- The full number of Poles sent into the communist empire is hard to determine, but it is estimated that it amounted to more than half a million people, from whom at least 150 000 were exported to Kazakhstan
- ‘The landing of wagons has begun. People came out of them drunk. “Where is our village?” they asked amazed looking around. Oh, yes, your village will be around this well. The girls were crying bitterly," recalled Kazimierz Polański
- In the early 1950s, an uprising broke out in the camp, which was bloodyly suppressed. Kazimierz Kaczkowski, 1 of the participants of the event, recalled: “The tanks pushed through our barricades and entered the camp, followed by infantry in helmets. We had to surrender, we had no chance”
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In Karaganda and Workout there was coal, in Norylsko nickel, in Kołym gold, in Jzhzkazgan (today Żyzkazgan) copper. The extraction of these natural materials was based on slave labour of prisoners, among whom were a large group of Poles. Modern Kazakhstan, which was a key component of the Stalin system, condemned these crimes. Thousands of people of many nationalities were forced to relocate here due to the fact that it was far from Moscow and the front, and there were utmost conditions. During the winter the temperature dropped to minus 40 degrees C, while in summertime the mercury pole oscillated around 40 degrees C on the plus.
In 2001, an awesome museum dedicated to the memory of victims of repression was opened in the Valley of Karaganda. The bilingual exhibition is presented on 3 levels of the building, which formerly housed the command established in 1931 of the Karlag. 1 of the exhibitions concerns deportations started in the 1930s by exporting Poles.
Over 12 million people were displaced
The Museum of the Second planet War in Gdańsk states that a full of 130 deportation actions were carried out within the russian Union, in which over 12 million people were resettled.
In 1936, NKVD, wishing to clear border areas from Poles and Germans, developed a plan to resettle the "uncertain element" from western Ukraine. The action was carried out in 2 stages. A full of 70,000 people were taken to Kazakhstan. Polish families accounted for over 75 percent of deportees. The largest deportations to the East were made in 4 waves from 1940 to 1941. This group included mainly intelligence and intellectual workers, mostly women. They were Polish citizens of various nationalities, including Ukrainians, Belarusians and Jews.
Our compatriots besides visited Kazakh steppes after 1944 as part of the deportation of AK soldiers and residents of the post-German lands. fresh resettlements, including erstwhile Polish soldiers surviving within the limits of the russian Union, were carried out in the early 1950s.
The full number of Poles sent into the communist empire is hard to determine, but it is estimated that There were more than half a million people, of whom at least 150 000 were exported to Kazakhstan. The multi-national society of the largest Central Asian country developed as a consequence of deportation. The largest group were Germans, Koreans, Poles, Lithuanians, Ukrainians and Belarusians. another oppressed nations included Caucasian nations, Chechnya and Ingus, Karachay and the Balkans.
It is worth distinguishing between the GUŁAG system, where the majority of them were convicted by a court judgment, from the peculiar settlement system, where administrative decisions were adequate and the deportees differed in the degree of limitation of rights. Within individual settlements, both worlds could penetrate. The areas of the Karlag were created in villages that had previously been visited by exiles without convictions, but under the supervision of the commandant, without the right to change residence.
Resettlements from 1936 were just these peculiar residents. They were assured that houses and farms were waiting for them in the East, and in fact the villages were to be built and most frequently had to sleep in military tents. Kazimierz Polański mentioned:
In 2021, Polish nationality in Kazakhstan declared 35 1000 people. At the end of the russian Union, Polonia was estimated at least 100,000 people. During the same period the number of Germans decreased from 950 to 225 thousand. Kazakh Poles are primarily descendants of pre-war deportations. They were not citizens of the Republic, hence after 1945 they were not proposed to return. This was most frequently the peasant population, which over time lost its identity.
"Priest of the country of exiles"
Aleksandr Sołżenicin visited the mining town in 1955 and called it “the capital of the country of exile”. The camp surrounding Karaganda was the size of a tiny state (300×200 km). He owned mail, 2 railway lines and his own financial system. A Russian Nobel laureate recalled: “Almost the capital, and in any case 1 of the pearls of the land of exile was Karaganda. It was a starved city at the time. The tram did not come close to the flooded railway station barrack, so as not to fall underground: just below the surface of the ground were mined pavements. In the very centre of fresh Town was forged on a stone wall with the inscription “Coal – is bread” (for industry). If not three-quarters, at least two-thirds of the residents had no ID and had to study regularly to the commandant offices. And what kind of life was that on that exile? In the workplace, a humiliating situation, and a reduced salary, due to the fact that not everyone can prove that he has a appropriate education after a prison disaster. ”
Today the population of the half-million-dollar centre grew with the expansion of the camp and the expanding needs of the army (especially after the Germans occupied Donbas). In 1939 there were 165,000 people surviving here, 20 years later, in the year of the closure of the Karlag, the population was 397,000. While the camp was a state in the state, the same city was a transitional zone, a kind of buffer between the russian Union and the camps. There were exiles here released from camps. There were so many of them, that individual districts were called tiny Warsaw or tiny Berlin. In Russian, the phraseology “Gdie? in Karagandie” is inactive in operation, which means “an unwillingness to answer straight to the question where the object is located”.
During the war in Karlag, more than 50,000 prisoners worked. 1 of them was General Stefan Suszyński, who worked in the brickyard. A veteran of the war with the Bolsheviks died and was buried in December 1941 in the Valley. Almost 20,000 inmates worked in coal mining. Others were used, among others, in the construction of railways and potato harvests and in another industries. The children born in the camp could stay with their parent for 3 years, after which they were picked up and placed in orphanages. There is simply a tiny cemetery in Dolinka, where children were buried who did not live to be 3 years old (Momusny Cemetery).
The dwarf had many branches. possibly the best known was located close present-day Astana ŁAZIR (Akmolinian Łagier for the wife of the traitors of the Homeland). Women from the highest spheres, families of well-deserved revolutionaries or artists who fell into disfavor. Among the prisoners were Mikhail Tuchaczewski's sister, Mikhail Kalinin's wife and Nikolai Bucharin, Bulat Okudżawa's parent and Maja Plisiecka's dancer. Among the prisoners there were besides Polish women, who are devoted to 1 of the monuments in the museum complex: "Memoirs of Poles – victims of political repression from the USSR imprisoned in the LAZIR labour camp from 1937 to 1953".
Piotr Bejrowski / OnetAnother branch was the camp in Spassk, where there was first a peculiar camp for prisoners of war and then for political prisoners. Mortality was greater here than in another camps. In 1945 Bronisław Szereta, a associate in the September run and an AK soldier, will be here. There are almost no traces of old barracks today. The old camp is simply a large field with loose crosses.
“Although in captivity, we were alternatively slow at the time”
The Dzezkazgan Łagier was established in 1940. It was first intended for prisoners of war and then, under the name Stieplag, for political prisoners. Through the camp a full of 100,000 people. 1 of the prisoners was priest Ryszard Czesław Grabski:
Among the prisoners were besides priest Władysław Bukowinski, who led interreligious dialog in the camp and Jerzy Hungarian, who faced a dilemma: "... on the 1 hand, he should not have helped those who oppressed Poland and us in the camps at the time, and on the another hand, I felt the work of good work and showing what Poles could do." The engineer made rather an impression on Solzhenican, who described his pride and tenacity.
In the early 1950s, conflict grew in the camp – national groups were formed, among which UPA guerrillas led, conspiracy was organized, knives were collected.
The uprising broke out in May 1954, erstwhile a group of criminal prisoners who tried to dominate others were imprisoned in 1 of the troops. It lasted 40 days. Before the tanks entered the camp, the rebels organized their own authorities, set up a flag, organized supplies and a communication system.
Kazimierz Kaczkowski, 1 of the participants of the event, recalled: “Although we were in captivity, it was alternatively slow at the time. Each nationality had its own gathering square, where songs were sung, danced and organized various events." More than 500 rebels were killed in violent pacification“ The tanks broke through our barricades and entered the camp, followed by infantry in helmets. We had to give in, we had no chance” (Kaczkowski).
The alleged Kenyan uprising described by Sołzenicin helped to close the Stieplag in 1956 first, and respective years later to dismantle the full strategy managed by GUŁAG.
In the year of the uprising, priest Bukowinski was released (he was in a ward not occupied by rebellion) who was sent to Karaganda. He hired himself as a night watchman, and in 1955 he refused to repatriate and continued his spiritual mission. The Apostle of Kazakhstan, present blessed by the Catholic Church, He spent a full of 13 years in russian prisons and camps.
A tireless preacher was last convicted in 1959 for... spiritual activity and possession of illegal literature. After his release, he continued to service in Karaganda, where he died in 1974. He is the patron of dialog and reconciliation with Muslims.
