked me again if I wanted to stay with him, and I spat in his face. But, it was more blood than spit, since he just got done beating me.

He beat me some more then, but when he was done this time he threw me out into the snow to go back to work in the mine. And so, I joined my mother there again, pushing a wheelbarrow in, and out of the mine all day long.   But, I was glad to work in the mine. I did not want to be his mule.

For the first part of the war, this is what I did. The work there was very hard, back-breaking work, and we worked as long as it was daylight, but up near the Arctic Circle, the night time only lasts four hours. The guards would beat us with their whips if we did not work fast enough for them, even though we were so very tired, and weak. My mother was a very strong and very brave, smart woman. She got up every morning at 2 AM, to wait in line for our daily ration of camel’s milk, and bread, so we could have even that little to eat. If she did not do this, and get in line early enough, then we would have nothing to eat for that day.

I thought that I would die in mine, like I see so many others do. It was very very cold all of the time, and the wind blew very hard, and strong. Many people died in their sleep, and froze stiff before morning. We were very isolated there, and so there were no guard towers, fences, or barbed wire to keep us in. They didn’t need them. There was nothing around us, but snow, and ice for two-hundred miles in every direction, and how that wind did blow across those plains! Siberia is very flat right there, and it whistled, and howled. The warmest place around was inside the mine since it was out of that awful wind.

But, then a wonderful thing happened. Hitler attacked the Soviets. Roosevelt then made nice with Stalin, which I hated him for, at first. But, it was Roosevelt who got Stalin to set us free. This is why I came to this wonderful country in 1953, and became a US citizen. That was the proudest moment of my life, when I became a US citizen, because America always do the right thing. Nobody makes you a slave here, or makes you be their mule.

And so, they gathered us together one day, and they tell us that the “great Stalin,” set us free. I spat in snow at that, but was glad to be free. But, now what was there to do? How do you get out of Siberia without becoming snowman?

My mother was very smart, and so she had some money she got from black market, and bought us a ride in the back of a dump truck two hundred miles to the railroad. Again, they stuff us all together into boxcars – no food – since we are not prisoners of war anymore, they did not feed us at all, and no heat. It was a very great hardship for people who were already so very weak, and so tired, and hungry, and cold. My poor, poor mother was put on a different boxcar than me, and she died on train. I never saw her again, because they would not let me look for her. I never did find out what happened to her.

The train took us to the Ukraine, where we picked cotton for the “privilege,” of living in a pigsty of a camp with no food at all. There were many Poles there, and we kept alive by digging out roots from the riverbank, and eating whatever we could find. At least it was warmer there. Well, I still did not want to die there either, so I tell Stalin to take his “privilege,” and stuff it up his Soviet, and simply walked away. The guards were much better there, and didn’t kill us for no reason – if they had a reason, they’d kill you – but they weren’t as brutal as the ones in Siberia. I still didn’t let them see me go. I did not want to give them a reason to shoot me, and so I sleep in barns, walk at night, take trains, ride camels, and horses, and mules, and I go across Iran, and Iraq to get to Palestine where I know the British Army is fighting Rommel.

So, don’t tell me about Muslim terrorists hating us because we have big military. They hate everyone who is not Muslim. I know. You hide in a barn with camel dung for a day while religious fanatics look for you so they can chop your head off, and see how your opinion changes. I did not have a big army with me. I did not even have a country then. Poland was gone.

So, finally I get to Palestine, and join the British Army. They have a big Polish section, and finally – I have enough to eat! They took us to Scotland, and there were many Poles there just like me, and even though they fed us very well, we were still so hungry, that we jumped down into the garbage pits for the bones that the British soldiers threw away.

That was where I met my husband, there in Scotland. He was Polish too, and was the most handsome man I’d ever seen in my life! That was his main problem, I think, being so handsome because he was not faithful to me, even though I was to him. I know he loved me, and he treated me very well for all the years we were together. He just couldn’t control himself. He died here not long ago. For three years I take care of him here in this house all by myself. I did not want him to be in nursing home, even though he needed care 24 hours a day. It was very hard, and I am not young woman anymore, but this is what you do for people who love you.

But, you young people nowadays don’t know what it’s like to be faithful. What I see on TV makes me sick. You are here in your soft lives and don’t know what it’s like to suffer, and be cold, and tired, and hungry. You are so lucky, and you don’t appreciate it! I am so proud to be US citizen, and when I see these dumb fool ingrates burning the flag, and stomping on it, it just makes me so furious with them, that I almost ruin the TV by throwing things at it.

The first time I saw they do this horrible, awful thing, I cried the whole day. It hurt so much that they are so ignorant of what they have. What I had to work hard, struggle, and suffer for, they got for free the day they were born! They do not know what it is, they have. I still pray to God and Jesus every day, thanking them for life, and for letting me live here in this wonderful place where I can have freedom, and rights.

And this is why we come here to live in Florida. I never want to see snow ever again!