Photo of Basia and Farynka Sgrunowski on the train from Lugova to Krasnovodzk (in the evacuation to Persia), 23 March 1942 (from the private archives

Photo of Basia and Farynka Sgrunowski on the train from Lugova to Krasnovodzk (in the evacuation to Persia), 23 March 1942 (from the private archives of Zofia Jordanowska - courtesy of VideoFact).

See also http://www.Kresy-Siberia.org
The "Kresy-Siberia Group" brings into contact people from countries around the world with a special interest in the tragedy of over one million Polish citizens of various faiths and ethnicities (Polish, Ukrainian, Belorussian, Catholic, Orthodox, Jewish, etc.) arrested or deported from eastern Poland (Kresy) in 1940-41 to special labour camps in Siberia, Kazakhstan and Soviet Asia. Some 115,000 of these were evacuated through Persia in 1942 as soldiers of Anders Army and their families - and eventually made their way to the West. The circumstances of their odyssey and the tragic history of the Polish citizens under Soviet occupation during the war was hushed up by the Allies during the war to protect the reputation of the Soviet Union, an important ally in the war against the Nazis.

Sixty years later the survivors have aged and many have died. With this list we hope to bring together surviving deportees and their descendants to remember, learn, discover and spread the word of their ordeal to the world and to future generations.

If this list group can play even a small role in that effort, it will have been an important achievement.