Document

MARIA PAWULSKA RASIEJ May 8, 2013

Q: This is a United States Holocaust Memorial Museum interview with

Maria Pawulska Rasiej, is that correct? On May 8", 2013, in Teaneck, New

Jersey. Thank you very mus -- much Mrs. Rasiej for agreeing to speak with us

today. And at the very beginning, I want to make sure that the pronunciation of your

maiden, as well as your married name will be correct, so could you tell me how to

truly say these -- these names?

A: Maria Pawulska Rasiej.

Q: Rasiej. Rasiej. And what was your maiden name?

A: Pawulska.

Q: Ah, Pawulska. Okay, can you tell me where you were born, and when you were

born?

A: I was born in Lvov, Poland, and I was born on the December 8", 1926.

Q: Okay. Can you -- what were your parents" names?

A: My mother was Maria also, or Maria, and my father's name was Stanislaw

Pawulski.

Q: Pawulski.

A: Mm-hm.

Q: And did you have brothers and sisters?

The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

The interview is part of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's collection of oral testimonies. Information about access and usage rights can be found in the catalog record. 4

Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

A: [have two brothers. One is Tadeusz, and the other one is Jerzy(ph).

Q: Are they older or younger than you?

A: Younger.

Q: Okay, so you were the oldest in the family?

A: Yes.

Q: Okay. Tell me a little bit about your parents. How did your father support the

family? What was his profession or business?

A: He was the al -- an -- officer in the Polish army.

Q: Okay.

A: He -- for most of the -- of his life.

Q: He was a career military man.

A: Career. He started in the first World War was [indecipherable], the first, before

Poland became independent in 1914, til he was taken prisoner by Soviets in 1939.

Q: Okay. We're -- when you were growing up, if he was an active army officer,

what were some of his duties? Ho -- what did he do during peacetime?

A: He usually spend the time with his battalion, or group of sol-soldiers, or going af

-- for example, maneuvers, or also introducing to the teenagers or hi -- teenagers, or

young people as high school, into a kind of preparation for a military high school,

or military preparation, as in the case of emergencies. And he was usually out of the The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

The interview is part of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's collection of oral testimonies. Information about access and usage rights can be found in the catalog record.

Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej deg

May 8, 2013

house for most of the hours that usually people in -- who are working were, usually

from about eight o'clock until four o'clock at -- in the afternoon. And then he had

sometimes meetings with -- at his place at the quarters where his army post was.

And sometimes soci -- social events, sometimes in the parades. I think he had -- at

one point was the adjutant of the general who was chief officer of Lvov. So as an

adjutant he would stand at the place where the parade was being received by the

president of the city. And -- that I remember even --

Q: Yeah.

A: --as a small child, I was so very proud of him standing there. He had special -- at

that time he had a special kind of uniform of [indecipherable] which mean the

soldiers of [indecipherable] in Poland, which had similar hat like the

[indecipherable] mountaineers. And had the -- by the hat, they had the eagle --

Q: On the side.

A: -- on the -- the eagle feathers.

Q: Mm-hm.

A: Feathers.

Q: Ah, either fe --

A: An-And instead of the coat, it was a peleryna, which is the --

Q: A cape?

The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

The interview is part of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's collection of oral testimonies. Information about access and usage rights can be found in the catalog record. 6

Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

A: A cape.

Q: I see.

A: So that he was unique in that sense.

Q: What was his rank?

A: He was a captain.

Q: He was a captain. And was there an army base, a military base then, in Lvov?

A: Oh, but several. Italians, or several, how you call it, the -- the bi -- it's a big -- was

a very big city, so it had a lot of different kinds of [indecipherable] my father was

with the -- how you call the -- the unit, the marching people, the soldiers, foot

soldiers.

Q: Infantry?

A: Infantry.

Q: Okay.

A: And there -- there was a cavalry and there was the heavy armored --

Q: Artillery.

A: --ra-- artillery, light artillery, and also the air force. They had the small -- there

was an airport for -- for the army, so -- for the air officers in Lvov, called

[indecipherable]. And sometimes he was, as a matter of fact, toward the end of his The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

The interview is part of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's collection of oral testimonies. Information about access and usage rights can be found in the catalog record. 7

Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

career, he was in charge of security of being in adven -- infantry, taking security of

this Polish air for -- at Lvov --

Q: The airport.

A: -- air force -- air -- airport.

Q: Wa -- it sounds like it was very much then a military town. Were all Polish cities

had so many bases from the military, or was Lvov exceptional in some way?

A: No, Lvov was a third size city in Poland. It was a very well known, years, years

before, centuries before, as a commercial crossroad from the Baltic to Black Sea.

Q: Yeah.

A: And so there was a lot of influx of the Armenians, and the people from the east

who were trading, going through. And then later on it developed quite a well-known

cultural center. And it was -- it had this specific atmosphere. Lvov was somehow

unique in that sense that if you meet anywhere somebody from Lvov, you always

have something to talk about and you ask each other, where did you live, what

street? And was a very patriotic city, but toward the end of the first World War,

after the Austrian empire fell through -- lost the war, Galicia, that was part of the

Austrian empire was again, somehow, having problems with the minorities, and

there was a big minority of the Ukrainians, wanted to have Lvov as their city, and

there were strong battle in -- for several months in the -- with the arm -- Prussian The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

The interview is part of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's collection of oral testimonies. Information about access and usage rights can be found in the catalog record.

Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej deg

May 8, 2013

army. At that time a -- Russia entered already the war, already, after the revolutions,

it was communist --

Q: Right.

A: -- army that wanted to take over. At that time also was the battle for -- they

entered also the eastern border of Poland and wanted supposedly, as Lenin said,

they wanted to bring communism to Germany. And so, in that battle, most of the

young people who were fighting for the independence were already at the front,

being busy, so the students of Lvov, the students of universities -- there were a

couple of polytechnic and university very well recognized. And the young children,

like Boy Scouts, and -- and were helping out and it retained its independence from

the Ukrainians. It became part afterwards --

Q: Of Poland.

A: --it became part of Polish, because [indecipherable] I can't re-recall how many

miles yet to the Russian border, because it, you know, was several hundreds of

miles to the Russian border, so it was still well in -- well in Poland.

Q: But it was close to the Ukrainian border.

A: Well, not -- at that time, Ukrainian border, there were couple of hundred miles.

Q: Oh, still a few hundred miles.

A: Right, because Russia -- The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

The interview is part of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's collection of oral testimonies. Information about access and usage rights can be found in the catalog record. 9

Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

Q: Was part -- it was --

A: Ukraine was part of --

Q: -- it was part of of Russia, yeah.

A: -- Russia at that time.

Q: Yeah, yeah.

A: At that time Ukraine was still -- when the communists came, they made

Ukraine --

Q: Communist.

A: -- park -- part of Russia, communistic part of Soviet --

Q: I just was -- I had thought it was so close to the border. I didn't realize there was

still several hundred miles distance.

A: Mm-hm, right. I would say 200 - 300 miles.

Q: Yeah. Tell me a little bit about your mother. Her name again was?

A: Maria.

Q: Maria. And how -- what was her role? Was she -- does she also have a -- a -- an

occupation, or was her occupation taking care of the children?

A: Before she got married, she was a teacher.

Q: Okay.

The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

The interview is part of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's collection of oral testimonies. Information about access and usage rights can be found in the catalog record. 10

Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

A: Or also she worked in bank. And then when she got married, one of the things

that life of the officer was very often on the move. You spend few years here, few

years there, and then we were born, so she really took care of us for rest of her life.

Q: Was -- was your family from Lvov for generations, or had your parents moved

there from other parts of Poland?

A: On my mother's side and my husband -- my father's side, there were members of

Lvov community. I don't know exactly, looking past a hundred years -- more than

hundred years of my father's families -- progeny, and the relatives who were, but I

know that they were quite well-known in the 19 century. And on my mother's

side, they were well-recognized as book editors and booksellers. That was on my

mother's side, and also when the oil started at the lower part of Poland, close to

Ukrainian border, some of the -- the members of my mother's family were owners

of the -- of the --

Q: Oil wells?

A: -- oil wells, or participated in some kind of things.

Q: In the oil business probably. How would you describe your chi -- the home life

inside your home? Were your parents very strict, were they lenient? What were

some of their values? What are the things you remember them, I guess sh-sharing

with you that were important to them?

The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

The interview is part of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's collection of oral testimonies. Information about access and usage rights can be found in the catalog record. 11

Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

A: I think that I'm -- I gained much from -- from them, from the teaching, or wi--

they were very moral people.

Q: Were they religious?

A: They were religious and they attended the church as we -- although, when I

started going to the -- the primary school, it was a public school, but they were also

-- sometime the -- the schools run by nuns, or the -- for the girls, or for boys, the

monks. But I was in public school, but we had also gone through a -- learning

religion in school, and attended all -- part of our life was living also a religious life.

And all our morals are based on that, and I think that -- that added to the strength

afterwards, that we, when difficulties started later in life, and the tragedy started,

that the -- the base was that we had loving parents, and my mother would -- although

I always felt that she preferred my brothers to me, she was very strict -- stricter with

me. It's only when I was grown-up, much grown-up, she -- she told me that she

expected more from me, and was stricter with me because the women have harder

life, and have much more to depend on the moral self-awareness than the boys. So

there -- therefore, difference that I felt as a negative thing, was in the form of trying

to make me stronger.

Q: Do you think it worked?

A: I think so.

The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

The interview is part of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's collection of oral testimonies. Information about access and usage rights can be found in the catalog record. 12

Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

Q: Yeah. Which -- which parent were you closer to?

A: I was close to my mother because she was always around. But I was also -- I

knew that I was in -- in ma -- in the eyes of my father a little princess. I would --

wouldn't do anything -- even he expected also a lot of me. Fortunately I was a good

student, so there was never this -- any conflicts like that. But I remember once she

wa -- he was passing by my -- our bedroom, and a rug that was near my bed was

crooked. And I remember him telling me, you, with your artistic inclination, how

can you stand a crooked rug? And tha -- you know, that must have been so many

years ago, but something like this happened. And I was very proud of my father, he

had been -- ha-had many friends, and was considered quite an -- outstanding as a

person.

Q: Was he an outgoing person?

A: I would say he was more like home person, whenever he was coming. He was

not too much into going out so much, but usually when he would come home, I

would remember him reading newspapers, and staying home, and -- and also going

visiting with the re -- other relatives. But he was also very much feeling responsible

for his subordinates. So he was always on the lookout, or checking out with them.

So I understand they had a great admiration for him, which proved later on in life,

when they were looking for him.

The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

The interview is part of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's collection of oral testimonies. Information about access and usage rights can be found in the catalog record. 1

Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej deg

May 8, 2013

Q: Would you describe your childhood? How would you describe your childhood?

How would you, when you think back on those years before the war, what is the

feeling that you have?

A: I would say, on -- like most other girls, I would say similar experiences in school.

I was sometimes teacher's pet, so I suffered a little bit sometimes, because being

somehow shown as a-- an example, makes you an enemy of some people. But

anyway, mostly a good, pleasant type of fa-family, my mother and father, and also

the distant family, aunts and uncles visiting, everybody will -- even later on they,

when as an adult, and some aunt, or some uncle from -- from Poland, when we

visited, they remembered me as a child. And I remembered how close they were to

our family. So it was a, I would say, more -- mostly [indecipherable] except that we

were not rich, because the army people are not rich, so I knew that from time to

time they might have had some problems, financial problems if something extra

happened. But I, fortunately, I don't remember any big sickness in my childhood or

my brothers", except for scarlet fever and diphtheria. But at that time there was a

kind of -- every -- every child almost, had it, and you had to be in the hospital,

because there was epidemic of scarlet fever, so that they would not allow children

to stay home. So I spent some six weeks or something like that in the -- in the

hospital, but -- my brothers, too, at different times. But nothing really tragic.

The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

The interview is part of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's collection of oral testimonies. Information about access and usage rights can be found in the catalog record. 14

Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

Q: How would you describe your parents" relationships to one another?

A: It was -- from what I can say, and could feel, there was a great bond between

them. It was great respect for my father, and my -- my mother also had her

husband's respect. Th -- I couldn't remember angry voices, but if there were -- and I

am sure that it's impossible to live through life without any -- any little

disagreements or something, but I was not aware of any problem of any serious

consequences.

Q: Did you have close friends at school?

A: Yes, I had several friends and -- and -- and one, especially one whose parents

were also friends of my parents. He was a famous painter in -- in Poland, and her

mother was not working, was also taking care. But Barah(ph) was the only child,

so we were very often spending time, either at our house, or at her house.

Q: What was her last name?

A: Martuszuk(ph)

Q: Martuszuk(ph). How would -- you mentioned a little bit that your parents or

your family was not particularly well-to-do. Would you sa --

A: [indecipherable] the army --

Q: Yeah.

The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

A: -- people, you know, kind of difficult, and because the army -- Poland was then,

you know, just rising from the ashes. And I think in Poland was starting to build the

economy and industry. So it -- a regular situation with the army, it's -- wasn't that

they were not very [indecipherable]. Maybe there were people who had some

special assignments, or something like that, would get extra money for trouble, or

something, a presentation or something. It's not that we're poor.

Q: No.

A: I didn't feel the poverty.

Q: Okay.

A: But no -- from knowledge of how the situation was. As an adult I could

recognize that we're middle class, well educated, and middle class very much

interested in the social and cultural life. But not probably extensively or too often

outside of Poland.

Q: Did your family own a car?

A: No, we did not own a car. The horses, the [indecipherable] or how you call the

horses were usually belonged to -- to the commander of the battalion, like my father

was. And so, we sometimes went on some excursion we went, but we also went --

the car also belonged to the unit there.

Q: I see. So sometimes you had use of it.

The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

A: So sometimes we used it, the car.

Q: Did you have a radio at home?

A: Yes.

Q: Okay.

A: But there that -- that time, was the radio when you -- you -- with the crystal, when

you put the small crystal to here, to connect --

Q: I don't even know what that ra -- kind of radio looked like.

A: Not just a-- a box with the microphone that you could hear --

Q: Okay.

A: --I mean, behind the screen. And there was the classic things with the -- some

screw that you tried to correct --

Q: The sound?

A: -- the sound to get the connection, because that -- you probably only would have

the -- only the radio from Lvoy, all the -- in Poland, but you would have to

maneuver to get that thing working.

Q: The signal.

A: Signal.

Q: Yeah, yeah. Tell me a little bit about Lvov as a city that you mentioned earlier,

seemed to be multicultural.

The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

The interview is part of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's collection of oral testimonies. Information about access and usage rights can be found in the catalog record.

Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej "

May 8, 2013

A: Very much so.

Q: Who wi - and how was it divided, if you would know? First of all, about how

large a city was it in the 1930s? How many poppi -- people?

A: In -- 350,000 before the war.

Q: Okay.

A: And it had about 65 percent Poles, I would say about 20 percent Ukrainians, or

maybe less. I would say less, but they had quite a large Jewish section, Jewish -- the

-- the Jews of Poland were the -- the assimi -- most of them were the assimilated

Jews, or the Jews who called themselves Poles, and went with us to school. And

there were also smal -- small sections in Lvov -- well, small, it's relative, where

there were Orthodox places. They had very busy market, very well developed, and

they had several synagogues. And was kind of a very prou -- Lvov was proud of is

that they had Armenians, quite a lot of [indecipherable] maybe t -- five or more

thousand Armenians, who are actually, they came to Lvov in the 16" century, 17

century, so you couldn't really differentiate that they were Armenians. They had

different names, but they had -- the cathedral was Armenian cathedral, or Catholic

Armenian order, and there was also the Ukrainian cathedral, a very well recognized,

very well-known [indecipherable] Saint George Cathedral, for the Ukrainians, but

they were not ort -- Russian orthodox, but they were Yoonyots(ph). That was the The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

reun -- in the -- at the end of 16" century there was a reunion of the orthodox

Ukrainians with the Roman --

Q: Catholic church.

A: -- Catholic church, and they recognized the Pope. And so you actually could go

to -- to the masses, except that they use the Ukrainian language and Ukrainian

letters, which --

Q: Rather than Latin.

A: Rather than Latin.

Q: Yeah.

A: But that was different, and especially since lat -- in the Catholic church had Latin

Q: Yes.

A: --so for most of the people who did not know Latin, it was also boring.

Q: Yeah. Did you ha --

A: And then I also about several -- quite a -- a lot, I don't know what percentage,

German, especially Austrian German, because Galicia in the -- when Poland was

divided, Poland uke -- Lithuanian Ukraine --

Q: Right.

The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

The interview is part of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's collection of oral testimonies. Information about access and usage rights can be found in the catalog record. 19

Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

A: -- and Poland, the commonwealth was divided between Russia, Prussia and

Austria.

Q: Right.

A: So if you know that situation, many of the Austrians came in and stayed, and

very often became Poles, even better Poles patriotically than -- than some peasants

who -- peasants or some workers who didn't have schooling or something, that as

the ch-change after the war happened, there were many -- and during the 19"

century there's -- you probably know from history, there were several uprising

against Russia to free Poland --

Q: Yes.

A: -- and Lithuania from Russian tsars at that time. And I know the incidents of

people who -- was one professor that I read somewhere that small story, one

professor at the University of Lvov, they were talking about one of the uprising in --

in Poland in the [indecipherable] what they said congress was a part of Russian --

Russian part of Poland who stepped up the activities, and they said, where I --

where are you sons, they asked the professor. He said, he -- they are doing the

patriotic duty. They went to defend Poland, to Russian part. Beca -- and he was of

Austrian -- Austrian parentage --

Q: Origin, yeah.

The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

The interview is part of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's collection of oral testimonies. Information about access and usage rights can be found in the catalog record. 20

Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

A: -- originally, because many, many of them -- as a matter of fact, my -- the mother

of my girlfriend in Poland, her parents lived in Vienna, and sometimes she went to

visit her. So, there was some [indecipherable]

Q: Yeah, some influence.

A: -- many of these people became as Polish as --

Q: As the next person, yeah.

A: Right.

Q: In school, did you intermingled, or did your family know any Jewish people?

A: Yes.

Q: Okay.

A: I sat with a Jewish girl. I didn't have much in common with some of the girls

from -- because where -- in our neighborhood, I think, were many small shop

owners. And they somehow kept much to themselves, Jewish people. But we also

have some doctors [indecipherable] and some very, very good students, too, and it

was like, I would say in the class of 35 or 40 children, there would be at least 15

Jewish children. And when the lessons in religion, everybody was obliged to take --

participate, and we had the priest come for the Catholic girls, the rabbi come, take

the to another room, or -- or we went out to another room. And also Ukraine, or

[indecipherable] which is the Ukrainians how they called themselves before the -- The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

The interview is part of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's collection of oral testimonies. Information about access and usage rights can be found in the catalog record. 21

Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

all the nationalistic fights. But -- and then they -- and we had couple Protestants girls

and there was a church, a Protestant church of Habsburg den-denomination. So it

was an -- a--TI cannot remember how many -- how many, but I know that I sat --

there were two -- two girls to each seat, and I was sitting with the -- with the girl

who was Jewish.

Q: Did your parents talk about politics at home? About what was going on in the

country, what was going on in the world?

A: I-I--I think we were well informed, but there were -- I had sometimes discussion

with my father, what I was like -- about medicine, or about something. I that -- when

my father would come and have his late lunch, because at four o'clock it's neither

lunch nor supper. So I would sit and ask of -- my mother was very upset. Will you

stop talking about all the medical things, or -- I don't know why it was of some

interest at one point for me. But we discussed probably because of school, and

learning and it wasn't somehow forced on us, any patriotic things, or you were

ordered by school to march, or to -- ordered by -- you did some of the things, like

celebrate anniversaries and -- and ho -- hope that Poland is honorable with

everything, and somehow you knew that there was some bad things happened, you

heard about some -- somebody murdering somebody, some kind of a trial of

someone, which later on, I understand years later proving that it was innocent The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

The interview is part of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's collection of oral testimonies. Information about access and usage rights can be found in the catalog record. 22

Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

person. But anyway, somehow the -- it was in the news, so you couldn't help even

overhearing what they went to the -- to shop, or where they went in -- in the

tramways, because the tramways were the way the communication was quite well-

developed in -- in Lvov, and --

Q: So -- okay. Did you want to finish the thought?

A: Mm, no.

Q: Okay. Did you -- were -- were Hitler's name or Stalin's name, were they well

known? Did people talk about them, or were they foreign countries, and they would

have little effect?

A: No, there was definitely a well-known situation, and I remember during one of

my last -- maybe not last -- in 1938, in vacation, I was in Warsaw with my aunt and

uncle, the brother of my father. And I also lived with -- sometimes they had the

house be -- residence outside of Warsaw. And I remember in "38, at the time of

Czechoslovakia and anschluss, and the speeches of Hitler, and how we all felt,

you know, all -- really with the goose pimples. And --

Q: You fe -- you felt?

A: Goose pimples.

Q: Goose pimples.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej 8

May 8, 2013

A: When we heard the voice of Hitler talking about his enemies, and how -- and

then also sometimes on the radio too, you heard the [indecipherable] repeating his

threats after Czechoslovakia and starting to repeat the threats against Poland,

which some reporters translated it, of course. But also you heard the voices of

Hitler, it still to my -- I think to my dying day, the wor -- hearing his voice raises the

hair on my back of my head.

Q: Frightening.

A: Frightening, and like if you hear evil, or f-- almost subconsciously because at

that time we didn't realize what will happen. But the hatred that was coming

through was so difficult to -- even to understand, that -- that amount of threats, or

that amount of hatred, or that amount of -- and also, on the other hand, my father

had a very relaxed or -- the way of talking about the army, and about that Poland is

preparing for difficult times, and we are sure that we will survive, and also would --

toward the end, when there were the alliances with England and France, that we" ll

have some help and some support from the west, if Hitler will attack us. And that

they will defend Poland to the last drop of blood. And somehow that right would be

on our side. [phone ringing]

Q: Mm-hm, yeah.

A: And so, in that sense, we looked with some hope to -- [interruption][break] The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

Q: So, there are very troubling things that are happening, but also signals that you" ll

be safe, that things will be okay.

A: Feeling.

Q: Yeah.

A: Feeling hope, and also based on the -- our faith, religious faith, and feeling that

we were not the people who could cause the war, but rather to defend our honor, but

not to kind of being afraid that we are facing such a mighty enemy, and such a

ruthless enemy. So unfortunately, this happened. But it still, from what I

understand, the Germans, when talking about the September war, 1939 war, in their

reports said that some of the bravery was enviable, about Poles before they died, or

before they had to leave the post, or something. That's all, there were still

monument in some places where was almost like [indecipherable]

Q: Yeah.

A: Where everybody would die without giving up the defense. So -- and then, also

the feeling that we will -- the goodness should win in the long run, but we didn't

know how the things were.

Q: Okay. I'd like to get a sense of, as August 1939, or as summer 1939 is

developing, what is it that you are hearing, what is it that is in the conversations and

in the air? Are -- are your parents talking more and more about things? And -- and The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej deg

May 8, 2013

Id like to know personally, for you, for your family, where were you, and how did

you learn of the war?

A: Well, the instant of the war, I very well remember, the first of September. I --

when I came back from my aunt, near Krakow, where I spend the vacation, she

brought me around sixth or fifth of August. And I knew that the -- at that time there

were some unpleasant meetings between the German and Russian people,

diplomatic, some conferences or whatever, we didn't know yet at that time. And

because that war seemed to be imminent, my aunt and uncle brought me home to

Lvov. And by then my father was not sleeping at home, but staying on his post

where he was assigned at part of Lvov, at Lychakiv, near where his whole unit was

at. And my mother took me on the first of September to say hello to my father,

because this was around -- like around 10 o'clock or so in the morning, to greet

Tadeusz after coming back from vacation, and to say hello, to see him, but then

return without him, with my mother. And I was returning by tram number one. That

I remember too, the tram number one was actually traveling from nearby where my

father was staying, but he's quite a lot across from where we lived, and by the time

we were passing mid-after -- sitting in the -- in the train and train was going, and we

started hearing something like bombs, or some shot -- shooting, or something that

sounded like thunder, or we didn't know what it was. And close to our church, The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej deg

May 8, 2013

which is -- which was not too far from the place where we lived, at that number one

stopped, and the tramway -- and people were trying to watch the planes flying over,

and people were saying no, th-these are not Polish, these are not Polish planes. And

then we hear some of the bombs breaking sound, and the -- the conductor of the

tramway said, you have to hurry home and try to get into the basement or

somewhere to hide, because this is the -- we are attacked from the air by Germany.

I remember then walking back, I saw a woman -- I don't know how I remember that,

but carrying a pillow with blood on it. And she said my daughter was hit by --

whether by shrapnel, or whether by a brick or something, because of the falling

house, that her -- her head was on that pillow when her daughter was, and she was

crying and carrying before we got to our house. And we -- we got to the base --

basement, but actually what -- later on it was arranged there were some neighbor --

neighborhood houses where had bigger basements, much more prep-prep-prepared

to take some people in. And so the rest of [indecipherable] before the Russians

came, before the 22"! of September, when the Russians came to Lvov, they entered

Poland on the 19" of September --

Q: Hang on a second.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

A: Ni--no -- Poland, 17" of September they entered -- they crossed the border. By

the time they came to Lvov, Lvov was being surrounded by the German army. And

Q: Okay, let's stop there for a second, though. You're in -- you're in the basement

originally, you know, the first one, which is not that well prepared. And if I can just

repeat what I understood is, you went to say hello and greet your father on your way

back from vacation in Krakow, and while you are traveling home on tram number

one, the war starts. And --

A: The -- the bombardment, the --

Q: The -- the -- the bombardment comes. So you didn't know the war -- war was

starting, you just saw the bombs --

A: Saw the -- the airplanes --

Q: Planes.

A: -- and the people talking th -- oh no, these are Polish, oh no, no, these are not

Polish airplanes.

Q: Yeah.

A: And then hearing the whistle --

Q: Of the bombs.

A: -- of the bombs.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

Q: Well, it meant that, I mean, Lvov being so far east --

A: Well, it's -- but for the airplanes --

Q: Germ -- yeah, it's not long. It's not long at all.

A: Not only that, you have to remember that Poland was surrounded from three

sides. Only the Russian border was not use -- being used as an army for Germany.

Czechoslovakia was taken, and Slovakia was a Hitler friend. That's the south of

Poland.

Q: And of course --

A: Prussia.

Q: Yeah.

A: Prussia was the German place of Teutonic knights, which you know, as

Lithuanian Teutonic knights --

Q: Right.

A: -- to that part of -- of what was Poland at one point. So the north part, and all the

Q: West.

A: -- all the west.

Q: Yeah.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

A: So the -- the -- Poland was like taken into squeeze. So I don't know whether

these planes came from -- maybe from Czechoslovakia, which wasn't too far.

Q: That's true.

A: And -- but the -- the advance was swift.

Q: Well tell me -- tell me then, in those three weeks, if it started from the first --

A: Three --

Q: -- until the -- until the Russians enter on the 17", they cross the border --

A: Yes, but the war was still going on, the Poland did not surrender until the 29" of

S-September, Warsaw fell.

Q: Okay, what I'm interested in is what is happening with you and your family in

this environment. So, in those three weeks, where were you, where were your

younger brothers, where was your mother, and where was your father?

A: My father was at his post, and from time to time was sending us, either through

his adjutant or some telephone that everything is all right with him, and to take care,

and hope for the better, that the German, as a matter of fact, stopped -- were stopped

around Lvov, they could not enter Lvov. And then there was a day of quiet, the

22(tm)4. The -- actually the evening of 21deg, all the ar-artillery fire, because this was

constantly, we had constant air raids, and constant, at one point wa -- when the

Germany was surrounding Lvov, constant battle.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

Q: So did you stay at home? Did you stay in the cellar?

A: We stayed at home on the first floor.

Q: Okay.

A: And went to s -- no, we didn't go to school.

Q: Okay.

A: The school were -- was sto --

Q: Stopped?

A: -- closed. And -- but I remember going to visit my friend and spending some

time, when -- but one of the things that -- that my parents, probably every parent was

trying to get some preparation, some food storage for something that will take

longer.

Q: That's right, that wouldn't spoil.

A: That is it not -- right. That -- so very often it was to go -- this is still the Russians

are not in.

Q: Yeah.

A: And then the -- on the 22", they enter Lvov. There is no more bombardment,

there is no more artillery fight. But the other things started to --

Q: Happen.

A: Mm-hm.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej deg

May 8, 2013

Q: Okay. So I'm going to try and repeat what I -- what I think I understand, is that in

those first weeks, the Germans have surrounded Lvov, and there's fighting.

A: Only the last few days before they -- the Russians came. The --

Q: Okay, so until then, in those first two weeks --

A: Mm-hm.

Q: -- let's say 14 - 15 days, there was no fighting in Lvov?

A: Not inside Lvov.

Q: Not inside. And -- and so was -- was there food still, were the stores filled, were --

did people go out in the streets?

A: Yes, the --

Q: Okay.

A: -- would be like -- you probably have seen some of the films showing Britain.

You know, there -- there were bombardments, although they were not surrounded by

the Germans, but at -- at the time when bombardments, the s -- the s-sirens were --

Q: Right.

A: -- [indecipherable] and then you run to the basement.

Q: Okay.

A: And then the sirens would sound again, and you would go back to your

apartment. But then, toward the end when Germany surrounded Lvov, which was, The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

I think five days before, or maybe more, I can't [indecipherable] or I would look at

the book, and we would know. But a -- a -- around few days, there was a constant,

about 10 day -- now I remember, 10 days, because my mother saying 10 days that

we were staying and sleeping in the basement.

Q: So you were under siege. At that point you were under siege.

A: Right.

Q: And could wa -- could I -- would it be accurate to understand that the Germans --

the n-- th-the German Wehrmacht more or less conquered the city for the Russians

let them in?

A: No.

Q: Okay.

A: No.

Q: Okay, so --

A: They -- they -- from what I gather --

Q: Okay.

A: -- from historic point of view, I am somehow amateur historian, and there was

meeting with the Russians on the 21deg of September.

Q: Between the Germans and the Russians?

A: Between Germans and Russians.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

Q: Okay.

A: At first when we n-- we learned about Russians coming in, from the news, but

wha-what kind of news could come while was in -- in wartime is very difficult to

say what is true and what not. But at that time, in a sense, we were puzz -- Poles

were puzzled: why the Russians come? There was an alliance between Poland and

Russia in 1933 -- 32 first, and completed in "34 for non-aggression pact. So

supposedly we were free on the east, but unfortunately, the Russians broke it. To

this day they say there was no war. So, for example, the prisoners of war who had

been killed, are not recognized the victims of the war to that kind of -- some kind of

the defense that Russian would, after finally admitting that it was Russians, at first

they said th-the -- the German forces came with the po -- the Russian prisoners of

war who are in Russia. But at that time there were no Germans in Russia.

Q: So, if there was a bombardment of -- of Lvov, and all of a sudden it becomes

quiet, how do you explain that? Did the Germans retreat and allow the Russians to

come in?

A: We didn't see them retreat, wis -- we heard stoppage of the artillery fire.

Q: Okay.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej deg

May 8, 2013

A: And then the eerie kind of quiet. We didn't know what to expect from left to

right, whether the bombs coming, or whether the artillery will be taken. And we, at

that time, most of the people didn't think that the Russians came as friends.

Q: So what -- when was the first time you saw a change? When was the first time

you saw the Russian army come --

A: Immediately.

Q: What happened?

A: The -- marching into it, and they -- often the pre-war communist people put on

the red band on -- on the arms, and turned into militia, and immediately would have

-- the traffic would be stop because they would go into the stores that had food, and

would get everything out, and I don't know whether to take to Russia or to feed the

germ -- the soldiers. But immediately we felt there was some lack of food, started

they all -- they started to -- how you would call it? Give a special cards to go and

buy bread or some --

Q: Rationing.

A: Rationing of food. And also -- and so the army, who, I think it was almost to

pretend that they were poor army men, because they were not as dressed when you

take the pictures of these people who came, they were very poorly dressed, the -- the

arms are like they car -- the shoot -- The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

Q: The guns.

A: The guns were sometimes tied with strings or something, you could see, and the

people who were passing were -- looked not so much unfriendly, but very much

incommunicado. And also the chaos of some of the people, the lower elements of

society, starting to, you know, to take advantage of whatever, to -- whether they

were stealing, or some, that I don't know.

Q: Looting, that sort of thing.

A: Right.

Q: Okay. So would you say there was a -- for a little while there was a vacuum of

authority, and it was just chaotic --

A: Yes.

Q: -- even though the army was there?

A: The Russian army came in.

Q: Yes, yes.

A: But our army was taken immediately, our prisoners of war. There were no Polish

soldiers.

Q: So after you had said hello to your father when you came back from vacation,

did you see him again?

A: No.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

Q: Okay.

A: Because he was always on the post.

Q: Okay. All right. And was he taken as a prisoner of war?

A: He was taken from -- we got a small piece of card -- piece of paper, carried by

some of the soldier who were let go, some of officers were immediately taken, but

soldiers not always. And some of them got nearby, the camp outside of Lvov,

where they kept the Polish officers, and -- and the -- you know, surrounded them,

and took off their insignia, and told them that they are prisoners of war, and not to

get into the ta -- into touch with -- with relatives. So this soldier brought a small

piece of paper that I am healthy, I am all right. Please take care of the children and

of yourself and God protect you and a couple of words like that. And then a couple

of days later, somebody else went who was one of the students at the university,

who was part of this young people preparing for defense --

Q: Yes.

A: --re -- not in the army, but --

Q: You mentioned that, yeah.

A: Right?

Q: Yeah.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

A: So he told -- and he -- not me, my mother, that the saw -- he went close to --

Viniki, was a small town outside Lvov -- well, actually resort town. And there they

were kept under -- within a wire -- wired section. But he saw this taking of the

insignia, and they could not come close and talk to them. But somehow, if I

remember, he just might have spoken something. And then, afterwards, nothing.

Q: Nothing.

A: Nothing at all until we learned later on that they were being transported by foot

to Tarnopol, which was like closer to the Russian border -- Ukrainian, but actually

it was Russian border, and -- about 200 miles or so, and they were put on the trains

there. And from what I know the story, later on that I learned, but only in

December, or late November, we got a card from Starobilsk in Ukraine, near

Kiev, that a--a--a---a letter -- a small --a small card, that they were promised that

they could write once a month on the card. No letters, but just a card. A-And he

wrote to us that some of the friends of ours, friends who are with him, are the

friends of the man who was living in -- with the apartment above us. He was the

judge of appellate court, and quite well recognized. And so my father wrote that the

friends of Mr. Oyuk(ph) are with us also. So it's not only soldiers that were taken

prisoner, because reserve was taken, Polish reserve, going into the army, and among

the reservists you had doctors and judges and -- and all part of this society. So -- The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

Q: And then?

A: Then there was another couple of let -- short cards, that I am all right. We send

some packages. You could -- you could send, I don't know ho-how many, if my

mother send, probably did, because at the beginning of April --

Q: 1940 -- 19 --

A: --no cause -- because they did not come every month --

Q: Yeah.

A: -- these cards, so we didn't know much. But at beginning of April 1940, came a

telegram from couple of officers, to him, and to his friends who were officers of

other units, please don't write to u-- to us. Don't send any packages or letters, we

are being moved in an unknown destination. About new address, we will let you

know. It was the last thing that we got from my father. And it was -- just happens

that it was close to the day, 13" of April, 1940, when the NKVD, that's the police --

Russian police, and some communist, local communist and translator came with --

early in the morning and took us -- came to us and said, you have half an hour to get

up and to get down to the lorry that's waiting outside to take you by train to

Siberia.

Q: Oh my gosh.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

A: Then I started crying, because I realized -- which a -- I think I mentioned that I ro

-- told the story to Allen Paul, who wrote the book about Katyn -- at that time, I was

12 years old -- at I -- that time, I realized that just now, my father is being put into

another place, and we are going to Siberia, and that we ge -- will get lost, and we" ll

never meet. And I couldn't -- I was really hysterical, almost. And the man who was

interpreter, and also he was the driver of the truck, and he was upstairs, and he was

trying to tell me don't worry, don't worry, you are going where your father is, so

you will see your father there. And so that somehow made me stop.

Q: What was the behavior of those other soldiers who marched in, of the NK VD?

How wa -- what was their manner?

A: Well, first of all, we were undressed. My brothers were still asleep, because my

mother woke me up with the -- upstairs there was an -- how you call? Search

[indecipherable] house, that we li -- the Russians were upstairs, because the -- you

could hear the --

Q: The footsteps.

A: -- the footsteps, and somehow what we set -- search -- searching the house.

Q: I see.

A: And couple of -- like an hour later, Mrs. Oyuk(ph), with her three children, was

going down, and called my mother, on -- rang the bell. My mother came to the door The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

-- this is like six o'clock in the morning -- came to the door, and she said, please, go

to church. Our church -- my mother --

Q: Right.

A: -- Mrs. -- Mrs. Oyuk's mother is usually there. Please tell her that we are being

taken to Siberia. And went down with the NKVD people. And about maybe half an

hour later, or maybe less, we heard this bang on the door with pistols, or whatever

hard things, they kicked the door. And so we -- or, I was awake, because my mother

woke me when Mrs. Oyuk(ph) came, and my brothers were still sleeping. And they

came and said, half an hour, get dressed, and take some of the basic things, and get

down to the truck. Unfortunately, my mother somehow panicked. She didn't know

what -- what do you take to Siberia? What do you take what you have, especially

since, you know, after this September month, lot of our food, what we had prepared

was gone. And then also, at that time, we had an influx of communists from the

eastern -- from the western part of Poland, who came to Lvov. There were many

refugees who came from the western part of Poland. And the communists, when

the -- when the Russians came in, organized the rooming places, ordering the people

who own the apartment to take all to -- not only ordering, sometimes during the

night they opened the door and let some people, and said, these are communists,

they are going to Russia, they are waiting for their visas, but they're -- you have to The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

take care of them. They were the refugees, but most of these people were

communists who were, as they expressed it, they were waiting to go to paradise,

you know, Russian paradise. So, at that time, the -- there was eight men and one

woman, a wife of one of them. And she realized that my mother didn't know -- she

wasn't dressed. The soldier for bed -- forbade my mother to close the bathroom

door, that she could dress and no -- get all together that we could dress. And he

stood at the door, open door, and they wouldn't give us any keys to the attic, where

we had our luggage, that we could use it. They were afraid to leave us without the

[indecipherable]. So the woman who was the wife of this communist from Ledz, I

believe, she realized -- she took the capes, or covers of a bed, spread out and put

some pillows and some clothing. She opened the shelves of some of the chest --

chest of drawers, she took some of the things and threw in, and tied it as a bundle.

Q: So in other words, your mother was in a state of shock.

A: Yes. But in the sense, how do you know when you suddenly awakened and you

are told you have to pack up -- for the children, you know, my brothers were -- one

was 10, and one was seven. So the small children, you have to -- what do you take?

Q: Yeah.

A: You think of clothing, or the -- a good thing, as an example was that -- was our

truck, because we had such little things, so few things this woman put for us, The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

although there were two big bundles, but -- and we had the small dog, the

Chihuahua, little Chihuahua with us, we take. The first time that I heard this dog to

--moaning, when they came in, this dog, the small, you know, kind. But we were to

wait for the -- next door was a banker's family; the wife of a banker and her son,

who finished -- was just finished high school, about. I-- I don't think we knew each

other very well, we just recognized ourselves at the -- were taken on the same truck.

But we waited there two and a half hours, or maybe more. When -- this young man

had a good head on his shoulders. He put vodka in front of these Russian soldiers,

on the table, and they started saying, take anything of value; like jewelry, like silver,

or things that you can sell in -- in -- in Russia for -- for --

Q: Food.

A: -- food, for anything. And they really -- they filled three-fourths of the

[indecipherable] with their baggage for two people, and we had four, and we had

just small things. So, somehow -- and also the sa -- depended on the people, NKVD

people. There were people -- some people realized that this is a mother with the

children, and you know, somehow followed orders, or somehow had the human

instinct dictate a little bit, the dic -- the behavior.

Q: Well, in what way was the human instinct shown?

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

A: Well, that this man allowed this young boy to somehow entertain themselves,

talking to them.

Q: Okay.

A: In the meantime, they were advising what she should take, what is possible for

her to take.

Q: For your mother, or for his family?

A: No, no, no, this --

Q: His family.

A: -- this family. We stayed in the --

Q: The truck.

A: -- on the truck.

Q: Yeah.

A: So we learned there were different -- different people also, in helping.

Q: So -- so right after you get this telegram that says we'll tell you what our address

is, you get the knock in the night, or the -- now early morning.

A: Well, I--it was 13" -- the beginning of April, was the telegram.

Q: The tele -- telegram. And on the 15 --

A: And actually, from what later we learned --

Q: Yeah.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

A: -- it was the first -- fourth or fifth day of April that they started taking people out

of the camp, Starobilsk, driving them to another place, where they didn't know.

Q: Okay.

A: Where they were killed.

Q: So do you think that by the time you were deported, your father had already been

a-

A: No, no.

Q: No.

A: It was when -- he might have been in the first group, you know, in the -- the --

there were close to 4,000 prisoners.

Q: Yeah.

A: So they did not take all at once, so they were series. And I don't know whether

he was in first series or -- can't -- can't learn about it. But we only knew from that

man that the chauffeur of -- of the truck, he said, don't cry, don't cry, you are going

where your father is. You will fe -- see your father. So he -- nobody knew, you

know, only regular people did not know what the intentions of the Stalin and

[indecipherable] were.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

Q: I'd like to follow that thread about your father first, and then we'll come back to

you and the truck. When was it that you found out a -- something about your

father's fate? At what point was this? Was this still during the war, or after the war?

A: We learned, as the news was spread in 1943 --

Q: Okay.

A: -- when the Germans, going back from Russia, they -- they went the one -- they

almost took Moscow, but then they started withdrawing. And when they came near

Smolensk, which is that Belarus now --

Q: Yeah.

A: Byelorussia, right? He -- they were told by some local people that there was, at

one point in 1940, in the spring of 1940, some shooting and -- but they couldn't

really see it, because this was on the place where the NKVD had the private houses,

they had some, you know, from what I understand, near -- and -- and the prisoners

who were in ca -- Katyn, were the prisoners from the [indecipherable] camp my

father was in, which was near -- in the Byelorussia, near Smolensk. And my father

was taken to Ukraine, on the southern part. You know, th-they divided the group of

people picking up the northern part of -- northeastern part of Poles, and the nor -- nor

-- southeastern part of Poles. And -- and they started digging, or they were saying

that some dog brought a human bone somewhere. And the people -- but people did The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

not want to say, or somehow kept it in such a way that the Germans started feeling

awkward about this -- the whole thing. And they came to a place which was like the

to -- you planted trees in a very orderly manner, and new grow -- growth, and they

started digging. And they opened Katyn. So the news started on the 13 -- can you

imagine the coincidence -- 13" of April of 1943, when Germany was withdrawing

from Russia, the Germans were talking about finding people and giving the names

because they had the papers of these people, and they inquired -- asked for the

international Red Cross, from the people, where some American prisoners of war

were being taken and shown it. There was a very famous person from Italy, who

was some scientist, who was asked to be the witness as they were recovering this

close to 4,000 bodies lying in there, but -- and there was a question, when did it

happen? And the Russians res -- in response to that -- we are already out of Russia,

so we don't know exactly Russian news, but the Russians are insisting that this is

Goebbels" and Hitler's policy to break up the friendship between Russia and

England, who are now allies. And they are reading openly on the radio in Krakow

and in Warsaw, the names of the people whom they found. And the people from

the international Red Cross -- actually was the -- more of a French Red Cross,

because when Poles wanted international Red Cross, the Russians broke with the The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

Polish emigre government that was staying in London, as the continuous Polish

government, independent Poland.

Q: Yeah, yeah, mm-hm.

A: So that started writing books and news spread out. But by the time 43 -- must

have been toward -- well, "40, I was, by then already in Africa, in the camps, but out

of Russia, and out of Persia, and in Africa. So it was -- it took another year and a

half when I saw a small -- not leaflet, a small bic -- bulletin, with the pictures of

these -- of what happened, and -- but it was only of Katyn -- Katyn, and the names

did not bel -- not -- we did not get the list yet, it took years after. But from what I

understand, this was the only camp that was discovered by the Germans, and that

had the name of Katyn, but then afterwards, in 1990, when Perestroika started,

Gorbachev brought the letters showing that there were the camps of Starobilsk,

which was in Ukraine, and Ostashkov, which was little bit north of Smolensk,

where more of a police -- Polish police, the pre-war Polish police was there, there

were about 6,000 people. He gave that -- that -- the Polish people knew what

happened to these prisoners of war.

Q: So does that mean -- was your father's name amongst those in 1990 that you

found?

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

A: At that time, yes, there were books. Already they were printing the -- the first --

they started printing from what they knew from the Polish sources who was arrested

by the Germans -- by the Russians. And probably was only one man who started a

book, I don't remember exactly what, but it was much later that he published the

names of the people who were --

Q: Arrested.

A: -- that are victims of -- of murder, because --

Q: "m--T'm still -- I'm sorry to interrupt, but I'm a little confused. In the mid-

1940s, you learn of Katyn, but your father's name isn't amongst them.

A: Because they did not yet dig up.

Q: Right. Then, for 50 years you don't know anything.

A: No.

Q: And in 1990, Gorbachev provides additional information.

A: Well, with the camps, what happened to the people from the camps, like my

father's camp.

Q: Okay.

A: That he was taken to Kharkov.

Q: He was taken to Kharkov.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

A: And the -- they murdered people in Kharkov, NKVD building, and took the

bodies to the place, like Plakihatki(ph), which is a small surrounding, supposedly

luxurious woods, and dachas, Russian dachas, and that was what later proved to be

a big cemetery also for the Ukrainians from the previous persecutions. And -- but at

that time, we had the list, because they came with the list, also who was in the ca --

in those camps.

Q: Okay. But they came with the lists only after Perestroika, in 1990?

A: I suppose so. That was --

Q: Okay, so in other words --

A: -- only the German -- the -- we d-- didn't get any documents about other camps.

There were suggestions that near -- that some children playing in some small town

near Starobilsk found the Polish uniforms, buttons, you -- officers" buttons, and --

and -- so somehow there was, you know, gossipy kind of things, but sometimes this

was built on the truth, but somehow you couldn't believe it because it was half

quiet, you could not repeat that very much. If you would repeat that, you would

probably find yourself in some gulags.

Q: Yeah.

A: So the Russians were also -- somehow did not touch the subject.

Q: So did you ever conclusively find out specifically where your father met his end?

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

A: No, when he was on the list of Starobilsk victims who were taken to Kharkov.

Q: I see, so that's what the -- he was s -- he was individually mentioned on that list.

A: Right. As a matter of fact, there was a mistake, they put my father's name twice,

because once they put him as a retired captain, and my mother -- this writer, who

was putting the names from just the Polish sources, the names who might have been

in these camps, he lived in London. My mother lived in lon-- London at the time,

in -- at the Gorbachev, you know, the 1990. So, my mother wrote to him that there

is a mistake, my -- my father was in active duties. But the -- when they crossed --

they did not cross his name, so he is twice --

Q: I see.

A: -- in there; once in reservist, and once -- in the retired, and once in the active

duty.

Q: Okay.

A: The same person, with the same father and the same mother.

Q: All right. I want to be able to understand this because it's still a little confusing.

It's only in 1990s, I don't know whether it's 1990, "91 or deg92 when Gorbachev

releases documents that it is established that your father was from the camp, and he

went to Kharkov -- he was taken to Kharkov and then he was executed, and he is

giv -- and it's on a list that the Russians provide, by name. Somebody at that point, The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

is writing a book. A Polish person who is writing a book and it originally has him

down as retired, but your mother sees this, and corrects it. Is the book published? Is

that -- does she see --

A: The book was published by [indecipherable] the author was Mischinsky(ph).

He lived -- he wa -- I think he was an army person too, and he was connected with

the Polish government in exile, in London.

Q: Okay, but my question is: did you get this document from Gorbachev?

A: No.

Q: That is, was that sent to the family members?

A: No, this was -- this was like a public knowledge.

Q: So you -- you were able to see it from someplace and then -- and then later you

saw it in a book?

A: No, not really see it.

Q: You never saw it?

A: No, he -- I had the book written by this man before Gorbachev. Mr.

Mischinsky(ph) was making his assumption, or he had some inkling who was in the

camps, from letters, from some --

Q: I see.

A: --on--- probably connecting with the widows, or -- The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej deg

May 8, 2013

Q: Okay.

A: -- women, or relatives, and they had the army, probably, in-intelligence. Army

intelligence knew who were most of these people.

Q: So did you already have -- did you already have an educated guess of where --

what had happened to your father, and the document that Gorbachev provided, or

the documents that he provided, or the archives that he opened, only confirmed it

for sure?

A: Only confirmed --

Q: I see. Okay.

A: -- that -- that he was in -- that the people who died in Kharkov were the people

from Starobilsk. And the people who died -- were in Ostashkovy, died in

Mierdnoya(ph).

Q: I see.

A: So it's another place. So there were three main camps that Gorbachev -- beside

the first camp that the Germans discovered.

Q: Wow.

A: Because Gorbachev then -- and started with the denouncing of Stalin. At first it

was only the -- that Stalin did it, but then afterwards it was kind of --

Q: Yeah.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

A: -- government sponsored murder.

Q: Let's go back to you're taken -- you're on the trucks, you're -- you have a

neighbor that has more bundles than you do, and what happens to you and your

brothers and your mother after that?

A: Well, we're taken to the station at Lvov, but not the regular train, but the -- how

you call -- trade --

Q: Mm-hm, freight train.

A: Right. Where they have cattle trains, or -- or standing there long, I would say

several trucks with empty car. But already by that time when we came, because this

woman with the -- took longer, so it is now probably around 10 o'clock or 11. As a

matter of fact, this was -- must have been around that time, because we had a nun

who was thrown out by the so -- Soviets, threw out the nuns from the nunneries, and

monks from the -- and they were homeless and without any way to live, and she had

-- she was a teacher of French, and my mother gave her a job of coming and

teaching -- teach us French -- me, I don't know whether my brothers participated.

Maybe just halfway. And she came, and I remember seeing her face. She was an

elderly woman, seeing us on the truck, and surrounded by the NKVD soldiers, and

she is just to enter our -- our apartment -- apartment house, to go up --

Q: To teach you.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

A: -- to teach us. And early -- wordless, without a word, watching with a terrible

feeling in her face, pained. So I remember that too, so it must have been about 10

o'clock or 11 when she was coming for lesson, and then we had her eat lunch. And

so, you know, su-supporting all these nuns who were thrown out of the places --

Q: Yeah.

A: -- of living, of monasteries.

Q: So, by the time --

A: And they take ma -- the train --

Q: Yeah.

A: -- train station. Chao-Chaotic situation. Thousands and thousands of people

crying, shrieking, calling names, getting lost because at the time it was -- if I

remember correctly, it was fairly rainy April couple of days. So the trucks were in

between the mud, it was mounted. And then they -- the soldiers, not necessarily

NKVD, regular soldiers, probably the army soldiers, were pushing people into the

cars. And it was little bit higher then, you know, not --

Q: Right.

A: -- you -- you didn't have steps, th-they were pushing, and people were

disoriented. I remember seeing my aunt and her son in one place, but we just -- I

don't know whether we waved, but my mother said we -- that she waved to us. She The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

was taken to another train, or another cart. But anyway, wi -- it was so ca -- difficult

to express, like a tragic situation when you can imagine thousands of people being

thrown out of their houses, whether with some luggage, or not luggage, but taken

and thrown into this, without knowing what happened, why that happened, and

where they are going. Because we were not given, really, an address or anything.

And we stayed -- the -- the truck had bank -- benches on two ends, three levels. In the

middle was a hole that you could use as a bathroom. Hole in the wa -- in the floor,

and the -- since it was still fairly cold, there was an -- a small iron -- how you would

say --

Q: Stove?

A: Stove.

Q: Okay.

A: To hold for the heating up, except that we didn't have -- you had to heat it by

wood, but we didn't have enough of wood, and they didn't bring us wood, but that --

that's beside the point, but we were all crowded. Some people brought with them a

little bit of food, so the first -- the first day, all -- that was Friday the 13". Saturday

morning we -- the train started, one after another, you could see the lines. And each

one had about 20 tru -- 20 --

Q: Wagons.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej *deg

May 8, 2013

A: -- wagons going. And then the people started praying, and they started singing

religious songs. And crying, you know, kind of -- you know, you could expect the

people of -- in despair. So that started our three weeks of travel.

Q: What was with you and your mother and your brothers? Were you -- did you get

a bunk?

A: We got the bunk. I was on the upper bunk, and below was the -- I don't

remember wa -- Richard, that son of this woman, the banker's son, where he was

in, because I was on the upper, and was my mother, my brother slept on the third, I

think. I--I really do not -- it's a blank. But very often I spend the time with

Richard, looking through the grated window, small window in the -- in the wagon,

and, you know, talking and describing. We were -- he was, you know, a young boy,

I was 12 years old, but I somehow was interested in many things. We kept a kind of

a friendship on -- during that ride.

Q: Did you describe -- do you remember what it is you saw through those slats?

A: Yeah, the -- what we saw were -- actually, from what I understand, they -- the

Russians widened the tracks because Poland had the tracks like western Europe --

Q: Right.

A: And Russians had the wide tracks.

Q: Right.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

A: So once they changed the tracks, we were going through some big cities. I

remember Kiev. I remember some -- some other -- if I look at the map, Fufond(ph),

and we coming to the Ural mountains and then Magnitogorsk, which is a center of

Russian industry, steel industry, and -- and then the Omsk and Tomsk. But this was

actually si -- at once, they wouldn't let us -- when we were still on the Polish

territory, they wouldn't let us out of that --

Q: Wagon.

A: -- wagon. And it's only after some days maybe, when we reached Ukrainian side,

they would let us go and relieve ourselves sometimes, but if we were passing a

place that there were like bushes around, or -- or trees, or [indecipherable]. But

otherwise they were, you know, hurry, hurry, hurry, and they would bring -- usually

toward the end of the day, they would bring us in the pails, some kind of soup

which was watery mixed vegetables, and very hard, Russian bread, you know, like

Q: Yeah.

A: -- you don't want to be hit by it. It's a kind of -- but still, when you hungry --

sometimes you could get it, and sometimes they didn't get it, and so we were given

that, and not every day. So the people who had some food, brought -- like this lady

might -- might have been advised by these people to take some -- some food to take The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

on the train. So some people were lucky, or had been clear-minded, that they had -- I

remember my mother said that she left the cooking of the tripes from the previous

day, because it's a two days" meal that you have to prepare, and I didn't like it, as a

child. Oh, good thing my mother didn't take it, because I wouldn't eat it. But that

was at the beginning. And then afterwards, one woman had the can of tripes, and

she opened it, and she gave it to the children, one spoon each. And it was so good.

Until I reached -- really, I reached America, when some of the Polish people having

their parties, and they had the tripes and I could finally feel -- and we had also one

woman who was quite elderly. She must have been in her 90s. She was alone, but

she had a nurse taking care of her at -- at home. She was a daughter of some man

who lived in our apartment house, above -- across from us, who was arrested by --

because I -- during these months, there were constant arrests, people taken to

prisons, all that. As a matter of fact, on the - December eight, which is my birthday,

we visited my uncle, who was retired general, and my aunt was crying. Why?

Because day before they arrested him and took him to prison. And as a matter of

fact, he was also one of the victims, but of another -- in Vicovnya(ph), which

recently was opened up on the Russian, near Kiev, that it was the prisoners, who

were not prisoners of war, but prisoners who were taken to full prisons. When the --

Germany attacked Russia, Russians were in panic, and were taking all trains and The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

all the families, because they had moved the families back to Poland. And so they

didn't have enough room to take prisoners to Russia, and they would shoot the

prisoners and throw them through the windows of the -- of the prison, and from

what I know from eyewitnesses, that they were one level, or two levels high, dead

bodies, the Russians killed some of the things. And I know that was -- Brigitki was

the name of the prison. And my uncle was in Brigitki, but I-- of course, we didn't

know these things, because by then when -- when Germany attacked Russia, we

were already in Russia, in Kazakhstan, so we were too far, so we didn't know

what was happening. But anyway --

Q: There was an old woman on the train who had a nurse --

A: And her son was arrested, and many, many more people who were owners of

land, who were rich shop owners, who were intelligence, or who were --

Q: Intelligentsia, you mean.

A: Intelligentsia was, of course, who -- the enemies of the Soviet society.

Q: Were there any Jewish people on the trains?

A: Yes, there were Jewish people too, it's -- because Polish society, in a sense, was

very much [indecipherable] about 10 percent of pole -- Poles -- Poland were the

Polish Jews. In the eastern part of Poland, they were most in small shtetls. They

were mostly Orthodox Hasidic Jews who did not assimilate. But they were mostly The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

in Lvov, in the cities. Many people had great many friends, which wasn't --

depended, of course, on the individuals, but they were also the enemies of the

societies, some lawyers, some doctors were taken into the camp. I didn't -- this

woman, the banker's wife was Jewish and Richard was Jewish. But that was

somehow an -- just occurred to me later on that they must have been Jewish because

of -- for some reason, I don't know what made me think about it, that -- that I --

somebody said that the father was Jewish, so I thought that the family was Jewish.

But they were on the same -- in the same truck, and there were some of them taken,

although there was also a lot of these people like this, who were located in our

apartment, who were waiting to go to Russia.

Q: I see.

A: Some free on the -- you know, getting to -- to the paradise --

Q: Yeah.

A: -- of-- of, you know humanity paradise, or whatever they call it. So some of the

Jews, in great numbers, escaped to Russia and stayed throughout the war. Some of

them returned to Poland after the war. But they were saying about hundreds of --

hundreds of thousands of people who landed in Russia, but some of them landed as

we did land --

Q: That's -- they were deported.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

A: --as Polish citizens.

Q: Yes.

A: As the Polish citizens.

Q: I want to go back to when you were talking about hunger on the train, and a

woman who opens the tripe can and gives children a -- you mentioned something

about an old woman --

A: Yes.

Q: -- and we didn't finish about --

A: Oh yes, I'm sorry, yes.

Q: That's okay.

A: And what I remember, she was already s-senile, and she kept on crying, water,

water, water. She wanted a drink, and we didn't have too much of that luxury. And

with her the situation was different because this woman was not her relative. But

when the NKVD came to take her, they wouldn't take her as a nurse. She said, I am

her cousin. Then they took her on -- that she swore that she is her cousin, to take

care of this woman. So she went willingly --

Q: Wow.

A: -- to take care of this woman.

Q: Wow.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

A: And she survived this three weeks of train. Three weeks of -- there were -- we

were aware, but not in our wagon, people who died. So the Russians threw them out

while the trains were going. There were children who were born, and died, and --

but not in our wagon.

Q: Wagon.

A: And then we arrived on the first of May at Zhangiztobe. We went through the

Ural mountains, Omsk and Tomsk, and then Novosibirsk, if you know a map,

from Novosibirsk, which in my eyes was beautifully lighted and was considered a

showplace of -- the Soviets were showing off, and we were not allowed, of course,

to walk on the station. And stayed there for several hours, and then we went down

to Semipalatinsk, which is entering the Kazakhstan.

Q: Okay.

A: And we came to Zhangiztobe, which is about 200 or maybe more miles after

Semipalatinsk, but this is same part, Tinskaya(ph) Oblast(ph). And fro -- we came

there, and as the lorries from the previous transport, previous train came, and people

were removed on the trucks, taken into the distance, and were on the trucks. But

when it came to our transport, they did not have any trucks left. So they waited for

the Cossacks with the -- with the carts, to be driven by oxen, and take us into the

distance. And we were on these trucks for -- I --I think around 10 days, or eight days The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

and eight nights. And as a matter of fact, this old lady, fell -- the -- that -- the cart --

when -- one of the carts, when we were traveling, went through the river, there were

no bridges, but the cart wheels broke on the river -- within the river, and she fell into

the river, with her things. People saved her, put her back on truck. She came later on

to -- to the place where they dropped us, and lived for another weeks, and died there.

Not knowing -- she was asking her nurse, did you -- did you correspond with the

hotel where we are going to stay? Because she didn't know. She knew she was

going somewhere. And did you know what is it, the name of the place where we are

going? Because she -- she -- before the war, she traveled a lot, she was very --

probably a fairly rich family, so she was thinking she is going for a ride. So imagine

this woman, who took care of her, went with her. And when the woman died, she

put in a small -- a small cemetery, what they made at the time, in the Cossacks --

mostly Cossack collective farms.

Q: Yeah.

A: But that's the kolkhoz.

Q: Yeah.

A: Russian collective farms are sovkhoz.

Q: Yeah.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

A: But collective farms kolkhoz belongs to the people who are -- these were mostly

Kazaks, Kazakhstan, and few elderly Russian families. And this woman, a

younger woman, and -- when the -- like through the [indecipherable] so long ago I

can't -- I wouldn't recognize her, of course. She escaped from there, she almost got

back to Poland, and she was caught, and she was bought bra -- back. She was

innocent, helping this woman, old woman. She escaped because she had actually --

Q: She had done her job, yeah.

A: -- somehow sh -- I -- you know, she -- she should have been too, she didn't -- she

didn't do anything against the Russians, or e -- but she wasn't --

Q: Well, nobody did.

A: Nobody did.

Q: Yeah.

A: But you know, but being intelligentsia, or being the family of army -- of army --

of -- or family of -- of police, or intelligent, or in the jury -- so you had --

Q: In the court system, yeah.

A: Right, the system was completely, you know, you belong to somebody, to who --

just --

Q: Yeah.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

A: And she was a nurse, and not elderly, I would say she must have been in her late

30s or 40s. And she escape by foot. Somehow she got -- she paid somebody truck --

somebody on the -- on the people -- Cossacks who took her to the station. We were

about 200 miles from this Zhangiztobe station from which they drove us.

Q: Okay. So what happened then? Where did you land, what did you have to do?

Did anybody by that point explain why you were there?

A: No. No, there was no explanation. You don't have the -- you -- you deal with the

-- with the unseen situation who accuses you of what, you don't know. We didn't

feel guilty about anything.

End of File One

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A: -- they dropped us into the public place, like a cover -- not covadai -- like a

meeting place of that kolkhoz, a-and we had na -- some people had the blankets,

and they separated each other, we had the floor to sleep on, and there were no beds,

nothing. And for privacy, among about, I don't know, 25 or 30 families were left

there. Some other people were taken into another kolkhoz. So we sa --

Q: So you were on this collective farm.

A: Collect -- some of kolkhoz --

Q: Yeah.

A: --right. Second day, the minister -- not the minister, president of kolkhoz, the

Cossacks comes, you have to go to work, my mother. Didn't say anything to me or

my brothers, but you stay home, and your mother has to go to work. And they took

women, whatever age they were, adult women, to work. It was making bricks by

mixing the soil with -- with some drippings from the cows, because this was a

kolkhoz that was taking care of the cows. And the milk and butter was being sent to

the -- to the government, or to the whatever it was, but they had their portion to th --

to give to the government. And if it was left anything, after the harvest, so a year of

work, after the harvest you would get something if the harvest was --

Q: Good.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

A: -- good. But we were free labor. I mean, we were slaves who came. We couldn't

get anything and we didn't have any savings of food or anything by this three weeks

of not -- traveling on that train. So most of the things at -- at first there was a ration

and some Cossacki(ph) people who liked to trade in. For example, you could go

and sell a blouse, or like my mother sold my nighty. I had pink nighty, and a white

with some pink flowers. And for that we got a hen that was sitting on the eggs, 10

eggs, which was the best bargain we had because the eggs broke and we had small

chicken. And so later on, my mother would take one of the chicken when it grew, to

ask some Russian to kill that --

Q: And then you'd have some food.

A: -- and we had some food. But otherwise, there was no shops to buy any food.

They -- not even for the communists who were there, they probably had something --

Q: So where did you keep the chicken?

A: Well, outside is where the -- we were, at first, living on the -- in the small -- they

put us with the older Russian family, where she had -- she had one room, and we

had another room. There was an entrance, and on the other side of entrance was one

cow, her old cow that wasn't giving milk any more because it was old cow, and the

yard. We lived in --

Q: Oh, so you were moved from the central place where you slept on the floor -- The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

A: Right.

Q: -- into this one room.

A: Well, this is like a village.

Q: Yeah, got it.

A: So in the village we were spread out among local people.

Q: Okay.

A: Mostly the Russian. The Cossacks kept to themselves, and they spoke -- we

didn't speak Cossacks, and -- and --

Q: Right.

A: They spoke the Mongolian.

Q: Did your mother speak Russian?

A: No. Not enough. That -- that was one of the difficulties. Some people who had

spoken Russian, and were enough, so somehow either met some Russian who said

you could come here, maybe be a teacher or something, but it -- this was too small a

village for a very differentiated society.

Q: Sure.

A: So some people somehow, I don't know how, met some Russian who would say

well, why don't you give like in case of our friends, with whom he still lives in The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

Warsaw, | visit him. He was any -- anyway, he -- he was told to the woman, who

spoke beautiful Russian because she was born in Saint Petersburg before the war.

Q: Okay.

A: And she was from quite a semi-aristocratic family, her language was beautiful.

But then somehow this -- by people who were passing the -- the place, or somehow,

he said, give your son, he will be helping me with my farm. Because they -- some

people had the smaller --

Q: Right.

A: -- or bigger farm. Small farms, which were also part of this, but a little bit

outside. And so -- and she herself was given a post in the county seat where she was

working because she knew Russian. And think that were -- saved him, and saved --

so for few months, or I don't know how long, they were in that co -- in that village

with us. But several people slowly were moving. They either let them go, or

somebody --

Q: So, with your mother, she was making the bricks -- you know, she was having to

make those bricks.

A: Right.

Q: And you were alone with your brothers back at the house, back at the little

room?

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

A: Back bu -- in the room, in the outside. It's like in the village, open --

Q: Did you do anything? Did you -- did they send you to school? What happened?

A: Well, it's -- when I was -- by then I was 13 and a half.

Q: Well, it sounds to me if you were doing -- if you were born in 1926, and you're

deported in 1940 --

A: Forty, so I was t --

Q: -- you must have been 13.

A: -- only 13.

Q: Yeah, 13.

A: And I became th-th --

Q: Fourteen?

A:-- 13 and coming to 14 still.

Q: Got it, mm-hm.

A: And I was told that I can go and be a shepherdess for calves, because the policy

of that village was that the cows were separated from the -- the young ones, because

they would not drink milk. Milk was necessary as a selling thing for the

government. So the calves had to go somewhere else on the -- to eat grass, to be sent

out, to be shepherded. And we -- when we arrived, as you might know, Kazakhstan

in that place is steppe.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

Q: Yeah.

A: Miles and miles and miles of steppe [indecipherable] special places. So we

would take about a hundred cows. At first I was one, and there was another --

another boy, bigger, and actually there was this boy who went to -- to the other --

was taken by this man from here.

Q: Right, right, mm-hm.

A: Private work. And then was my brother, at one point. And we would take, at five

o'clock in the morning, and push this -- these animals, and somehow we managed.

We - we slept sometimes in the [indecipherable] then -- then around noontime,

they would lie down and chew like, you know, the normal things after the eating,

they --

Q: Right.

A: -- have to chew. And sometimes when it was hot, or it was terrible for us,

incidents, there were. One of them, they said they -- they got a --a bite of a special

fly. And then, if it was an -- like a leader of this group, of this hundred, there were

several big -- bigger cows, and several small cows. He would raise his tail and start

running.

Q: So if it got bit by this fly, then it runs, and then everything fol -- everyone

follows?

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej "

May 8, 2013

A: Anyone follows. And we were told we were allo -- allowed -- permitted to let

them go through the fields where they had some wheat, or where they had corn,

because they would damage it. So when they run, we run, and then we had to gather

them again. I remember that was -- kind of things. I remember when I was reading

the book I got somewhere from package, because packages could come at that time,

from Lvov. I got some package, or somebody lent me a book, and I come back from

this running, rounding them up, back to the place where we are supposed to stay,

and got eating -- started eating the book. And then, I am trying to catch him, and I

run and he keeps running.

Q: He wants to learn to read.

A: Exactly. To swallow.

Q: To swallow.

A: Anyway, these were first. Then my mother had different job, doing keezhak(ph).

Did you heard of word keezhak(ph)? Since it is the steppes, there are no woods.

You cannot buy any wood to burn, and the -- and of course, there's no coal.

Q: Yeah.

A: The burning -- the material for burning was the old drippings of the cows, that

you mix with straw and water. And they have big puddles, like this room, or even The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

bigger, where the women were wal-walking around with their legs, mixing it up.

Keezhaks(ph). For the people who were running the kolkhoz.

Q: So that means it was the fuel to heat?

A: Yes.

Q: That's what it became?

A: You could not -- or, of course you could not participate in this local thing for the

government, but what we did, we would go, and -- and when we were walking with

our calves, we saw where the cows went. The cows were usually very much further.

By the times we would pass, it was dry so we were picking dry --

Q: Dung.

A: -- drippings.

Q: Yeah, mm-hm.

A: Dung.

Q: Yeah.

A: And bringing them. And you could put it as -- on this -- in the, not oven, but in

the -- in the kitchen, in the fireplace. And under -- you know, they had --

Q: And it could heat a little bit.

A: Little heat from that, that was the only thing. Because otherwise the -- the bush,

that was very prickly bush that la -- The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

Q: Yeah.

A: -- grows in the steppe, is very difficult to really burn for long -- it -- it's just like a

--a eagle -- the needle trees that --

Q: Right.

A: -- have needles. They just jump --

Q: Right.

A: -- into fire, and quickly die. So the other things what you had to find have, you

know, piles of these, and that you fed that. And my mother was doing --

Q: Oh my gosh.

A: -- with -- with the other ladies, mum -- one of the thing that was funny wa -- from

that, with my mother was funny, they were talking about the recipes for cakes.

Q: As they're pounding this dung.

A: On the -- how to take your mind off your job. So this was one job. There was

another one where there was a big dug up well for the cows were -- were close --

some -- some places where my mother was taken with some other women, to clean

this well, because the -- it was dug in the soil, it was not a real well, it was just a

spot where they kept water. But when the cows were walking down, they were

pushing this soil in, so it had a lot of sediment. So my mother was one of those who

were standing up to the waist in the water, getting by pails the sediment, pushing to The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

another woman who was taking the sediment, to have a clear water for cows to

drink.

Q: Oh my gosh.

A: Then during the harvest, when the -- that was a year later, and ow -- the winter,

the -- the snow that was two meters high, that was constant, constant snow falling

and cold weather, except that it was dry climate, so you didn't feel that much of the

cold, as much as there was a lot of snow. The only thing, the Buran that came --

Buran was the name of the wind, special winter wind that brought the snow. You

couldn't see -- almost you couldn't see your hand, it was so thick. But also, because

if you walked out, you got lost. So the people, to get -- to go into real well, that was

in the middle of the -- you know, a group of houses, had to tie themselves by rope to

go it-- and to come back. Otherwise they would not --

Q: They'd get lost.

A: -- get back.

Q: Yeah.

A: That was winter. But then there was spring, and there was the harvest. And in the

harvest my mother was working with the big combine. I don't know whether that's

a word in English.

Q: Yeah.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

A: The big complicated things, with they sort the wheat from the chaff, and things,

and my mother was working somehow. She developed a cold -- cough, constant

cough. From what I can guess, that at that time, she covered her face with the

napkin, but the napkin was full of the small pieces of wheat.

Q: Right.

A: That probably got into her lungs there forever afterwards --

Q: She coughed.

A: -- probably, she was coughing. But that -- that wa-wa -- was her work. And it --

Q: But her p -- your poor mother, I mean, to imagine that she loses her husband, she

has to take care of three children, she doesn't know where her husband is. She had

never worked in such ways before.

A: Right. The woman could not understand. Like she had to paint -- some of the

houses you painted by making straw with some soil, with some dung also --

Q: Yeah.

A: --and you painted with your hands. All the floors were the dirt floors, there was

no wooden floors. And they would say, what kind of a housewife you were when

you don't know how to put the floor, the things? Like, this was somehow

ridiculous, but this is what you said, how sensitive you are. When I -- during -- when

I wrote the book -- helped Allen Paul write the book, there was some presentation The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

of the book, and he asked -- and he -- there is story of my family and other two or

three families, more detailed. And he, Allen Paul, asked us to speak. We were in

Washington, and several senators came, and Polish, you know, consulate -- consul

and officials listened for it, and so I was started saying how we were taken to

Russia and that. And then at one point, I said, I have to stop here, suddenly, and

stopped this, what I'm talking about, and turn to real heroes of this thing. Imag --

now that I am a mother, because back then, it was in 1990 something, I already had

five children. Now that I am a mother, I can understand the tragedy of a mother who

is -- doesn't know where her -- food for her children comes, where she could

exchange something for some food. You could, for a blouse you could get three

potatoes, or some -- toward the end, the Russians themselves were hungry, so they

would give us a first chaff of wheat. So we burned the chaff on top of the stove that

was iron, and put in the water, so the water had the taste, and that was our soup that

we ate. And these things happened, and I -- I didn't say exactly at that time, but I

mean, this was a woman who, as you say, lost her husband, taken to unknown

country, thrown into un -- inhuman conditions, and sees her children crying of

hunger.

Q: And what to do?

A: And what to do? And not knowing what happened to her husband.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

Q: Yeah.

A: So that the -- this were us -- really the heroes for all -- children did not --

fortunately did not realize how hard things were, how the world is not made of nice

stories that you are used to, but situations are different. So children somehow are

more -- somehow get accustomed to take the best of what situation is, and --

Q: That's one of the things that helps kids survive.

A: Right.

Q: I want to pause just for a second. [technical discussion] Okay, we're rolling. So

the harvest ends --

A: The harvest ends. The local people who belong to that kolkhoz get their parts,

what they earned, according to some -- their judgments. But we, of course, don't get

anything, except that during the year they would give us milk, which was taken --

cream, they would take off the milk the -- how you call it, the plain --

Q: Right.

A: -- milk, because that you could not hold until harvest, so to speak.

Q: Well, this is what I wanted to ask you, whether or not the milk that the cows

gave you ever got any of it. So, you were allowed to have some milk from the cows.

A: When we came home --

Q: Okay.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej "

May 8, 2013

A: -- we would get some milk to take to our home.

Q: Okay.

A: That was the -- I don't know how much it was. I remember that I tried once to get

milk from that old cow, and nothing came. Had -- anyway, the winter started, and

they said that the -- because the harvest was not really poor, but they would

somehow let the horsed -- the horses who were waiting with the carts to take the

wheat to the magazines in the big cities, or wherever they were taking, eat the wheat

while waiting. So what was left, they still had to put the taxed amount to the

government, and what was left, so very -- I think they brought it on themselves to a

certain degree, that they didn't have too much to share. And then they told my

mother they would not have work during the winter for women, and during the

spring. So they ordered my mother to go to the county hou -- hun -- county place,

which was about 25 or maybe 30 miles away, into Kokpekti, which is like

Hackensack here, or whatever, and -- to find a job. They allowed her to take my

younger brother, but they kept my brother -- older brother and myself as the kind of

security that my mother will not run away.

Q: Well, this is something that I wanted to ask now. When you were in this place, I

don't hear anything about guards, I don't hear anything about jailers, or any kind of

authorities, or any -- The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

A: Is a-- they called it free prison. You could not leave that place. For example, the

post office was in the next village, bigger kolkhoz.

Q: Yeah.

A: To go there, if we wou -- at the beginning were getting some letters or packages

from Lvov, because the rush -- the - Germany did not start yet the war. And we

had something, they would let us know that there is a letter waiting. And to go for

it, my mother had to walk several miles, or get some -- some kind Cossack would

take him -- her on the truck -- on the truck, on the cart, and take her to that -- or

sometimes she was -- she had to ask the permission, written. And I even have here

some --

Q: Of her letter -- of her permission list --

A: She wrote on the piece -- on the -- with the pencil --

Q: Right.

A: -- written you --I can still read it, there's a kind of permission that my mother can

go to the village to -- to the post office, and come back.

Q: Okay.

A: And one day my mother was so afraid because the predsedatel, that's pres --

political president of what was Russian, and ultra, ultra-communist ga -- was away,

and my mother couldn't get the permit to go out. And so she went without a permit, The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

and she was coming back, carrying a package which was I don't know how many,

maybe 10 pounds or something. Was very tired, but she was more afraid than -- than

tired, but -- because if they catch her, and they would take her to prison, what will

happen to us? And she said, she had lived it, several miles that she had to walk, with

such trepidation --

Q: Yeah.

A: -- that she might be caught, and that she somehow let us down, that she would be

taken to prison. But fortunately, something like that did not happen.

Q: But the fear was in her, the price was in her.

A: Yeah, you can imagine, because --

Q: Yeah.

A: -- she knew like -- and y-you know, the -- the places outside this town, the roads

were probably cart driven roads, and not the regular highways or whatever.

Q: Yeah.

A: It was all empty steppes. You could go by train, and s -- hours and days, and it

was all empty. So somehow you didn't -- even if you tried to move somewhere,

where would you go?

Q: Yeah.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej deg

May 8, 2013

A: So my mother was sent to that town, and she st -- that was sometime toward the

beginning of winter, so probably they took us from this place where this old woman

gave us a piece of -- to stay with -- corner of the -- of her up -- house, and put us in an

empty house that didn't have window, had only paper on the --

Q: Yeah.

A: -- wall, and the -- it was so cold, we didn't have any burning things by then. In

the winter we couldn't go behind the house --

Q: Of course.

A: -- and get anything to heat. So we slept in our coats.

Q: Yeah.

A: And in the morning, the water that we kept to wash down, was all solid ice. But

they -- then my mother started -- got the job as a janitor in some children's home

[indecipherable] hou-house, and --

Q: An orphanage.

A: Orphanage, or also the -- sometimes they took the children probably from -- from

streets, or something. Anyway, she got the job, she was writing to this, let me have

my children. And this predsedatel said no, we have too few horses, and they're

needed here to shove the snow, or whatever, work a little bit in farm, and I can --

we" ll -- well, no. No, no, no, until late March. And there was something else that The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej 8

May 8, 2013

happened, that somehow it was almost, you know, for the normal situation in life,

difficult to understand or feel, or react to. We had the [indecipherable] among

these women who stayed first, who came, there were two women: one was with the

small child, the other was with -- alone, a fairly well-educated. She was, I think, a

nurse, or some advanced, super nurse. And she had a lo -- she was lucky to get a lot

of jewelry. And she was also getting the jewelry from this woman and the other one

would hire the Cossacks with the cart, to take them to a distant cit -- town. Not city,

a town, where they had so-called zwartaz(ph) kupka(ph).

Q: What's that?

A: Selling the gold that the government wanted. So they would take the things, and

then you could buy -- they had cans of food. So I know my mother gave her

wedding ring, and some -- bracelet, I think. And that was all, she didn't have much

on her. But anyway, these women, after several months, not working -- not going

like my mother was going to work at the farm -- were accused by this predsedatel

that they were parasite [indecipherable]

Q: That they were speculeg -- speculating.

A: Speculating, and they are not working. In Russia, if you don't work, you don't

eat. That's the Russian. [speaks Russian]

Q: [Speaks Russian] The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej deg

May 8, 2013

A: Yeah, and so they were arrested, they were parasite, because they were living --

oh, first they sold their things, and then they would buy from some --

Q: Right.

A: -- women who had something, like my mother gave her ring, and they would go

and bring some food, or maybe -- I don't remember if we got an -- what we got for

that wedding ring, but anyway, these women were arrested while my -- and were

kept in the prison in that town where my mother was now, with my younger

brother. And the Polish people who lived around there learned that there is going to

be a judgment on them, they were going to be sentenced for whatever. And my

mother tells me the story because they were watching this thing carefully. The

women were given seven years of hard labor in gulag, each. And they came out of

the courtroom, and there stood this predsedatel, so thinking, you know, here I am a

hero, defending the Soviet society from these parasites. Here you -- you have proof

that I was right. And somebody asked in Russian, asked these women, what do you

think about now, about the predsedatel, the situation and the predsedatel? She said

well, God is not speedy, but he is just. And this man, you know, did -- before, he

was laughing at us when he saw a praying book, or some people praying or

something, singing a religious song, he was laughing that there is no God, and all

this kind of thing what the -- he was taught. And so he returned home. Two weeks, The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

or maybe three weeks, this is past hard winter, it's already now into spring, but it's

still winter, it might be February, or so. He -- his child gets the measles. His beloved

older son, 10 years old or something, eight or 10 years old. And the measles doesn't

come to forward, but open, you know, breaks out inside the system, and the child

dies. And this man turns himself into completely different man. He remembers what

this person said, that God is not really speedy in punishing, or whatever, but he is

just. And he looked at it as God's warning, or something, and he started going to the

Poles to ask about God, who is God, what do you believe, and something. And then

one day, in the evening, toward the end of March, he came to us, that's room with

already was little bit warmer, but still -- we were still not quite [indecipherable]

Q: You were cold, yeah.

A: --right. He said, gather up whatever you have, and I'll come at night and take my

horse and take you to your mother. And he drove me and my brother, with all the

belongings that was with us, by night, to Kokpekti, to that city where my mother

was working.

Q: Oh my goodness.

A: And this was on -- on -- you -- you -- you could not explain. In the normal

circumstances you don't have it. But this was something like -- like the, you know --

Q: It's almost like a -- The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

A: -- protection.

Q: It's almost like a biblical tale.

A: Right.

Q: Yeah.

A: Y-Y-You cannot assume, but we had -- my mother always prayed, we had, every

evening before, we had always knelt down and said our prayers, and my mother was

-- she was not, I would say devote -- devout, but she was religious enough, and she

had the hope that God will not let us down. Which I think now, talking about the

hope, I think the hope is the most important thing. Love is not only the thing that

keeps you alive, hope is the thing that keeps you alive. Because you hope tomorrow

will be better, tomorrow will be better. Can't be any worse, tomorrow will be better.

Love sometimes could not save you, but hope could save you because you went

through very difficult moments, you were hungry, and maybe tomorrow somebody

will give you a piece bread. I would go babysitting sometimes, to the Cossacks

families. The child was in a small -- I don't know how you call it, it was almost like

a -- like a basket near the roof. The baby was there, and if the baby cried, you pulled

the string, and he dropped a little bit [indecipherable] stop. The parents were there

having friends eating, and having their corner, laughing, or whatever, in Cossack's

la-language. But then afterwards, when I was going home, I would get a piece of The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

bread, or actually a -- sometimes it was in the Russian families, the Russians had

bread. But the Cossacks had kind of like pita bread, because they had baked them.

And they would give me one, and I would come home, wouldn't eat there, come,

divide it into four pieces, and then like, the animals who are hungry -- if you see the

animals who are hungry, each one takes a piece of big things, and goes to a small

corner and eats by himself. And this is such an intuitive feeling, that we did the

same thing. To take a small, one quarter of this piece, and go, and by crumbs eating,

prolonging it, and eating. And it was somehow so neither -- you know, the nature of

_of--

Q: Of people.

A: Right.

Q: How -- how did things progress? Somehow now, have you -- in what you're

describing, has more than a year gone by --

A: Yes.

Q: -- has it been a year and a half? How long were you in this place?

A: In Kokpekti?

Q: Yeah.

A: We were there -- this is March would -- we came. The spring --

Q: March 1941?

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

A: March 1941.

Q: Okay.

A: And then there is -- my mother worked at that place, and I think there was

sometimes some Russian food that you could get, I think. And still, the exchange of

things, or services, like we were -- my brother and myself considered ourselves

professional shepherds. So we -- because this was a town, it was not the farm, but

many of the women had the cows, one cow in some side of the houses or

something. And we went around and if they had the calf, we said, we will set a

small herd of cows, and we will go into the steppes -- because it doesn't belong to

anybody, we could do it, and take it -- but somehow we did -- it fell through, but

anyway, my brother was taken by -- he was then 12 years old, and he was taken by

the -- some Russian people who were building the train things to -- to go and be --

you know, go-getter, or some -- how do you call it? Help out with the small duties --

Q: A gopher. A gopher.

A: A--a gopher for -- for these people, so he would go for a week, or sometimes

longer. And wa -- the -- the younger brother stayed with us, and my mother -- my

mother was working. I-I -- it -- it seemed also a lot of -- there were other Polish,

many more Polish families, so we sometimes would gather a-and, you know, had

evenings like telling stories, or singing together, or sometimes gathering together.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

But otherwise I don't remember. I didn't work there. The only good thing was also

very unusual thing, some stri-- sort of difficult to pr -- assume that it happens. When

we were going from door to door, about our ad -- possibilities of being hired, and we

s -- entered some very elegant buildings by there -- of -- there were office buildings

and elegant people were walking, then we were -- in a sense, we could walk

wherever we wanted. We were not, you know, watched out, that you couldn't go

there, or couldn't go there, just walk. And we knocked, thinking that we would find

somebody. As it happened, a door opened, very elegant, intelligent man -- what

happened, engineer, who was working on these trains, or some other big jobs, and

he's one of the head persons. And he couldn't give us a calf to [indecipherable]

Q: Right.

A: -- but he started asking us -- first of all, the Russians, of course, did not know

about these people, you know, we were looked at no -- you know how in -- in

Russia you don't ask questions, first of all. So if they drop a group of people, so the

Cossacks don't si-- first of all, don't speak Russian, and they don't know much

about the outside world. They don't know about the war, they don't know what

happened. So he started asking how come you found yourself here? You are Polish,

and started asking us question. He gave us some candy, and he said -- he send us,

later on, send us some bread or something, to my mother. And for months The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

afterward, from time to time -- and for example, there were some passing engineers,

through the town. So he would send them to my mother so she could make a cof--

tea, or set -- tea was the only thing that we -- brick tea. You -- I don't know whether

you would realize. It was a pressed tea by bricks, and it was more --

Q: Concentrated?

A: It's a concentrated --

Q: Yeah.

A: -- leaves, pressed together like hard leave. And they were very valued, especially

by Cossacks.

Q: Okay.

A: They would take a small --

Q: Piece.

A: -- break an small, put in the water. And take it -- after they drink water, they put it

in the next one because it was so tight. Anyway, a -- so when he would send us

something, he -- somebody who was passing by, to ask for tea, to ask my mother to

make tea, also giving a chance that maybe we have something that can sell. I

remember my moth -- my father's attache --

Q: Case.

A: -- case, my mother sold to one of these people.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej "!

May 8, 2013

Q: Engineers, yeah.

A: And I don't know whether it was some money, but there were some shops,

although they had the shops, once a months, the sugar would come. Once a month,

salt would come. And the restaurant was always surrounded by the local people. If

they killed a camel, or, you know, th-they didn't have really killing the cows,

because that was not th-the -- in that city, I don't know what actually was trading, in

that sense.

Q: Right.

A: But you couldn't get, sometimes, to that restaurant, or -- the woman who had --

one of these two woman that had the gold, that was selling, she was sending her son

to beg when Russians were eating. So he would go around and beg for -- for food.

We --I know that we didn't -- my brother and -- and I did not feel like doing it, but

that I remember, that that was the only way to get some food. And so this man was

helping us, from time to time sending some o -- fish, or something like -- like that.

And always asking us to come and tell him how we are. My mother was, at one

point very sick. She had heart problem, and she had kidney problem, whatever. And

the doctor told us that she cannot drink too much water, because of the heart, to

have not too much water for -- so the lungs would not fill with water. But then we

would get this chaff of wheat from somebody for doing something for that woman, The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

or selling something small. I really -- sometimes the packages yet -- packages are

still coming. They would send us rice, they would send us fat, the --

Q: Lard.

A: -- lard. Which was very much appreciated by Russians. Cossacks --

Q: Not so much.

A: -- they're Mohammedans.

Q: Yeah.

A: They would not look at it. But you could sell these things that came. And that,

somehow, from day to day we, still hoping that it will be -- then -- and then -- then it

-- one day, at the beginning of June, I remember the sun that was settling in the

evening. I stood outside with some women -- Russians, around. And they looked at

sun, who was a red color, and she said, it's bloody. It was blood. The war is

coming. The war -- they had some feeling about some kind of --

Q: Disaster, yeah.

A: -- saying that it is -- when the sun is like blood -- looks -- there is a war coming.

This is beginning of 1941 --

Q: June.

A: -- June. The 22(tm) June, the Russians are attacked by Germans.

Q: Did your lives change?

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej a

May 8, 2013

A: Not at the beginning. We didn't know what was going on. We were, you know,

behind all the clouds and everything, we didn't know. We didn't get any letters, and

-- letters stopped, the packages stopped. But also, no -- no radios, nothing. But as --

as things started to progress, we learned, toward the end of -- of summer, I think it

was sometimes late August or September, that there was a kind of a conference with

Russians and -- and Poles, and English people. English offered to help Russia to

fight Hitler, but on the condition that the Poles who were allies of England had to

go free. So they gave an amnesty. Not all of them followed this. The prison guards

didn't read, or didn't -- didn't -- or -- many people stayed there for years afterward.

But some of them stayed, and there was an idea with Sikorski, who was the

president --

Q: Right.

A: -- of -- of Poland, prime minister of Poland, together with General Anders, who

was then also in prison, but he was let out. He was in prison in Lubyanka in

Moscow. He was first -- he was hev -- badly wounded, but he survived, and he

became by -- Sikorski ordered him to form the Polish army. At first it was thought

to go with the Red Army, and the Russians, with some diplomatic talks, started

talking and there -- by then, the war is really going bad for Russians, because The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

Moscow -- people -- government, Russian government goes to Kuybyshev because

Moscow is --

Q: Right. Is being und -- attacked.

A: -- is surrounded.

Q: Yeah.

A: And all the thing, and then Stalingrad starts. So at that time, Hitler is a lit -- not

Hitler, Stalin is a little bit pressed to the wall, and he agrees to allow Poles to form

the government. There were couple of depos, where they put near Kuybyshev the

[indecipherable] and Otwock or something like that, where the Poles started

coming. They allowed [indecipherable] somewhere bet -- during the -- into the

prisons, into some towns where there was some more connection, in between, some

people passed the information. And we are still in Kokpekti in the -- and we were

allowed to go somewhere where it's not so cold in the winter. So we don't have to

ask any permission if we want to go, but it still took some time, that by about

November that year, we're -- this man, this engineer said, I will lend you my truck,

to take you to the station, and then you can go south, wherever that -- you know --

Q: Right.

A: -- settle somewhere. Because we were not at age that -- my brothers were too

young to go, my mother wasn't -- would not be a soldier -- The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

Q: Sure.

A: -- whatever.

Q: But you were allowed to be free.

A: But we went to let -- to go and maybe look for better living conditions, so -- and

this man lend us a car -- the truck --

Q: Yeah.

A: -- to take us to [indecipherable] for nothing. Didn't charge us for anything. And

we waited for the trains. In Russia the trains means the train -- you know, the cattle

train, open or like wagons, that we were coming in. So when the trains like, would

come, you would sit in the train, there is only one track going south, so it goes

anywhere, track, and then my mother, being bourgeois brought -- she went to buy

tickets. He had -- he gave us some money to buy tickets, so my mother paid to

Alma-Ata. And as you know, Alma-Ata, when we came to Alma-Ata, they would

not let us get off the station, because they said this is -- this is a showplace of

Kazakhstan. Alma-Ata means apple -- father of the apples --

Q: Okay.

A: -- or something like that. And it is a--a beautiful middle-terranean climate, like

in Greece, or like in Italy. And we thought, you know, we will still carry our life,

whatever it is, but in that place they wouldn't let us in. So my mother said, how The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

much wa ~ are the tickets, I have to buy tickets. I-- I cannot get on the train without

the tickets. So she had 80 rubles left, so how far this would allow, and that would

take us to Jambul, which is a big city down --

Q: South.

A: --in-- south. It's an industrial city, and it's antique city, it was one on the road,

silk road, and all that. Anyway, we went -- we got back on the train, went also on

the train, took us. In Jambul we stayed out, we were put out on then, and you

couldn't get into the city in a sense, to walk around, unless you had to prove that

you have work in the city, and a place to live. If you have to look for work, the first

question is, do you live here? If you don't live, you couldn't -- you couldn't get the

hou -- it's a--

Q: It's a--it's a--it's a closed circle.

A: Right. So my mother was very upset. At one point she got a-- how you call it --

how you call th -- the Russian banya(ph), you know, a --

Q: Mm-hm, oh, a bath.

A: Bath. She had the room -- one -- one couple said, why have banya(ph) and we

don't take with my wife, we don't take the bath, it's outside, you know. So there is

room -- but there is room only for you and the two boys. And I was living -- there

were already several Poles around, and they were somehow -- some contacts were The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

among the Poles, that they, I don't know, by luck would get in somebody that we

knew before, from the northern part.

Q: Can we interrupt just for a second? I think you need -- [technical break] Okay,

so you're in Jambul, right?

A: We have -- on the station in Jambul.

Q: Yeah.

A: And my mother finds that banya(ph), the ba-bathhouse, not --

Q: So, a sauna? A kind of like a sauna?

A: A sauna --

Q: Yeah.

A: -- outside, with the pile of stones.

Q: How do you say it in Polish?

A: Banya(ph).

Q: Oh, banya(ph).

A: That's local, because we don't have it.

Q: Okay.

A: You know, when the Russians came to Lvov, we didn't have the lice-ing places,

so we were not cultural enough, considered by -- by the Russians. Banya(ph) is

typically Russian or Scandinavian, but actually more Russian, you have the small The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

building like a garage, a stone, big stones, and in the middle it's a heavy pot that

you put water, and you fire the -- under the stones, and the stones become so hot,

and the water boils, and the steam --

Q: Steam, yeah.

A: And you had sometimes they use the kind of sticks --

Q: To beat you, yeah.

A: --to beat you. And anyway, I didn't have the pla -- place for me, and I was -- for a

couple of weeks. So my mother had the chance to -- had a chance to put a foot in

Jambul. But then after a few weeks, or -- I think it was few weeks or two months or

something, his family was coming in, and he said he will be using banya(ph), and

so out you go. And my mother was walking -- it's another story of unusual things.

My mother was walking on the street, and she seemed like some -- some woman

was passing her, a beautiful, fairly young wom -- I think she must have been in her

early 30s or something. And she comes to my mother, said, what is the matter, you

look so -- like something very bad happened. And said she now lost the place here,

so she can't go and look for job, and she doesn't know where to go. They would not

let my mother stay -- us to stay --

Q: Right.

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A:--in Jambul. And my mother said she's a -- she will be looking for the

apartment, and she's -- but I don't know where to start. So she said, come to me

tomorrow here. And she lived not too far from that place where banya(ph) was, on

that street. It's a -- it's a big city, but it's not quite paved yet, the dirt is on the street,

and especially in the rainy days, you go up to half legs that sank in the mud. But

anyway, she showed where she lived, and who -- and actually, she invited my

mother to come and have cup of tea with her, and tell her the story. She said, come

to me tomorrow. And my mother came -- went to the station where we are sa -- lying

on our pieces of luggage, whatever it was, and she said, tomorrow I am going to --

she said she will look for -- among her friends, maybe somebody has something to

offer. And as it happened, she said yes, here, go to that place, and my mother knew

a little bit of Russian, so she could converse. And it appeared that this was some

kind of aristocr -- aristocratic Tartar woman, who herself was very anti-Soviet,

because Tartars were --

Q: Right.

A: -- during the first World War, all this --

Q: Displaced.

A: -- w-were not only displaced, the Tartar, the Cossacks lost their gover -- their

place, this was taken over by the Soviet Union.

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May 8, 2013

Q: Right.

A: And her husband committed suicide, or was killed, so she -- because he were --

he didn't want to join the party, communist party. So she had a thing to settle with

the communists. And so she told that story. Anyway, next day my mother comes,

and she said go tomorrow, go to this woman on that street, on that street, and she

will -- she has an apartment room, because this was all the question, in Russia you

don't see apartments, you see room.

Q: Right.

A: And so she says, go there, I settled with her that you would be coming on this

time tomorrow. And my mother went next day, but the woman said, I want three

months" rent, you know, for that room. And my mother said, I don't have any

money. So, she said, well, you cannot -- I cannot rent it to you. So my mother comes

back to our Tartar friend, and she said, well, I will look for something else, come

tomorrow.

Q: So another day again.

A: So another day. My mother comes another day, and she said, go to this woman,

maybe she ha -- she [indecipherable]. My mother goes there, and she said oh

welcome, come on -- come on in. Your friend paid for the three months" rent. Can The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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May 8, 2013

you imagine? Another kind of a touch. How not to believe in -- in some kind of

superior force.

Q: Being -- yeah.

A: -- hanging over you. Anyway, so we moved in to that place, we made friends

with this woman, sometimes had -- she had us for tea, sometimes she -- she came

over to our room. We sometimes helped her with some other Poles who couldn't

find places, so we subletted a piece of the room. And that is 1941 -- or 40 -- no --

Q: Forty-two.

A: This is "42. This is November we left Kokpekti, we came in the winter, which in

Jambul was a muddy --

Q: Yes.

A: --rainy winter. And then my mother found a job in homework, making the quilts.

There are several woman who put the frames --

Q: Okay.

A: --and work on it. And then they sell -- not sell, give it to the factory that gives the

material.

Q: Okay.

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May 8, 2013

A: You know, so my mother had the right to stay in Jambul, and had the place to

stay in Jambul. Then we learned that this army that was Polish army made of

prisoners and --

Q: Right.

A: -- ex-prisoners and people who came close, because the Russians would not give

them tents. Only in the winter they were at the regular tents without any heating,

and any clothing and the food, suppo -- there were a hundred thousand people,

practically -- not -- not hundred thousand, but at least -- they gave the food only for

40,000 people, so the people were --

Q: Hungry.

A: -- really starving there.

Q: Yeah.

A: So the Russian suggested, you go south, and Sikorski, and -- and ish -- and

Sikorski and the Russian -- not the Russian, English forces, suggested that you go

southern part of Russia, and then get out into the Middle East under the British

jurisdiction. So that happened, and these people went there. We still did not have

the right of it, and I did not know where is my father, because only the families of

the military people who were going there, had the chance to go as families of the

people or -- in -- in the army. And every day then, from -- I started working, I had to The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

work, because I was then 15 in January, although my December date doesn't count,

Iam 16 from the first of January, even though the whole month I'm not yet 16. I

had to work in the butink -- you know what butinki are, the --

Q: The -- these are --

A: -- pressed --

Q: Yeah.

A: -- pressed shoes from wool -- pressed wool --

Q: Yes.

A: -- that you roll. I was in factory of this, so cleaning the wool cut off the sheep,

and then separated, they would take it in another room to wash it, and then they

would take it on the combs, and sewing and all that kind of thing. That was not part

of my job, my job was only this, except that it was full of this prickly --

Q: Yeah, hurts your fingers.

A: -- things, right. So my hands were always in pain, because it's all dirty, prickly

wool, straight from the lambs. But anyway, I worked, and at one point th-the -- it

went bankrupt. Can you imagine in Russia, it goes bankrupt? How'd -- it's -- the

money in Russia goes from one pocket to another pocket. It's not that some owns it

-- somebody owns it --

Q: That's right.

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May 8, 2013

A: -- some -- probably some -- some people made some bad things, and they kicked

him out, and so the factory --

Q: Closed.

A: -- folded. But then, this is now coming to the summer, and the more and more we

-- people were passing by, and some of the trains, the cattle trains full of the

prisoners are passing by, and because Jambul was quite a big station, and also the

war is going on, so the trucks are needed for soldiers, so these trains are staying,

sometimes for a few days, and I would go and look for my father among the

thousands of people who are passing, and asking -- and some people said, oh yes, I

knew him. So somehow I would give them something to eat I brought myself. You

know, these people were hungry.

Q: Hungry.

A: And you know, they -- whatever you call -- their cloth was in pieces. They sem --

they themselves were, you know, like the remnants of human beings, after two and

a half --

Q: And this was Anders's army?

A: Hm?

Q: These were prisoners, or Anders's army?

A: This is the prisoners from gulags who were let out -- The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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May 8, 2013

Q: To become.

A: -- to go, to join to the army.

Q: Got it. Got it.

A: So they're still prisoners actually, but free, going to join Yangiyo"! which is near

Tashkent, near Samarkand, where the Polish forces were forming, before they

were to go to Persia and Iraq. Persia, it's Iran.

Q: Right.

A: At that time, shah was still there. And anyway, this is still -- I cannot predict

what will happen, but I'm looking for my father so he can go and join the army --

Q: Yeah.

A: -- and put us on the list as his relative, so we can come also, to get out of --

Q: Sure.

A: And I--I remember couple -- couple of -- there is toward the end of some on -- or

beginning of August. And they are talking about end of August, army is going to go

over the Caspian Sea, too. And I -- I'm very upset, not finding my father, and

passing by -- by the passengers train station on the -- on one of the [indecipherable]

of the sides, there stays a group of Polish uniformed officers. And I pass by, not to

ask them anything, but just -- just to -- maybe something, you know, I don't know --

Q: You will hear something.

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May 8, 2013

A: I will hear something. And so, it just happened that one is introducing another

one. This is Capitan Organish(ph) Koppage(ph), this is true, Organish(ph)

Koppage(ph), he is the officer in charge of the list of civilians who go -- goes now

to Yangiyo'l, and in few days the list will be closed, because toward the end of

August, the people are starting to leave the -- Russia. All the army is going out.

When I -- my heart sunk. By now, I didn't find my father. I came home very sad

looking, and my mother somehow gained my tale of what happened. And she said

Organish(ph) Koppage(ph)? Did he look like that? And she describes me this man,

because I looked very closely at him. Was round face, he had red blonde hair, cut

very short. And he had the eyeglasses, but the ones that hold by the nose.

Q: Mmm-hm, pince-nez, mm-hm.

A: And reddish face, you know, kind of -- they call it in -- in Polish the piggy -- like

-- like pig has the color of the hair, and almost like albino type of thing. And my

mother, yes this ca -- this is Capitan Koppage(ph), who was a friend of your father,

but you were very small when he was transferred to another town or city, or

whatever, in his duties, so you can't remember him. But he liked you very much, he

would hum and -- and my mother sat down and wrote several letters to Yangiyo"].

Q: Okay.

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May 8, 2013

A: And fortunately for the post office, it reached him a couple of hours before

closing the list, and they put us as -- my mother as his sister, and we got on the list.

Q: Oh my God. Oh my God.

A: This is -- this is one of those unusual things that, you know, my mother is on the

list now. But next transport is from Ugovoy(ph), which is about 180 kilometers

before Jambul, so we have to go back on the train, or however we could get to jam

Q: This place.

A: -- to -- to that place with the trains that have the transport of these people to go

out. From that train, go to cor -- Caspian Sea, to Krasnovodsk, and you get on this

-- with all the transport, th-the people are on the list, can get it. The thing wa --

which was also difficult for us to -- to do, it -- not only that we didn't have money to

pay for any kind of transport, but the city of Jambul was put -- Poles in the city of

Jambul were put under martial law -- not martial law, arrested, so to speak. We

could not leave Jambul legally because there was some -- some difficulties with the

police delegatura.

Q: Okay.

A: Delegatura was, you -- you understand, the office of the Polish government, and

the emb-embassy in -- in Kuybyshey, in -- and London representative. They did The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

something, they had black market, they were getting the transport of goods from

rush -- from Americ

a: people were sending clothing, and --

Q: Yes.

A: -- for this -- for the -- this big center. Jambul was really an -- almost a -- a big

center where they would bring some things. And I understand that some of the

people --

Q: Yeah.

A: -- la-- different people, all nations have those people that they would somehow

sold some of the things on the black market. So the Poles were non --

Q: Persona non grata.

A: Right. So how we can get out? My mother remembered that we had a painting of

one of our Polish friend. She was the wife of the judge in Poland, oh, he was a

lawyer before the war, and high, high up. And he was called to Kuybyshev to go to

Russia quickly, almost like day to day, to go to be in the government on -- on -- on

the [indecipherable] or something. And she didn't have a time to give a painting of

the portrait -- she was herself a painter -- to the owner of a store. And my mother

said, I am sure she -- that store has a truck. Maybe I'll give -- she wakes up one day,

and she -- she wakes up, and she said, I have it in my -- I remembered that I have

this painting. I will go there, and maybe she will allow us to take this truck, and The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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May 8, 2013

somehow we will go back to Ugovoy(ph). We are dressing up, and there is a knock

on the door. And there is a man who was the cobbler, or shoe -- shoemaker, with a

big Polish -- a Polish man with a big family, and he said, I have a truck for your

disposal -- except that, you know, the -- 500 rubles per person. At this time already,

my older brother, the younger than me, but older brother, went to cadet school

already to Ugovoy(ph) and was already on the way down to the camps near ba -- to

get out of Russia -- Kazakhs -- [indecipherable] Kazakhstan actually too

[indecipherable] I believe. Anyway, so three of us. And my mother said, I don't

have any money. Five hundred rubles is quite a lot for me -- even one ruble,

whatever. And he says -- he said, what do I need rubles for? You have been always

kind to me, you send me some Polish friends that I could have worked, and I

gained; you children played with my children; and you never showed me, you

know, the -- the difference that I am a cobbler, and you are a lady. Or something like

that, something of that sort. You can even dispose whom else of your friend could

go, we -- I had couple, and we sat on that truck. But how to get out of Jambul? He,

this cobbler, had a friend, a Polish Jewish friend, one of those who willingly went to

-- to Russia, who had some NKVD friend too. And he said that he will put on his

friend coat as NKVD man taking people to the collective farms, because this is The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

harvest time. So all people on the -- in the city will very often volunteered, or not

really, forced to go to the --

Q: But they were -- yeah, as volunteers.

A: Right.

Q: Yes.

A: And th -- so, I'm taking people to the farms. So he went around at night. We

were supposed to speak only Russian so in case we passed some places where they

could recognize. And we got there on time, two days before the train from

Ogovoy(ph) was go-going south. And this Organish(ph) Koppage(ph), that

Captain Organish(ph) Koppage(ph) was there, and we were helpful in getting three

people: the doctor from Kokpekti, what I told you my mother was sick, then he --

Q: Yeah.

A: --he only told my mother, you sickness with the legs and kidneys wa -- is only

good to go back to Poland to -- through Skaviets(ph), which is the kind of --

Q: A resor -- a sort of a sanitortum?

A: A resort for the -- right.

Q: Yeah.

A: But anyway, he -- I think he was old bachelor, you know, old widower. Anyway,

he was alone. He was Pole of Jewish faith. The rule was set for Poles to take only The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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May 8, 2013

the Polish Christians because according to Russian -- I don't know whether it's

Constitution or whatever, they -- the Jews are not Polish citizen, they are now

Russian citizens, and they cannot leave. So we somehow hid him on transport, we

knew Pole -- Polish, and we -- in that train. And it was at this time, this was

passenger train. So we could sit on the steps of the entrance of the -- into the wagon,

and sometimes if, at the station, the NK VD was coming, or some soldiers were

coming, we would tell very -- this is another family, m-mother and father who my

mother knew for man-many years previously, from Krakow. They haven't seen

each other, but somehow found themselves at the station in Jambul --

Q: In Ugovoy(ph).

A: Right, uga -- Ugovoy(ph). And we also told her. So with that girl, very nice,

brown curly hair, beautif -- beautiful girl, we were sitting at tho -- and we'd say

sometimes, my mother has the papers, my mother is there, or something like that.

So they knew, they would hide these people, and so we transported these people,

smuggled them out.

Q: How many did you smuggle out? The doctor --

A: The doctor and the -- the father, mother and Aldonna(ph) was the name of the --

Aldonna(ph) is a famous Lithuanian name. So she was with us, we later on met in

Teheran, but that's much later.

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May 8, 2013

Q: And were they all Jewish?

A: Hm?

Q: These were all Jewish people?

A: They were Jewish. But they were assimilated Polish Jews.

Q: Right, right, okay.

A: You -- you don't -- you didn't --

Q: You didn't distinguish, yeah.

A: -- ask even, something, you know, in --

Q: Yeah.

A: But anyway, they were supposed to be on -- forbidden to leave Soviet Union,

and couldn't get on the list. So since Capitan Koppage(ph) was there, they had us

wrote the list, he put them on. And -- but it was still not quite proper, so to make

sure that --

Q: Right.

A: -- the Russians would not demand the -- the papers or some -- some kind of

checking up. But anyway, we are going from Ugovoy(ph) through Jambul, back

going south. Since there -- you have to think about that Ugovoy(ph), the trains were

sent few days before. And some people had little children whom they left in --

Q: In Jambul?

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May 8, 2013

A: -- in Jambul, to come to the station of Jambul, and get on the train, because they

will keep the tr -- place for them on the train, going together.

Q: Right.

A: Some had the old parents, who couldn't make it 180 kilometers.

Q: Right.

A: So, they also waited. We are slowly arriving in Jambul. Train stops, so slows

down. We come, and are faced with the closed gates, and closed bars, from the

people who are trying to get on the -- on the station. And they closed our -- all our

doors, so nobody can get out from our train. And they tell us, these people cannot

go. And you can imagine I k -- I will never forget to my dying day, the hands, the --

the crying, the screams of the people, through the iron post stretching the arms to

the parents who are on the train going away. Or the children of the people who are

supposed to get on the train, and i-it's a -- it's a horror story in that sense. For two

hours we stayed, they would not let open one -- for one person, our door or the

railings for the --

Q: There.

A: -- people. And I -- and train starts, and you can hear one big cry of all these

voices. I still have my hair stand at the back of my neck, because you -- I -- I will

never forget that scene. The train goes and goes and the people cry and slowly train The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

goes faster and faster and the crying is -- continues on the train, but we already don't

hear that crying on this train. And this was one of the most horrific scenes that I

remember from all that kind of travel. So after several days, because they're quite a

distance from Jambul to -- from Ugovoy(ph) and Jambul to Krasnovodsk, we

came to Krasnovodsk, they let us on the beaches, and we had to walk to the port,

which was actually at -- also trade ports, when they have the oil barrack -- barracks

all -- ship, on which we had to -- they didn't have hume -- cells or rooms or anything,

they had -- we had to be on top. We got -- there were still some people who came,

knowing that Krasnovodsk is the place from which Poles will be traveling. Some

people traveled by hook or by crook all the way to Krasnovodsk, but they still did

not let some of these people --

Q: Join.

A: -- because this were different people, this is a two, three days travel.

Q: That's right.

A: Tam -- they s -- the others stayed.

Q: Yeah.

A: And they couldn't find our name on the list, and somebody, some man picked up

my -- I had the small bundle, which contained a pot. You had to have always pot,

because the kipiatok is always given on the station, and that's the only way you can The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

make tea, or soup or whatever. So this was -- and my Krakowian(ph) kind of a

dress, which I, when I wore it, when seven years old, but you couldn't sell that to

the Soviet or Cossacks. So anyway, I still had it with me. And I didn't have much

clothing, I think I had one dress, and in that was a -- whether I had dress on, or I had

the blouse, and a skirt, this was my own things, and probably toothpaste, or

whatever, I don't know whether there was even toothpaste. These things I -- kind of

vanished from my memory. And the -- finally they found our name. This man says,

well, I'll go up -- because these people were very busy -- and he took advantage of

them being busy -- took my small thing, and said, I'll find a place for you, keep it

for your mother and your brother. And he really did that, after they found our

places, and we come, and we see him sleeping on the row of big ropes that go for --

on the -- on the big boats, like they have ropes. Unfortunately, we are not leaving for

some time. We were supposed to leave in the evening, and this is now night, and the

NKVD is full, walking around the people, taking all the documents, and all the --

trying to -- most of -- but it was, you know, people were so, like pressed like

sardines. Anyway, at one point, they come to this man who took my things. It

happened to be one of those free going to paradise persons, who were communist,

who wanted -- and after two years he learned what's the paradise, and he wanted to

get out of Russia. But he didn't exist on any lists of Polish officers or anything. So The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

they took him, they took 13 people who were trying to get out of Russia without

document, proper documents. [phone ringing] And anyway, we got on the train.

Took us two day, and th-the -- over to Paklevy(ph). [interruption]

Q: Okay. Okay, so you just left Russia and then ta --

A: We were on that boat.

Q: Yeah.

A: And we reached Paklevy(ph), which is a port in -- on the Iranian, or Persian side,

and they set us in a camp on the beach, with the -- you know, they gave us the

blanket, and there were sticks, four sticks, and covered the blanket as a roof, and

they put -- they gave us some -- another blanket or so, to lie down on it and wait

until we have to g -- to be de-liced, and disinfected to go to the next place. They

took all, or whatever clothing we had on, they burned that, or cleaned them. It all

depends -- I -- I don't know how -- how you -- they looked, or whatever. And then

you go to another -- that took a couple of weeks. By then my mother was very sick

with dysentery. Because, what happened was that dieticians did not work on those --

at the camps. For the hungry people who have not seen any good food for two,

three, four years, you don't give the lamb soup, with the hot fat on top to the people

who are completely devoid of any --

Q: Nutrients, yeah.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

A: -- kind of nutrition, so they don't have how to digest it. So very often, many of

them came down with dysentery, but on -- my mother didn't tell me that she always

when -- what relieved her, she would go to the sea, to the water, and she would sit

there, because that relieved her pain. But then they put us on the next -- next camp.

Then, I don't remember how many weeks it took yet to be there. We met my

brother, who was still in another camp, but he was then [indecipherable] or young

cadet -- what later on they called young cadets, because Anders was organizing the

school for the young boys, to take as many as possible because there were many

orphans coming. So anyway, we met with him. He was -- he went to Teheran

earlier. We joined in Teheran, but not in the same camp, he was in the army, and

we were in civilian camps in Teheran. And that's the --

Q: This is a --

A: -- end -- this is the beginning of September, 1942.

Q: No, it couldn't be "42, was it?

A: Forty-two.

Q: Was it 42?

A: Right, "41, the war started; 41 earlier.

Q: That's right, okay, and so then it takes a while, "42, --

A: Forty-two.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

Q: -- so you're still in the middle of the war, okay.

A: Middle of the war --

Q: Yeah.

A: -- we cannot go anywhere.

Q: Right, okay.

A: And anyway, the -- then there are camps, three camps. My mother was taken

from the truck, because she had very high temperature, and what had proven, she

had typhoid, both -- both typhoids; the skin typhoid and stomach typhoid and

dysentery. Then later developed -- she was really --

Q: Sick.

A: --si---very sick, they took her to the hospital. And I had -- that was quite a walk. I

waited on the bus that was taking some people to visit people in the hospital. It was

--had to go through almost the side of Teheran itself. We were -- the camps were

outside of Teheran. In the --

Q: Let's -- you know, since we have only 20 minutes of tape --

A: Mm-hm.

Q: -- let's go to the main events that happened after that. In September "42, you

were in the civilian camps in Iran. And how long were you in Iran in total?

A: In total until "44.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

Q: So you were there --

A: Spring deg44.

Q: You spent two years there.

A: Yes, much of it was in the hospital, because after my mother got better --

Q: Yes.

A: --I start --I got couple of the -- couple of pneumonias, and with pleurisy and was

very sick for a little while. But somehow I survived, but it meant that I spent a lot of

time in the hospital, but I started also they -- they were organizing the schools,

which was sitting on the bricks in some hangar with the ho -- old airport, near

Teheran was unused, so there were hangars, and we were sitting there, and the

teacher was giving us lessons. There were no books, of course, but we were writing.

There was some probably note papers, and we were learning. Then, in the -- in-- we

were moved to another camp. We were -- at first we were so-called second camp,

but in the first camp they had much more modern buildings, or some kind of

civilization type of thing, and the school started, there were classes, and --

Q: And this was all under the British jurisdiction.

A: Yes. The Poles were running it.

Q: Right, right.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

A: It was the -- the British organized it, but the -- we were in that second camp, and

one -- once when I was in the hospital -- out of the hospital -- going out of the

hospital, the doctors sent me to the third camp, which was in the mountains. So,

because of my pneumonia, I think that they did not realize what I -- la -- only in am

-- in America la -- years later, that I had developed TB, but it was not quite

progressive, or becoming more, so they didn't recognize it. Anyway, so many sick

people ho -- you know, small things like this did not really come to notice. And so I

was, for a few months le -- summer months, when there was a scouting jubil --

jamboree at that camp, with the beautiful trees, and somehow a lot of young people

from all different camps, and -- and afterwards I came back to -- to the camp, and

then we were taken to Akwaz(ph), which is going south. Akwaz(ph) is the --

Q: Still in Iran?

A: Still in Iran. The hottest place on earth, so they say. Anyway, it's in the desert,

but the buildings are, you know, the regular buildings, cement, or whatever. And

they put us in big, like war -- not warehouses, you couldn't call it some -- some

maybe -- old shops that they didn't have anything to sell, but the --

Q: Right.

A: -- open places. And there we were for about, oh, that would happen that we

came, I think, to the end -- end of "43, into the spring -- The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

Q: Of deg44.

A: In deg43.

Q: Uh-huh.

A: In April, they started closing the camps. The -- because the Russians were afraid

of so many Poles living clo -- so close by to Russia, urged --

Q: The British.

A: -- the British to take the Polish refugees out of there, and the pole -- they

organized the camps all over their commonwealth. Some of them were in India,

some of them were in Africa -- many were in Africa.

Q: What about you? What happened with you?

A: When -- we were supposed to go to India. My -- my brother first came back to

us, but shortly afterward decided to go to the high school, which would be cadet

school in Palestine. So he was supposed to go there, he still stayed in-- in Teheran,

but we were put on the boat in Basra, which is no name now.

Q: Yeah.

A: And were to go to India. Unfortunately, the Japanese submarines were looking

out for the British navy, who was the whole group of boats were going, the navy b --

navy ships were going, and we were among them, the only passenger and refugee,

about thousand people or so. And they were attacking in submarines, so we hid in The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

Aden, just close to the Mapiss(ph), you know, the Arabian peninsula, and then on

the other side is the port Adem -- Aden, who is the -- was a British kind of a center

of defense or whatever. So we stayed off the port, but in -- away from these

Japanese things. And after a few days we let out, still intent to go to India, to

Karachi, where they had camps, Karachi and -- in in -- India at that time --

Q: Was part of Pakista -- Pakistan was part of India.

A: Later on.

Q: Yeah.

A: But still it was India.

Q: Okay.

A: And they had some -- already some camps, people in the camps, but we still ha --

met with the Japanese submarines, so they started -- told -- the order was to go down

eastern side of Africa, to go to Mombasa.

Q: Okay.

A: And in Mombasa they said, now, all our camps are full.

Q: Okay.

A: You have to go to another one.

Q: Oh my.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

A: They send the boat to Zanzibar, which is a lan -- island near Mombasa.

Zanzibar didn't have any facilities to keep refugees. So they told us, you have to

go to Beira. Beira is a capital of Mozambique. Mozambique was the colony,

Portuguese colony. And Mozambique is just across from Madagascar. You had to

get into that narrow passage to go to Beira. Just before we got close, there was a

huge storm that took our ship. By then we were alone, the other ships went their

way. And our ship was thrown more into the middle of ocean, above other side of

Madagascar. By the time we turned, it was no use going back to Beira because

going back, I don't know, with the -- they were not sure whether they would accept

us. We finally stopped at Durbin, which is South American port, sou --

Q: South African port.

A: --ra-- African, sou-- Republic of Africa. They were neutral in the war.

Actually, there was a lot of pro-Hitler thoughts of wars, you know --

Q: Right.

A: -- if you know the history of wars in South African Republic. But they let us off,

put us on the train and took us to Rhodesia, southern Rhodesia, which is now

zambas --

Q: Zimbabwe.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

A: Zimbabwe. Nearby -- near ba -- Salisbury was -- was capital of southern

Rhodesia, now is -- what is now -- I forgot, this moment. The capital is differently

named. And from there there was -- they formed -- there was a school for girls,

formed also by the government, from a private plantation, it had beautiful home,

beautiful things for the girls; and that was a school for girls. So th -- from the camp,

we went -- I went first, then later on my mother -- my mother was a teacher at the

school, but then they asked my mother to come to the school to be guardian of the --

mother guardian of some of the girl -- of some classes, and then also to teach

gymnastics. So she came, and that is deg43. Let's see, four --

Q: I thought you lived from deg42 to for --

A: -- end -- end of April --

Q: Uh-huh.

A: -- the end of April, 1943.

Q: I thought you were for two years in Iran?

A: Yes, in four -- "42 --

Q: To *44.

A: --to "44. Forty-four beginning. By the time the boat was traveling for six weeks

Q: Then your -- April "44, you are in Zimbabwe.

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May 8, 2013

A: In -- right, at the -- in the May, or something like that.

Q: Okay, okay, so --

A: And then we come to Rhodesia, and we come to the camp.

Q: Five minutes, okay. So we have five more minutes on the -- on the tape, so we

have to --

A: So the war is still going on --

Q: Going on.

A: -- in Poland.

Q: Okay.

A: Okay.

Q: Okay, right.

A: Okay?

Q: No, we can still talk, if you are willing, we are still talk --

A: Well, it just --

Q: Yeah.

A: -- because just to close it in some spot --

Q: Yeah, yeah.

A: -- like you say. The -- the war made it impossible for us to think of any return yet,

because the war was still going on. And my brother, who went to this cadet school, The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

he was in Palestine cadet school, and then, in 1947, actually at the beginning -- at

the end of "46, the Polish communist government, which you know by enou --

enough of this, that that was imposed on by Soviets, wanted Poles to come back.

But because of history, not many people felt safe to go in back, unless they had

some close relatives or children or parents they wanted to help out. But otherwise, it

wasn't quite wise to go.

Q: Hang on a second. Let's stop. We are will -- [break]

End of File Two

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Q: So you were in Africa in total, for four years.

A: We are -- first we come to Marandella's(ph), a camp for all refugees. They take

the girls who are of high school --

Q: Age.

A: -- level, to come to that school in Giglifolt(ph), which was this plantation --

Q: Yes.

A: -- left by the -- some English people who lost the son to some viper's bite, and so

they left the plantation, went back to England, and they donated the plantation. And

it was given to the government, and they place the high school for the girls there.

We took care of gardens, we took care of --

Q: Okay.

A: -- sleeping quarters. Well, the main building was used in the school and

administration, but then we were in some barracks, all around.

Q: And did you stay there for the entire four years that you were in Africa?

A: N-No, we were at -- in Giglifolt(ph) I was for three years --

Q: Okay.

A: -- not quite, no. First I was for two years, then we met with my -- not knowing

that my uncle, my mother's brother was in Lusaka in northern Rhodesia as one of The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

administrators from the British thing, because he knew several languages, and he

knew English, and he was also legal -- some knowledge of law, or whatever. And he

was as a contact with the Poles -- Polish forces. Anyway, my mother asked to be

transferred to --

Q: There.

A: -- Lusaka.

Q: Okay.

A: We went to Lusaka. I finished one school year in Lusaka with the first lyceum,

and th -- for the second lyceum I went back to Giglifolt(ph) in southern Rhodesia,

but my mother and my brother --

Q: Stayed.

A: -- younger, stayed in Lusaka. And then, after I graduated with matura(ph), or

[indecipherable], to you know, gained the document of -- proof of my ending high

school, then I went to Lusaka. We stayed -- that was in 1947, and we stayed til

1948, when they were closing Lusaka. Some people were taken from the camp of

Lusaka to another camps, and we chose to go to -- to e -- to England, because my

brother was in England. We thought w -- we somehow got -- by mistake, too,

because his name was the same like our cousin's name who is captain. And he said,

Tadeusz Pawulski, well, let him come. But then afterwards they said, well, he is The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

cadet, he cannot come, but we were already on the boat to England. So we arrived

in England in 1948, in -- if I remember correctly, June or July, in -- in the western

Gloucestershire, where there was a big [indecipherable] divide Poles. Most Poles

came there, and from there they were sent to different camps. And afterwards, I --

we learned that some of our relatives who were in London, and invited us to come

to London, my -- I found my mother a job as -- because she didn't know English

very well at that time anyway. She was the -- how you call it -- the person who

washes the [indecipherable] in -- caretaker of the apartment houses where they

have -- she --

Q: Okay. A housekeeper.

A: Not necessarily a housekeeper, the one who is the concierge.

Q: Ah, got it, okay.

A: Concierge. And I was given a -- a cou -- work at one of my uncle's packages to

Poland office, to write some addresses on the things, on the -- and to be able to live,

because my mother, by her -- [break]

Q: All right, so after -- when di-- where were you when the war ended? Do you

remember?

A: We were in Africa.

Q: Were you in Rhodesia?

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May 8, 2013

A: We were in Rhodesia.

Q: Do you remember the day?

A: No.

Q: Do you remember hearing about it?

A: We -- by then we had newspapers, and we were living in the open society, so to

speak, the teachers and --

Q: Right.

A: So we knew, and we also knew that the soldiers who were, as you probably

know the -- there were so many Polish soldiers in the west, in -- fighting with the --

on the side of the allies, were coming to England after, choosing not to go back to

Poland. And so that -- the end for them came, and most -- many of them went to

England.

Q: How did your family -- how did your mother res -- react, how did your brother --

how did your brothers react? How did -- when you found out the war is over, what

were your first thoughts, if you can remember.

A: I only -- what I can say, the -- we were always planning to go back to Poland.

Situation was that Lvov was under Ukraine.

Q: Yeah.

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May 8, 2013

A: There was no Lvov for us. Eastern part of Poland, the big chunk of po -- Poland,

now was --

Q: Part of Ukraine.

A: -- given to Stalin.

Q: Yes.

A: And also, my mother contacts -- was happy and was lucky to get some contacts

in Poland with the relatives. And the brother of my father, who lived in Warsaw,

what I told you, about that I visited, he wrote to my mother, watch out, because

your sons have finished high school, and when -- if you come back now to Poland,

they take all the children of intelligentsia, so to speak, because by then --

Q: That's right.

A: -- Poland's intelligentsia was practically all gone -- to the Russian -- Russia, first

to the schools for officers, for the army officers, and my mother said, I am not -- we

just got out of Russia, I am not --

Q: Letting my --

A: -- willing to go and lose my sons once they go to Russia with the no -- we know

the situation --

Q: Yeah.

A: -- what will happen, what might happen.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

Q: Yeah.

A: And so we went to England, decided that we will go to England. And since

many of our friends were in the army, many of our -- some of our relatives were

already -- some of them did not go the same route that we went. Some of them

during the 1939, happened to be outside of Poland. When Poland was attacked

they went to France, or they went to England. And they --

Q: And they could help you then, coming in.

A: -- had -- they were somehow suggesting that we go to -- go to England and wait

there.

Q: Did you have --

A: There was always the hope y -- [indecipherable] was there, so there was always

yet the -- and based on any -- anything special, it's still -- that it can't be that Poland

will be cut in half and given away, and that Lvov will never be Polish. And so

because of that, we stayed in England to be close enough to the continent, to

Poland.

Q: Did -- by that point, did you have any hope that your father was still alive?

A: No, we didn't. No, I didn't. We knew that the prisoners of war were killed, but

where they were buried, we didn't know.

Q: And you knew by whom they were killed?

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

A: We knew that wa -- from the -- we didn't have any doubts.

Q: Okay.

A: Because the letters stopped in April --

Q: That's right.

A: -- 1940. There were still no Germans in -- in Russia.

Q: Right.

A: So the Germans could not have killed them. In anything there were so many

witnesses, and --

Q: When it all started, you were a 12 year old girl?

A: Right.

Q: And when it ended, you were already in your upper teens?

A: Mm-hm.

Q: Almost a young woman.

A: Mm-hm.

Q: So you could say that your -- your teenage years --

A: Well, vanished.

Q: Yeah. Yeah.

A: And that is somehow unrecover --

Q: Unrecoverable.

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May 8, 2013

A: Unrecoverable.

Q: Did you feel that loss?

A: Yes.

Q: How? In what ways?

A: In-- not in the bad ways, in something -- becoming more serious person. The not

having the common language with the average English girls of my age, and even

some of the Polish girls who were younger, or older, the different -- different ways

they -- trouble they found themselves in England. And --

Q: Were you lonely?

A: -- but also strong. Stronger.

Q: Yeah. You felt stronger.

A: Stronger as a human being, I think.

Q: And how? Why did you feel stronger, because you had lived through so much,

and you survived it?

A: Maybe in -- in the fact of these thoughts, and I was, shall we say, more on the

serious sides, and I wanted to study, I wanted to finish university courses, or

something, by the -- way I went to the London University dean of history, and he

assured me I had the Polish papers translated, no-no -- not -- [indecipherable]

Q: What kind of certi -- The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

A: Notified. Translated --

Q: Notarized certificate?

A: Notarized. And on basis of that, I wa --I had a place, but I couldn't get the

scholarship, because even though it was given by the Polish government in

London, had the money, but as the young woman who was giving me an interview,

when I asked for the scholarship to go, what do you need university for? The -- the

girls who go to universities go for -- to find the husbands. We can -- we don't have

money to spend on such material. I can give you only the scholarship for some

business administration, two years" course. So I started college. But the -- the

thinking was the women, without realizing that actually, the woman who is

educated is really the mother of future people.

Q: That's right.

A: Fathers are outside, earning the life, but the mothers teach the children. [coughs]

Excuse me. But that was about -- so I started college.

Q: With a business administration --

A: For business administration, but I didn't finish, because by -- I got married in --

during -- after one year, I met my husband. There were some Polish women who

organized evenings for the young people, because there were many soldiers who

returned from the army, and other places, went into college, and were a-alone The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

sometimes. And there were no really places that you would meet, as normal -- in

normal life, and so they organized, among their friends, to have socials. And on -- I

was invited to one of the socials by a friend of my mother's, and -- and a friend of

her mother's. And when the -- and met my husband, although I remember him

coming into the room full of people. I remember his coming. And the song from the

"South Pacific," one -- the evening -- we remember the -- one enchanted evening,

you will see a strangers across the -- and I see -- the same thing happened. I saw my

husband, and I saw his eyes, and somehow I -- I saw him. He didn't see me, of

course, because there's a group of people, 30 people or 40 people around. But then I

had the mistake learned -- mistaken idea that he came with a lady who brought her

son to that party, as a young man to -- for having, you know, a chance to meet. And

she came also with a young woman, who was telling to this young woman's mother,

and -- mother, which I assumed that she must be daughter-in-law, because she turns

mother-in-law, so he is married. So, out. No more intention of getting to know

closer. And I-- somehow we had supper quite well done by all the ladies" mothers

and all that. And after, there was some dance -- dancing in the living room, and I

used -- my braids I put on -- in the crown of the head. And in one -- he approached

me -- my husband approached me to ask for the dance. And when there was some The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

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kind of the changing of guard, when I had to go under his arm, or something like

that -- you know, the steps sometimes, his --

Q: Cuff?

A: -- button -- cuff--o-on-- on the cuff, caught my hair. And there is a saying that

you somehow get connected with -- there is this -- with your hair gets into some --

your button gets into the hair of somebody, that there is something, that you become

friends, or --

Q: A connection is established.

A: Connection established. So he looked at me and let me s -- let me see the person

that I am to -- to know.

Q: Yeah.

A: But then I still rem -- think he's married. So I discourage him. He -- I would sit

here, and he would come and sit nearby, and I would make excuse and go to another

place. And then I was looking through my pocketbook, and there was some picture

-- tickets from the Albert Hall in London, that I went to the concert, and he would

tell me, oh, he wished that he knew me by then, he would have accompany me. And

I said, well, it passed, and I would move to another place again. And then it's time

to go home, and this lady with her daughter -- by then I know that he is -- he is a The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

friend of the son of this woman, who doesn't like to go to any dances, so he chose

his friend to --

Q: Come with him.

A: -- replace him.

Q: Ah, okay.

A: So he was not the married type, but he said he will help the -- to go the --

Q: Right.

A: -- through the underground, to the next station, where the other people would go,

the Mrs. Topalitska(ph) and her daughter, and her -- the friend of her son. But then

he got -- I got to change the underground trains, he went -- changed with me. He

said, I'll take you all the way. And then took the bus who was number 28, all the

way to Kilburn, northern part of London. And I -- he would go there and got the

address where I am, because I didn't want him --

Q: To know.

A: -- to know where -- the address of -- so wrote down his street number and forced

me to give the -- I did not have telephone at that time. The -- the person downstairs

who lived, he had the public telephone nearby, so he would pick up the telephone

and call me sometimes. So he didn't know, I didn't give him the telephone, I gave

him the address, and he -- and he -- the thing was -- another small coincidence; bus The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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Interview with Maria Pawulska Rasiej

May 8, 2013

number 28 ends at Kilburn, at north, but ends at the quite the southern part of

London when he lived -- where he lived close by. So he took the same, the last bus

that took me there, coming back was going to last route, all the way to the place

where --

Q: He lived.

A: So it -- somehow it just.

Q: That -- that button in the hair did it.

A: Oh yes.

Q: So, when did you get married, and when did you come to the United States?

A: We married about -- I -- I was still going to school, to the college, studying. And

then, in the spring, he was one of the soldiers -- America gave 125, I believe, visas

to the -- at the end of the war, when the people went out of the army, and did not

choose to go to Poland, or go to another country to settle, America offered the

permanent visa, a permanent settlement in America. And that was the spring -- yes,

not even -- we got married in August, that's six -- eight months after we met. We

met in December -- this was around Christmastime, the party was. And the -- in --

we got married, and then, I think it was some oct -- October or November, when the

letter from the American embassy came to my husband, that you are on the list of

these people who are offered to settle. Will you choose to take up -- to pick up the -- The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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May 8, 2013

and go to live in America? By that time, I-- he was married, so he tried to get me

on the -- you know, on the list. But then, Americans at that time were very strict

about letting people come into America, so no sick person could go, n-no some

political --

Q: Sure.

A: -- things. And they called me three times for the medical tests. I di-- I was very

surprised -- we were very surprised, not knowing why. By the time -- by this time, I

think I was expecting a baby -- not yet. Well, anyway, we sa -- finally got the ala --

the permission for me to participate. He and his mother, who was in the army too --

Q: Okay.

A: -- who was in -- in Russia with him, and he was in the cadet school, as I told you

Q: Yeah, yeah.

A: -- in the Persia, and to Iraq, and to the Palestine. But he -- he and his mother

went -- were going -- she was in the army too, so she went, as -- entitled to it, and I

was put on the list, and we went to the United States. But because it was ending,

the program, we were too late to be paid the -- the -- because they -- they -- they gave

the tickets for nothing, to a certain degree, who wouldn't -- who said he's going to.

Q: Right.

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A: We were too late for it, so my future mother-in-law -- all then, not future,

mother-in-law, had some friends who lend us her -- some money, who paid the --

some ticket transportation, and came in the boat.

Q: Did you land here in New York?

A: In the -- February, deg52. 1952.

Q: In February 1952.

A: Late February.

Q: Did you ever go back to Lvov?

A: I visited Lvov couple of times. It was still -- there was definitely -- Poland was

by then free, there were changes. In 90 -- 1996 was the year they had the -- my

elementary school, had the 180" anniversary, and they somehow invited some

people who were at the school. And my brother, who lives in eng -- one of them

lives in England, in England they were much more connected, they knew more of

the things and he told us that there is a chance to go to -- to Lvov, as part of the --

Q: Right.

A: -- group --

Q: Right.

A: -- for that occasion. So "96 --

Q: Is when you went.

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A: -- was my -- with my brothers, who were also started the school -- lower grade --

Q: Yeah.

A: -- but started the school, and when one from then Texas, and my oth -- the older

brother lives in Texas now [indecipherable] but he went -- came here, and we went

together to -- to --

Q: Lvov.

A: -- Poland.

Q: Yeah. You have shared today a really -- an amazing story. As I said earlier, it

would be very hard to believe that all of these things happened to one person, and

that, you know, for -- it starts with a 12 year old girl who has a normal life up until

that point, and between age 12 and age 19, goes through so many different -- I

mean, hell and back. What would you want -- what would you want younger

generations to understand about all of this? About these experiences? What do you

think you'd want to pass on to them?

A: That's a very difficult question. You have to stick to your ethics, to what you

learned as a -- whether it was only in school, or it was only in religion, or also only

from watching your parents, watching the people -- I -- I consider myself lucky that

even in Africa in the high school, we had extremely good people, honorable people, The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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May 8, 2013

who were thinking along the lines that I was thinking, not carpe diem type of thing

Q: Yeah.

A: -- not lightly look at -- at life. Be of some use to humanity. Be a -- a person who

has lived, but gave something of herself to the -- to return for good, that somehow I

received from time to time, throughout these difficult times. And also, I wo --

maybe I always wanted something more serious, even if-- I remember in small -- in

the small grades they -- that I wasn't a flighty, stupid, young girl, who just from one

ice cream would go to a stupid movie although my parents would know where I

could go, or where I shouldn't go. But anyway, I think that life is much more

serious than just to catch up, or a false fame by something --

Q: When you were in London, right befo -- before you met your husband, and you

said you didn't find any common language sometimes, and I wanted to ask you: did

you feel lonely? I mean, you had gone through such experi -- [loud noise]

[technical difficulties] [break] I guess I wanted to wrap up the interview with,

what your final thoughts would be, and what you were able to maintain, and how

you felt you had changed, if you had changed. What final words would you want to

leave with people?

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May 8, 2013

A: As I mentioned, and you suggested that actually I didn't have childhood; I was

still standing mentally to a certain degree, or psychologically, a 12 year old girl who

had to sometimes face more difficult things, working to -- to get something to eat --

Q: Yeah.

A: -- or to help my mother to help us. That made me much more aware of

seriousness of life. And when I came to England, to -- so to speak to normal life,

and went to London, and lived in London, met some other people, I still was not

hungry for light -- kind of young teenagers like nowadays you see --

Q: Yeah.

A: --an--around, whether on television, or you met during that --

Q: Sure.

A: -- stay in a-- in England. I wanted to study. I was very close to my mother, and

somehow they si-- some of the girls that I worked at the cook's office, that I said I

worked after the second job in London, that I don't know how you live like that;

you are so close to your mother; whether you will be able to get married, because

you won't cut yourself off that closeness. But I -- I think that was maybe this -- and

maybe something of a un-conscience way of holding to something that holds me to

pre-war times, that holds me to my father, in a sense, to the time when I was --

Q: Well you had -- The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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A: -- somehow --

Q: Yeah.

A: --more serious looking at life, and also when -- in the high school, I remember

that I developed that feeling that the teachers and the chairman of our -- director of

our high school said, which was according to what I was thinking and what my

father taught me, that by your behavior, you are ambassador of your country. And I

never stopped loving Poland, and always thinking that maybe some ter -- something

might happen, like the things that you did not plan happened, that you will go back.

And th -- I will never got rid of my hope that -- a-and longing for Lvov. And I

visited Lvov, then afterwards I visited twice or three times later. Lvov was very

neglected, and you could see the -- kind of Ukrainians trying to cut all the traces to

Polandism, and I could not find the names of the street that I knew, because first of

all they were changed, but they were changed in the Ukrainian alphabet. So I didn't

ever learn that Ukrainian, so -- but I still had a feeling that I was walking on my

traces -- tracing my steps, when I was going to school. I visited -- my school was

taken by -- over by Ukrainian high school, but the -- next to it was the -- the boys"

school before the war, which now they united the girls" school and boys" school,

Polish, one of two schools in Lvov, which is Polish, and Polish teachers, very high

level of learning, and when Ukrainians are sending -- The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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May 8, 2013

Q: Their children there.

A: -- children there, because they have the chance then to go to Poland, to the

universities. More -- it's easier for them because Lvov University ha -- is

overflowing by the people from the villages, or from --

Q: Of course.

A: -- other parts of Russia or Ukraine.

Q: Yeah.

A: But this thing and -- and the sense of value and sense of feeling responsible, that

whatever you do, it somehow influences the lot of many people that --

Q: That you have an effect.

A: It has the effect, or somehow if people would talk to each other. My -- my son,

the oldest son, when there was some boys who, as I told you, being of -- having

foreign name here in -- in America too, that -- that they -- sometimes he was the

victim of a bullying, and so to speak, and when they -- they came to our house, and

through -- through the window, the bags -- baggies full of water. So they attacked

my br -- my son, and he wanted to go out and start fighting. And I said no, you have

to learn somehow to deal with this in the way to explain the anger of somebody for

no reason at all; and to tolerate -- not really tolerate, but to understand that

prejudice, you don't fight with the same fighting spirit, but you try to look to the The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

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May 8, 2013

future that the future will be more peaceful, and more people talking to each other,

or sa -- something on that --

Q: Yeah. That you don't -- you don't answer in the same way that you are being

attacked.

A: Right.

Q: Yeah.

A: You don't lower yourself to the same level, if somebody unreasonably attacks

you --

Q: Yeah.

A: -- for whatever reason. You only lower yourself as a human being, responding

the same way.

Q: Well, Mrs. Maria, thank you. Thank you very much, for sharing so much.

A: You're welcome, and thank you very much for your understanding, and your --

the questions that you put, trying to, somehow, to understand how I tick, so to

speak, right?

Q: Well, I--1- there are no words, because I have never gone through such a thing,

and all I can say is what you have done today is given us a real gift --

A: Thank you.

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May 8, 2013

Q: And we thank you for it. And this concludes the United States Memorial

Museum interview with Mrs. Maria --

A: Pawulska.

Q: Pawulska.

A: Rasiej.

Q: Rasiej, on May 8", 2013. That's it.

End of File Three Conclusion of Interview

The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview.

The interview is part of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's collection of oral testimonies. Information about access and usage rights can be found in the catalog record.