[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Deportations

[LMPauling]

> Yes, we've been ignoring Poland.  Here's what I find about it in Eric
Lohr's PhD
> thesis, "Enemy Alien Politics Within the Russian Empire During World War
I"

Thank you so much, Dick, for posting this information.

Here is a bit of the story from another of my interviews. Albert Jabs was
born 1910 in Waterbury, Connecticut. His father had immigrated to the USA in
1902 just before the Russo-Japanese War. When Albert was about 3 years old,
his family returned to RusPoland to buy a farm. He, together with his mother
and siblings, were in Dembe Wielki, Wloclawek, RusPoland from 1913-1929. His
father had returned to the USA and was here during WWI, going back to Dembe
Wielki in 1919.

This village is near the town of Neudorf and belonged to the "big church" in
Gostynin. Albert was very interested in history and was not himself
deported. I interviewed him in 1988 when he was 78 years old.

When I asked him about the relationship between the Poles and the German
settlers in Poland, he explained that Poland was a country of many
minorities and differing religions-- the German Evangelical, Ukrainian
orthodox, and Jews, together with the Polish Roman Catholic. During the time
when Poland was partitioned, the Poles in Germany's section were Germanized,
including the rights of citizenship, whether they wanted to be or not. He
said that the Germans in Poland could never be full citizens, but remained
always subjects because they did not share the Roman Catholic religion. At
this time Austria's section was the most peaceful because both countries
were Roman Catholic.

According to Albert, there were several Polish revolutions against Russia in
the mid-nineteenth century. The German subjects would not participate in the
uprisings which made the Poles hate them even more. When the Poles
mistreated the Germans, the Russians sent in the elite Cossack troops to
protect them.

After the uprisings, the Russians closed the Polish schools, and only rich
Poles were educated. Germans were educated in parochial schools, and Jews
were the most educated of all.

The Russians deported many German subjects to settlements along the Volga
River. "They put them on trains in to the Volga. They survived. They worked
there and they came back. Maybe here and there a small child. Like I had an
uncle who lived in Lenie. (Lipno) He lost a child on the train. It died from
the cold."

"In the Volga area, they took, actually at that time, they didn't have these
concentration camps... They took them there in the settlements, and they got
to move in with the people... work for the people.Of course they suffered on
the train. There were some, like children, especially children."

"Two uncles came back from Russia. I remember that good. I was already...
Was about 1917... I was seven... eight. Yeah, I remember that good, those
people coming."

"But in the village where we lived was on the other side of the Vistula. The
Germans came earlier to us. On the other side, the Russians they had time
then to take all away. They had time even there by Lipno."

"I remember my mother was told to get ready that we would be taken. But then
the Germans came there and we didn't have to go. So on the south side the
Germans stayed. (The Vistula flows mostly from east to west in this area.) I
think probably all the way to Gostynin, I guess, maybe even further. But on
the other side, on the north side of the Weichsel, they all were taken. And
then above Warsaw too I guess they were. But on this side of Warsaw, on the
south side of Vistula, we were lucky, because the Germans came fast and we
were fine."

Albert is not related (as far as I can determine) to Olga, whose story I
related before. He immigrated in 1929 and  was very instrumental in settling
many refugees in Bristol, CT following WWII. He died in CT in 1989.

linda