KREW KUTS: “Displaced Persons” Explained

By Bernie Krewski

The “Siberian Six,” I silently called them, six people in four families living here, friends of my parents, all with a remarkable story to tell although it has been somewhat muted by the magnitude of their experience. They were officially called “displaced persons” in government documents, defined “as any person who was displaced because of the Second World War.”

For decades I have been haunted by memories of them, wanting to enlarge and illuminate what I have leaned about their early lives and others like them who I encountered during my career.

These people are John Dziuba, Frank Dumanowski, John and Frances Garszczal, Bruno and Hororata Mikosz.  

Why would their story be so compelling that it needs further amplification?

Marginalizing the past, as Omer Bartov writes in “Tales from the Borderlands” (2022), limits us from fully understanding the present and acknowledging what we have lost. But often that concept is too vast, complex and difficult to absorb. Much easier is examining smaller parts, looking at it under a different light, listening to its sounds more carefully, and reinterpreting what it can tell us – things that we have forgotten or never knew.

That is what I will attempt to do in this and the following article in the next issue of The Echo.

Here are segments of the Siberian Six’s stories as recorded in local history books.

MIKOSZ

In the New Brigden history book, Bruno Mikosz says he was born in Poland in 1918. The Russians invaded Poland in 1940, and he was sent to Siberia as a prisoner. Also present in the Siberian prison camp where he was assigned were Frank Dumanowski, John Dziuba, his sister Frances Garszczal and his future wife Honorata. In 1942, when Russia partnered with the Allies in the Second World War, he joined the Polish Army, serving in Russia, Iran, Iraq, and Israel. He then went to Egypt with the British 8th Army in 1944. From Egypt he was in Italy until the war ended. He arrived in Canada in November 1946 and worked for a year on the farm of Joe Damsgaard at Chinook. Honorata came from Poland in 1967, and they were married. This photo of Bruno is from my parents’ collection.

DZIUBA

As a Polish youth, John Dziuba was sent to a labour camp in Siberia where his feet were frozen causing him problems for the rest of his life. He fought with a Polish regiment attached to the British forces at the famous battle of Monte Casino in Italy. He came to Canada after the War and worked on a farm near Youngstown about 1948-1949 where he met Jean Sutherland, and they married in 1950. When John came to Canada, he was awarded several medals from the war years that are preserved in a beautiful display case built by his son, Tim. In May 1980, their children arranged a trip to Warsaw, Poland where John met members of his extended family who he had not seen since the onset of WWII.  

GARSZCZAL

John Garszczal was born in Warsaw, Poland in February 1910; Frances Mikosz was born in Kopanki, Poland (southwest of Warsaw) in August 1923. They met in Kampala, Uganda (east central Africa), married in 1943 and resided there for seven years. John worked in a water treatment plant on Lake Victoria and Frances was a homemaker. Their first child Sophie was born there in September 1944, Krystyna in March 1946, and a third child Richard in 1948. They left Uganda and came to Canada by ship, arriving at Halifax on August 29, 1949, then travelled to Loverna and were met by Bruno Mikosz, Frances’s brother. This photo was taken about 1961. My father is seated to the right.

DUMANOWSKI

Frank Dumanowski was born in Roza Poland (southeast Poland) September 28, 1920, the eldest of eight children. His father was a soldier in WWI, then farmed and worked as a blacksmith. Their family moved to eastern Poland in the 1920s. After the outbreak of war in 1939, the entire family was sent by the Russians to Siberia (“because they were capitalists and owned land”). “This time of Frank’s life,” wife Doris writes, “was etched in his memory and he never forgot how they suffered – what hunger felt like, how people were treated, and what it was to work long hours in the freezing cold.”

Frank was in Siberia for two years and then joined the Polish Army - sent to Scotland for training as a paratrooper.  He was then transferred to Stamford, on the outskirts of Peterborough. It was this unit of the Polish Army that invaded Arnhem, Holland and took heavy casualties. He was demobilized in 1947 and went to work at Peterborough Motors.

For some time, he didn’t know what happened to his family in Siberia. With the help of the Red Cross, he was able to locate one brother who had also joined the Polish Army. Eventually he learned that his family had returned to their former location at Roza. Frank’s father discouraged him from returning there because “the country was unsettled,” now under strong Russian control.

Frank and Doris married in 1949 and decided to move to Canada after seeing a film about Canada. Joe Dumanowski, a cousin living in Chinook, was able to sponsor them. They arrived in Alberta on June 7, 1957. Frank was hired as a mechanic at Chinook Motors.

Poland, Siberia, England, the Middle East, and Africa. Why and how this occurred will be described next week.