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    So Far from Home: Krystyna Stachowicz Slowikowska Zukian Farley - a Memoir
    So Far from Home: Krystyna Stachowicz Slowikowska Zukian Farley - a Memoir
    So Far from Home: Krystyna Stachowicz Slowikowska Zukian Farley - a Memoir
    Ebook101 pages1 hour

    So Far from Home: Krystyna Stachowicz Slowikowska Zukian Farley - a Memoir

    By Krystyna Slowikowska Farley and Ann Knope

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    About this ebook

    A first hand account of a Polish family's experiences during the destruction of Poland by Hitler and Stalin as seen thru the eyes of a feisty 14 year old girl, Krystyna Stachowicz. Krystyna lived thru the deportations to Russia, the forced labor in the deep frozen forests of the Ural Mountains, and harsh working conditions in Uzbekistan. She lost her mother, Walentyna, to malaria, and her elder sister, Alice, is still missing. She journeyed to an orphanage in Iran with her younger brothers and sister, and then joined the Polish Army in Exile where she became a nurses aide and tended to the wounded at the Battle of Monte Casino. Thru it all Krystyna survived and lived to tell the tale of her amazing experiences as a witness to the unprecedented experiences of the Polish people when they were left to fight alone against the Nazi and Communist threat to the free world.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisheriUniverse
    Release dateOct 2, 2013
    ISBN9781491708811
    So Far from Home: Krystyna Stachowicz Slowikowska Zukian Farley - a Memoir
    Author

    Krystyna Slowikowska Farley

    Krystyna Farley is an active Senior in the Polish Community in the Greater Hartford area in Connecticut. Her fate has brought her from Orlopol, Poland, once part of Eastern Poland, through the harrowing experiences of WWII and into the 21st Century as a woman on a mission to preserve and share the truth about Stalin's destruction of the Eastern Borderlands, and to preserve and promote Polish culture. Krystyna is married to Ed Farley and lives in New Britain, CT. She has 5 children and many, many grandchildren and great grandchildren. Ann Knope is a Realtor in central Connecticut by day and is a freelance writer when circumstance allows it. She holds an Associates Degree with Middlesex Community College and is an enthusiastic advocate for continued independent study and Home Schooling having participated in a Home School Co-op in Connecticut from 1990 thru 1994 with 25 families in her area. She took an interest in WWII and the plight of the Polish people when she met Krystyna Farley as an election official in New Britain, CT. Ann lives with her husband, Will, in New Britain. They have a son and daughter-in-law, Daniel and Melissa Knope, and grand daughter, Lacey. Ann writes when she comes across issues and information that she would like to see shared with a wider audience. Ann and Krystyna's lives intersected when they worked as election officials in New Britain, CT in 2005. Krystyna's story is so compelling that in 2011 Ann volunteered to help Krystyna share her first-hand account of the plight of the Polish people from the Kresy.

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      Book preview

      So Far from Home - Krystyna Slowikowska Farley

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      Preface -

      By Krystyna Stachowicz Slowikowska Zukian Farley

      Chapter 1 - Something Bad Is Going To Happen

      Chapter 2 - And So We Sang

      Chapter 3 - The Camp

      Chapter 4 - God Does Not Want To Stay Here Anymore

      Chapter 5 - Journey To Iran

      Chapter 6 - A Man On A Motorcycle

      Chapter 7 - The Madness Of War

      Chapter 8 - Still So Far From Home

      Acknowledgments

      Resources

      Photographs And Illustrations

      Dedicated to all the pilgrims upon this earth who keep the faith

      having not yet received the promise.

      1.jpg

      Military Veteran’s Settlement of Orlopol in Wolyn

      Located two miles southwest of Wisnowiec

      2.jpg

      Krystyna Stachowicz Slowikowska Zukian Farley

      New Britain, CT

      2011

      Preface - By Krystyna Stachowicz Slowikowska

      Zukian Farley

      My Name is Krystyna Stachowicz Slowikowska Zukian Farley. Let me tell you something. That which does not kill you really does make you stronger. Wise words spoken by Elie Wiesel as a result of his experiences during the Holocaust. So many Americans don’t know what it means to live anymore. We think we have it so good, that we are free… but we are not free. Everyone here is in such a hurry. No time for God, for country, for family life, no time for friendship, for neighbors and community, no time to vote…only video games, internet, and pilgrimages to Disney Land. If I don’t tell my dear husband, Ed, to call his brother, he won’t remember to pick up the phone.

      I met Ann when we worked together as election officials in New Britain, CT. She turned to me for a conversation when she heard me muttering about how hardly anyone in America votes any more. We became friends and I told her a little of my story. Ann asked me if I had ever written my story. Though I speak many languages pretty well, I find writing in English difficult. Ann volunteered to help me write my story in English so it will not be lost and forgotten by my grandchildren.

      How could you really know what happened to the Poles? No one has told you. Let me tell you. The Holocaust effected many people. Elie Wiesel has kept the memory of the Jewish Holocaust alive so that we never forget what happen to the Jews. Let me tell you about the Polish Holocaust. Six million Poles died along side six million Jews, with many people of many cultures, resisting two extremes of the political spectrum, fascism and communism. Neither system works very well.

      Nobody knows what really happened because they lied to us, and they buried the truth along with the dead. Who lied to us? Chamberlain, Churchill, Stalin, Roosevelt, Hitler, and the rest of the European elite, and they lied to themselves. We tend to lose sight of the truth when the truth is too painful. We lose sight of the real objective for life and tend to focus on self-preservation, too afraid to let go of the status quo when the status quo is already kaput.

      Oh, I know, they had to do what they had to do, to try and prevent another war, but the war was already on and they refused to acknowledge it. If only we had more courage to stand up to the thugs sooner. If only we all had the courage to take a stand against evil before it backs us into a corner. Poland did not have a choice. With Nazi’s to the west, Communists to the east, and betrayers from every background in our midst, good people from every background were threshed and crushed in the middle, while the rest of the world held their breath, hoping the threat would go away. Poland and many good people of Poland, from many cultural backgrounds were brutalized, but not defeated. As our blood and tears poured forth something powerful was brought to birth, the Polish Army in Exile, lead by General Anders in cooperation with England and General MacArthur. In this army, an army without a place to call home, we Poles in Exile helped the Allies begin to push back the Nazi’s in Europe at the Battle of Monte Casino. And that was before D-Day.

      Why did you not help the Jews?, the world asks us. Why did you look the other way?

      Well, six million Poles died trying to take a stand against the Nazi’s and the Communists. And many more are still suffering from the struggle. Many, many Poles are still living in exile today, unable to return to their beloved homeland, still searching for missing loved ones, and a place they can truly call home. We tried to stop the aggressors, and help those who resisted, whether Jew, Pole, Russian, German, or Ukraine, but the rest of the world was not ready yet to help us. It was not until our beautiful, fledgling, free nation was completely overrun and plundered that Europe and the West, and, finally, Russia woke up and realized that they were the ones looking the other way.

      My family tried to live in peace with those around us in the Kresy - Poles, Russians, Jews, Gypsies, Ukrainians, Catholics, Protestants, and Communists. We tried to resist the gathering storm and sudden eruption of resentment and cruelty. But in the end, because we could not accept the party line and the Nazi’s and Communists knew that most Poles would never accept the party line, my family was deported to a slave labor camp in the north of Russia, deep in the vast frozen forests of the Ural Mountains, as were hundreds of thousands of others. As many as 1.5 million Poles were ripped from their homes and sent to slave labor camps and gulags in Russia and Siberia because they

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