Last Updated: Friday - 09/24/2010 Week of March 31, 2002 The
forgotten Polish deportees Second World War brutality killed,
maimed, displaced innocent peoples By WILLIAM CHODKIEWICZ
Special to the WCR February and April carry special significance
in the hearts of those Poles whose roots originate in pre- 1939
eastern Poland and who were deported to Siberia in 1940's. Those
who survived commemorate these months with sorrow and
reflection, as they remember painful personal tragedies. They
grieve the loss of loved ones, while at the same time marvel at
the miracle of their deliverance from the Inhuman Land, known in
Polish as Nieludzka Ziemia. "Why me, and not others," asks a
survivor, who at eight years of age, was one of the three who
escaped alive, while five members of his family perished. Yes,
his father, mother, and three siblings all gone in less than two
years, while he and two others were left to uncertain fate. Such
stories stagger one's imagination and pierce one's heart. But it
was not unusual and sad