Your Mind Matters – Marek Sobieralski, Poland – Recovering The Painful Truth

There's a grief that can't be spoken, there's a pain goes on and on. Empty chairs at empty tables, now my friends are dead and gone. Phantom faces at the window, phantom shadows on the floor. Empty chairs at empty tables, where my friends will meet no more. There's a pain goes on and on. Why did the lyrics of this song from Les Misérables about the French Revolution haunt the public so much? Why was this, and why is this sentiment so strong? These lyrics reveal how the oppressed, the ordinary and extraordinary person, is left with the haunting, wretched, eternal pain inflicted by the tyrannical oppressor. The residue of the torment of war echoes in many people's lives, and as such is the theme of my program today. I am Dr. Maria Kempinska, and this is Your Mind Matters. The subject today is deeply personal, namely Poland: the transformative power of recovering the painful truth. Today we are discussing the Katyn Diaries. The transgenerational need to uncover the truth is a haunting which pervades every human being. Its psychological effect is deeply harrowing whilst activating a call to relive the trauma by the need to unveil the truth, no matter what type of violence or emotional horror we may uncover. The war had many heroes who died, and in many families that we know of of different nationalities. So why is the Katyn massacre still tormenting so many? Jane Rogojska, whose book Surviving Katyn explains that it was the umbrella for the deceit and blame that the perpetrators of war in the Machiavellian style pours onto the persecuted in a, in a means to distract and deceive a nation into submission. It was a betrayal and a crime against the officers, doctors, lawyers, religious men, teachers, and scientists. This was a systematic extermination of the Polish intelligentsia. On a personal note, my mother's first husband, Juliusz Chmielewski, was murdered in the Katyn Forest in June 1940. They hurriedly had been married in September 1939 at the start of the war, and 8 weeks later he was taken, never to be seen again. The terror of her war experience never left her, and as her child, it ran like an electric current through my life as a need to find the truth of his disappearance. She died never knowing that he had been murdered in the forest in 1942— in 1940, a fact I found out in 2009. Once this truth is known, we know where to go to pray, to lay the wreath for the dead, to imagine their end as if it's some sort of comfort. But I'm not the only one who has the intergenerational trauma in my psychogenealogical DNA. It comes in many forms. It can torment and impact many generations for centuries. But this was 1939. And here we are, 80 years later, still uncovering the reality of the despicable, barbaric approach to humanity that was shown to ordinary people, and the residue of the terror which lingers like the Holocaust in Auschwitz. It is the psychological impact on recognizing and uncovering what happened to our ancestors that's being discussed today. My guest is Marek Sobierowski, who has released his book, 'The Katyn Diaries,' He chose to translate the diaries, and it has just been released. What is his story? Why has he decided to put his energy into this part of history? It is his mind that also matters. Welcome Marek Sobryalski, and please tell us why you wrote this book, and where it can be bought first and foremost, and then give us a little bit of your background. Hi, Maria, what an introduction. Thank you so much for inviting me. I came across these diaries many, many years ago, and I was deeply moved when I read them. I had actually assumed that they must have already been translated into English. I was aware of the Katyn massacre, the lies, the cover-up, etc., but was ultimately surprised to learn that there were no English language translations for, you know, for the use of various people nowadays, as this subject has recently had much more attention, and deserved attention. So I decided that it really should be done, because, you know, each diary author is very different. With many, you can really get a sense of their character, the person, the individual. You see the differences, but also the camaraderie and real unity of spirit between these men. And I suppose I felt that these people's individual stories needed to be added to the narrative of the massacre, however grim, upsetting that may be, and remind people that each of these murdered officers was a living, breathing person like you and me. And it is on sale on Amazon. It is currently on Amazon in the UK, US, and Canada, so if, you know, this is a subject that is of interest, please do pick it up because, you know, they give an interesting insight to the human story. So it's so fascinating. I'll come— let's go straight into the diaries and then we'll go into your background, Marek. These diaries, as I've read them, are literally the translation of the officers that were taken to one of the areas of the forest where they were murdered by the Soviets. That's right, you know, the, the around 22,000 Polish military officers and intelligentsia that were murdered in April and May 1940, following the Soviet Union's surprise attack on the 17th of September, after which Germany and Soviet Russia carved up the country between them. So quite high on their agenda is to get rid of any potential leadership of the future by, by getting rid of these people. So the bodies that were discovered in Katyn itself were just a fraction of those that were buried in in different places. And here you are. And so just to sort of tie up, as I was reading these and putting all the pieces together, and I know about the Katyn massacre, as I say, because of my mother's first husband and how that really haunted her all her life, that she didn't know quite what had happened to him, although by then, needless to say, she'd married my lovely father. But nevertheless, it's does actually torment, and it also torments children, and it also flows through the blood, doesn't it? It flows through the Polish blood. And although I'm very proud to be English, I'm also very proud that my heart is Polish. Both my parents are Polish. But as you said, that the war started on the 17th of September, and my mother's first husband actually rushed her into a church on the 18th of September to marry. So they didn't have the traditional white wedding, it was, you know, the war's starting, I am going to be arrested, let's get married. And that's how their story started. But tell me about the men in the offices in your story. How did you come by these diaries? How did you find them? I found excerpts of them in a very old book, I can't remember what it's called now unfortunately, but in an old book fair back in the early '90s. And then when I kind of read more of the excerpts, I just kind of, they just had an amazing kind of impact on me. You know, you see that, for example, Christmas is a very emotional time for the prisoners when the longing seems most acute, when, you know, they're really, because, you know, as you know, Christmas time, for example, is a very largely celebrated affair in Poland. And even then they come together to celebrate it as best they can, despite the terrible circumstances. But you really do get a sense of their nearest and dearest that they're missing at this time. And you chose 12 of these offices to translate? Yeah, there were more. I suppose I may even get around to translating the rest that are available in due course, but I just felt something needs to get out sooner rather than later. Right. 12, I feel, give quite a decent kind of representation of the kind of different things that are written about in the diaries, the styles. You know, some are very matter-of-fact, they just talk about, you know, what they've eaten for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, where they've gone at a particular time, whether they've been deloused, whether they've had a bath, that kind of thing. Whereas others, they kind of really pour their hearts out onto the pages, And you really, you know, your heart breaks reading it, especially when you realize that a lot of these guys, you know, as you just mentioned, not long, you know, freshly married, and lots of these people have young children, toddlers, or even newborns that they haven't seen yet, and all the time they're, you know, longing to be with them, to have a normal life with them, because, you know, this is an insight, I suppose, into people's minds into, at a point of where their lives are completely turned upside down. You know, one minute you've got all of these plans and exciting things that you hope to be doing on your new journey of life, and then suddenly war breaks out, you're taken into captivity, and, you know, what do you do now? And also, just to give a brief history of— brief Polish history, because although Poland had been freed in 1918 and it was gathering itself back into an independent country, by the time the war broke out in September 1939 and 1938— you can actually add to this as well, of course— but there was an awareness that through the Ribbentrop-Molotov agreement in August that there was going to be some sort of war. The men were aware that both the Soviets and the Nazis were vying to take over Poland. So that's, as you say, that they were, or they were, you know, sort of as in my background, you know, they got married quickly. Why? Because they knew a war was going to happen. And Poland is in the center between Germany and Russia, but there was a time when it was Prussia, Russia, and Austria-Hungary. So do you want to give more details? Just to say there was a time of about 100 years where Poland was off the geographical political map of Europe, where it was carved up between Prussia, Austria-Hungary, and the Russian Empires, only to reappear in 1918. So just had 20 years where, as you were saying, it was bringing itself back together after, you know, that period of occupation and after the First World War, which was a real devastating time for Poland because Most of the— many of the battles of the Eastern Front were fought on Polish territory. And then once the country had regained its independence, it had to fight a number of prevent— well, wars with various neighbors in order to shore up its, you know, its defenses and to make sure that that that independence is preserved. Obviously, most notably, the war with the Soviet Union in, in 1920, where the Soviet forces got as far as Warsaw, but then they managed to, to push them back, which was another thing, you know, that Stalin really didn't forgive the Poles for. But you mentioned, like, the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, and that became known the days before the war, but the secret protocols weren't known. And these, so these soldiers and other soldiers, when war broke out, um, and indeed there were various murmurings and, and suggestions that things, things aren't good and, um, and, and things could happen here, but when war did break out, and then when, for example, Britain and France declared war on Germany just a few days later, um, I think the majority, from the impression I get, is lots of these Polish soldiers thought that with Britain and France coming to our aid straight away, then we'll be okay. But unfortunately, that didn't immediately happen. And then obviously, then with the Russians or Soviets attacking on the 17th of December from the east, Poland's fate was essentially sealed because they didn't expect to be attacked on both sides. And even when the Soviets were attacking, you know, they were constantly being told that, you know, they're doing so, you know, because Poland has fallen apart, and they're doing so to help them. To help, exactly. And I think this is the myth that we will unpick shortly about why Katyn is so powerful and symbolic in the lives of the Poles. That we were actually given, you know, fed lies, and that actually sort of didn't help at all, and it sort of just tore everybody apart. Absolutely, you know, not just the feeding of the lies, but being— and some of those lies and being kind of perpetrated really by our own friends and allies in order to kind of, you know, preserve their own relationship with the Soviet Union. So they thought, well, as bad as this was, this is a— they thought that this was a fair enough price to pay in order to kind of keep the Soviets on side and whatnot. And this was, yes, post-war. So coming back to the early stages, which is when the Katyn massacre actually happened, which is what your book is about, and we'll come to your own personal story. My father actually, he fled from the Nazis on the west, because he was Poznań, to the east, not expecting to be taken by the Soviets into Siberia. So that was a terrible time for a lot of people. So, who in the diaries makes the biggest impact on you? What are the stories that really you feel did resonate with you particularly? Each of them played a part, even like the first one, which is literally just— you can't even call it a diary because it's just one note on a piece of paper, and it's simply This is simply an entry on the 23rd of April, so right at the height of the actual murders, and all he says is, "My dears, I'm traveling from Kuzhalsk through Smolensk into the unknown. Kazik left 2 days earlier. I kiss you. Your loving Mariam." You know, even something like that, for me personally, you know, is quite moving and quite strong. But there's— I mentioned kind of a couple of the authors kind of pouring their heart out, and I suppose there's one in particular that did stand out to me. It's a chap called Dobieszław Jakubowicz, and let me see if I can find a couple of— but before I go on to him, for example, Major Adam Solski, for example, should I maybe share a couple of excerpts? Yeah, please, please. Please. So this is not, you know, about a month or so into the captivity, just to give kind of you an idea of the kind of day-to-day kind of stuff. So Major Solski writes on the 17th of October: Nothing in particular has happened. I was the orderly and went to the kitchen for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. After breakfast, privates from Kielce province arrived from the region of Starobelsk, with whom they do not know what to do, whether to send them back to the border and hand them over to the Germans, or to leave them here. We did not find any willing to stay with us. Even one who was prosecuted in Poland for being a communist does not want to stay. What does he dislike about the SSR here? The monotony of life, mutual brown-nosing and sucking up to new idols: Lenin, Stalin, Molotov, the Red Army, liberator of nations. So obviously he's quite, quite frustrated and annoyed and being— um, but then moving on to Dobyeslav Jakubowicz, um, if I could— so this is literally on Christmas Eve So, today is Christmas Eve, and it's as if he's kind of talking to his wife who's not with him. Today is Christmas Eve, Mariš. Chilled in our room since the morning, 4 AM. Everyone has prepared dishes for the feast. I didn't make anything because I shaved 22 colleagues. As delegate, I sent greetings to the other rooms and also went to wish the Sosnowicium as well. Christmas Eve was very ceremonial in our room, 15 men, A bunk and table were covered with a sheet, a tiny Christmas tree, homemade wafer and hay. First, the commandant of the room, a major, started proceedings, then a short speech, sharing of the wafer, sandwiches, thimble of vodka, chopped herring, potato salad, tea, fried fish, apples, Christmas carols in front of the Christmas tree, and then the humorous part. It got you by the throat, but our brotherhood held strong. I was thinking about you all the time, my love, and Bozenka, that's his daughter, and I wish you all the best and that you will see me quickly and that our life in future will be even better and more cheerful than before. And also for Bozenka, that she will be healthy and grow up a delight for us. I think that you know I am here, my love, and that you have thought about me. I am very sorry to have to spend Christmas without you. So, um, yeah, that's, um, because they at that time didn't know they were going to be murdered. No, um, the impression they were getting, and they appreciated that, you know, this was just rumors and this is what is just coming from the Russians, and, um, and ultimately they, you know, they want to keep these guys under control and, and, and whatnot. But the impression they were getting and, um, the assumption they had was that in due course they will be, um, uh, set free, um, because they ultimately appreciated that ultimately their common enemy would be Germany France and Britain are on their side anyway, and it's just a matter of time before this mess is cleared up. So, you know, they're just waiting and waiting and waiting for that, for that release. And the thing is, you know, the Soviets were so clever in the way that they controlled these prisoners. They kind of engineered and stage-managed everything in such a way, even to the last points of when they were leaving, just various prisoners from different areas were going at the same time with the impression that they're going to be repatriated with camps further west, but that unfortunately wasn't what ultimately happened. And it wasn't until the last minute did they realize they were going to be murdered, and they were shot in the— well, yeah, and the thing is that the, um, as soon as they, they left the camps, um, when they— a few notes kind of mention that, um, they put them in prison wagons and they were very, very, um, you know, uh, tight with people, you know, too many, many, many too many than they should have been in these wagons, for example. And they suddenly started thinking, hold on a minute, something's not quite right here. They were carefully trying to discern in which direction they were traveling, etc. They were wondering, you know, what of us, you know, there was all these questions, they really, really didn't know. And they didn't know what would become of them until they actually got to the forest where they were all shot systematically in exactly the same way, weren't they? Yeah, there was a tried and tested way of execution, hands tied behind the back, being held on each side by an individual, and then another shooter which dispatched a bullet to the back of the head. Yeah, so you could only— I think that, for example, those scenes, I think Vaida catches really well in his film, which are towards the end of the film. It's kind of difficult to imagine, isn't it, the scenes of this? And so I'm always grateful for people who create stuff like, you know, like Vaida and whatnot, that enable me to kind of visualize these things a lot better, and I thought he captured that amazingly. Yeah, so that's Andrzej Wajda, who created the film called "Cutting," but that's in Polish, and so the real remarkable work that you've done is in English, and thank goodness that you've translated it into English, because there are many people of Polish descent in different countries, including America, who really want to read this, that it makes sense to them to read it, and as I come back to that point, that there's something in knowing there's something in reading this that gives us a knowledge of what actually happened, and it stops us wondering. We now know what happens and has happened to everybody. How did it happen? And also the fact that these people were systematically taken, but also then after that the wives of these people were taken, is where my mother came into it, and she was taken to Siberia, and so on. So it was, as you say, that systematic approach I think was the first time in this Second World War, that the war was so well organized on both accounts, on both sides, that they needed to organize the, this, you know, sort of just extermination of people. And it became like a factory. It became— the communication must have been so tight that every single soldier from the Soviet side, particularly we're talking about that here, that understood the message that they had to pervade to the Poles. They had to keep them guessing until the last minute. Absolutely. And also, you know, it was borne out by the kind of places where they were keeping them, etc., made it really difficult for any kind of escape, you know, deep into the Soviet Union. You know, even if you did make it away beyond the wires, Goodness me, where'd you go? And how, you know, where'd you go from there? We, we hear of many more kind of escapes and things like that from, you know, the stalags and the German camps and whatnot, but that's because, you know, they were in more kind of populated and kind of urban type areas or whatever in, in kind of more Central or Western Europe, where, um, you know, survival, once you do escape these places, was sometimes a lot more doable. Obviously not easy by any stretch of the imagination, but— and this is it, you know, and there's, um the Soviet kind of system of just getting rid of people that, that could be problematic. Um, you mentioned the wives and the wider families as well. Um, similarly with my family, um, part of the family was take— was sent to Siberia, um, at the outbreak of the war as well. Um, and, and so they didn't want to kind of necessarily murder everyone straight away. Some people kind of worked to death, and some people were just simply just gotten out of the way so they can now, you know, bring in their new system with as little hassle and problems as possible. But this wasn't new, this behavior to removing people into the labor camps that they were called. Solzhenitsyn writes about it, and also if you look at the history of the Soviets in the turn of the century, they were removing kulaks, and they just removed people, and they were literally— their land was taken away from them. And if anybody resented or, um, railed against any soldier that came in, they would just be removed into a labor camp. Indeed. But this is something that the, um, that the Soviets had learned from the Tsarist regime, um, before the, um, Communist Revolution, you know, because, you know, throughout the 17th, 18th, 19th centuries, undesirables and political agitators, revolutionaries, etc., were sent as far east as possible to keep them out of the way. So this is a tried and tested method that the, that the communists kind of perfected, I suppose. Yeah, and, you know, let's not pretend that this type of behavior isn't happening in this day and age, because it is, but we have to look a little bit harder to find it, and what do we do about it? But it is coming back to that, you know, sort of how can the ordinary person ever stand up against this? And I do think this is where people have to work together to make sure this doesn't happen. But coming back to your family, can you give us a history of your family? Um, a convoluted family history. We'll go back a couple of generations because my mother's side, um, was from the east of Poland. I'm talking about like at the outbreak of the war, for example, and was on the east, so around the areas— Lvów was, I think, part of your family, um, whereas my father's side was from kind of Helm, Norway, which is the west. So the family's kind of experiences was slightly different because the eastern side had more kind of influences from the Soviet or Russian side, whereas the western lot had more influences from the German side. So, just quickly touching on the eastern side, I suppose we're talking about this with regards to the Kating diaries, part of my family, you know, was seen as undesirables and enemies of the Soviet state and had their lands and properties kind of confiscated, and they were sent east, whereas part of the family, because they were actually just renting from another member of the family, because they were just seen as not owners as it were. They managed to avoid that, but then they witnessed other atrocities that happened in the area as the war kind of progressed, being one of these things being, for example, when Ukrainian nationalists turned on the Poles, who they wanted to kind of boot out of, you know, Ukrainian lands. The Voyn Massacre, which was a really brutal affair that, you know, civilians had to endure. So this was happening on the— and which years was that? That kind of started like around 1940, you know, because the Ukrainian nationalists, as far as I'm aware, they basically— once the Germans kind of invaded that part of the land, as you know, part of the invasion on the Soviet Union, they were kind of seeing this as an opportunity for them to have some sort of Ukrainian independence. And, you know, their biggest kind of problem with, you know, to get rid of was the Poles, who essentially were the kind of rulers of that area up until then, up until the outbreak of the war. So they just saw this as a necessary piece of them getting their land back, to get rid of every man, woman, and child by any means necessary. So that was something that the remaining parts of the family kind of had to endure, you know, even to the point of my granny mentioning that, you know, she even learned to speak and pray in Ukrainian so that she could kind of, you know, pass herself off, um, as such. And she witnessed kind of crazy things like, um, you know, the local priest being sawn in half and tortured. And, um, yeah, so, so that's that side of the family. Whereas my, my father's side, um, you know, my granddad was initially conscripted into the German army, um, when he was 18. Um, and, uh, he, he first of all after he was sent to the Russian front, he managed to injure himself in an effort to get away from the front line because he just thought, this isn't for me. And he was just thinking of, how on earth do I get out of here? And how, you know, how do I change my lot? But, and, you know, a self-inflicted wound is something that is a very dangerous thing to do in the course of war. As soon as they had an inkling that that's what they did, that it would have been the end of him. But he managed to get away with it, and he got sent to a hospital in Germany to recuperate. And as I was writing his kind of biography, just as a little aside, I was going to think to myself, oh, I wonder what happened to that unit that he was actually fighting with. And I had these details, and so I did a little bit of research, and, um, long story short, that, that whole unit was totally destroyed, um, and no one survived. And so if he hadn't have done this thing, then, you know, then his story is not, you know, that's not part of our family's story, wouldn't have continued at all. It's just amazing that, you know, that these decisions that we take in our lives, uh, in that, in that moment, that spontaneous moment. Absolutely. You know, the, the need to survive is so strong in all of us, and it— you actually see it in babies when babies are born. You know, they grip hold of the mother. You know, they have this tremendously strong grip and the tremendously strong sucking ability in order to be fed. So that our very basic instinct, survival instinct, is so strong. And here it is, as you said, your father had that instinct. I've got to get out of here. And he injured himself. Did he badly injure himself? Well, when he explained it to me, he kind of shot himself through the hand. Oh, right. Okay. And then I remembered him telling me stories about how he was just trying to make it look as bad as possible. So he was just like even just putting lots of dirt on the wound and things like that in, in order for it to kind of— well, because he was really scared that they're going to say, 'You did this yourself, fella.' But, uh, luckily he, he got away with that. But then, you know, as soon as you recovered, um, they put him into into another unit. Anyway, long story short with that, he eventually ended up running away and deserting and made it back to the UK— well, not back, made it to the UK, where he joined the Polish forces that were, that had been congregating there for some years now. And what year did he end up in the UK? My goodness, it wasn't until like 1940 1943. Okay, so I wonder what route he took. Did he go— and it was via, um, I know because he spent some time in Norway, that's with the German army though. Yeah, I was just wondering if he went through that Scandinavian route. Yeah, and, um, this was, I believe, um, in France. He did a runner in France. Yeah, um, and, and got to the UK, um, from there by boat. Now, and so then he was part of the forces that were kind of, you know, that followed into Europe after D-Day. Yeah, as part of the 1st Polish Armored Division. So, you know, they went through France, Belgium, Holland, liberating various towns and cities as part of the— So he went back into Europe? Yeah, as part of the liberation. Exactly. So he'd have part of— he had quite a journey. First, you know, in the German army on the Eastern Front, Norway, etc., but then managed to get back to his own people and continue the fight, you know, for the side that he wanted to. So from England, where was he based? Oh my goodness, I can't remember the exact name of the place. Lots of them were based in Scotland, lots of— Yes, I was going to say there's a tremendous relationship between the Scots Scots and the Poles, because even in Poland there's a Scottish café. I tell my friends all this, and I have actually a friend of mine who's a Scottish actress, a brilliant Scottish actress, Emma Denverno, told me a wonderful story of a Pole who now post-war had decided it was time to go back to Poland. And as you know, post-war it was very difficult for people over here to go back to Poland because it was under Soviet rule. And communist rule meant that you couldn't go back and come out again easily. So my parents never went back. My father actually went back afterwards, but that's another story, but that was way back in 2004. But she said that they were at the party over this chap, let's call him Jan, who is saying, "And thank you everybody for looking after me here in Scotland." And as he raised his glass of vodka, as you do, because being Polish we all drink vodka, 'Here's to my back passage.' And we all laughed. And but there is this tremendous bonding between the Scots and the Poles, and I think there's tremendous respect between them. There is. I think there's an old— there's a long, long history between the Scots and the Poles as well. I think it's even back in the— as far back as the 16th and 17th centuries. Yes. The Polish kings had kind of invited Scottish traders and whatnot to work in Poland and to ply their wares in that country. And even in Gdańsk, when I was there some years ago, I was surprised to even notice a district there called Skoty or Scotland. Yeah, there you are, and I love that. But also at that same period of time, that is when the king was inviting the Jews over. That's when the Jews were given part of Kraków. The Jewish Quarter was actually handed over to Jews so that they could live in their style. Yeah, I think being looked after after the pogroms— yeah, I think the, the leaders were quite enlightened really at that time, um, and just thought, hold on a minute, um, if we just let people live and do what they do best, um, with as little interference as possible, then, you know, it's going to be a benefit to us and the whole country. And it's just, I wish that people had that kind of attitude and the opinion for a little bit longer. Do you know, I do think it's— I do think a lot of people do have it. It's how do they translate that and hold on to it when they get into positions of power. But you now, against this background— now your father is no longer alive. That's right. Oh yeah, so moving on with my granddad's story. So as he was part of that 1st Polish Army Division, um, at the moment that the war in Europe had ceased in 1945, as you know, when it was won. They were— his unit was essentially, um, uh, in kind of northwestern Germany near Wilhelmshaven, um, where they were then part of the occupational forces. And there's a little-known story, actually, that as part of the British kind of occupation zone within that British occupation zone, there was a Polish occupation zone, which those soldiers were part of. And they'd kind of— thousands and tens and tens of thousands of former displaced, what they call displaced persons, like, so, former prisoners of war and former forced laborers and whatnot, and concentration camp inmates, they, they all congregated into this area. Even one of the camps that the 1st Polish Armored Division had liberated was full to the brim of Polish women that were, that were put there after the Warsaw Uprising. So it was, it must have been an amazing feeling where, you know, we've got these Polish soldiers who were kind of heading further east, and they had hoped at the time that they were heading ultimately to Poland, but unfortunately that wasn't possible ultimately for various kind of political reasons. But then to meet so many more of their kind of, you know, kinsmen and women, relationships started. My granddad married very, very quickly. My father was born 9 months later. Who did he marry? Go into how he met your grandmother. Well, so my grandmother was a formerly a forced laborer in Germany, so she was taken from Poland as a teenager, I think she was 17, 18 at the time, and made to work on a farm in Germany. And so she was one of these, you know, what they call displaced people, who were trying to make their own way back, and they congregated in this area where the Poles were kind of looking after the British occupation zone, and they met there, you know, And very quickly, you know, the Poles started trying to kind of make normal lives for themselves, even though they were part of still an occupational force. But, you know, they created schools, various kind of theaters and newspapers, just things, just normal things, to get a feeling of normality again and some kind of life again. So they married, you know, granddad was still on occupation duties and whatever, and, and grandmother was looking after my father, but unfortunately she became ill and, and died when he was just, um, 10 months old. Um, so what do you do now? Um, so your grandfather was left with a 10-month-old son? Yeah, although he couldn't look after him personally because he had, you know, he had his army job to do. So my father was, um, in an orphanage, as far as I'm aware, that was run by Polish people. But eventually Grandad married this, his second wife, who was an amazing, lovely lady who, you know, the only person that I got to know was my granny from that side. Yeah, Granny being Babcia in Polish. Exactly, exactly. And so they eventually came back to the UK and to start a new life for themselves here. And even though, you know, Bap Chau, Granny, um, was the only mother really that my dad had known apart from those 10 months when he was a baby, um, and she was the most lovely, beautiful person, um, there was still something missing in his life, um, you know, and it kind of manifested itself in various ways, um, especially at kind of birthdays or Christmas times and things like that, or after he'd had a drink, um, and he'd get really upset and quiet and whatnot. And whilst, you know, his birth mother wasn't a secret or anything like that. And he, you know, he knew nothing about her, her family, or anything else. There was no kind of additional kind of connection there, you know. Then it just got to be a point where I was thinking, hold on a minute, there must be someone around. And so I just made some efforts to try to locate this person— well, not this person, but her family— just so I can give my dad that connection. So your father's real mother? That's right, and so what I had to go with was essentially my dad's birth certificate, which just had obviously his parents' name and where they hailed from, and so I contacted some municipal authorities in the area where Babcia had been, was from, you know, during, before the war, and just tried to find some details, and long story short, someone, you know, I just got, you know, contact from someone to someone, and I eventually found out that, you know, these people were— after the war they'd moved further west. From someone else I found out the town that they moved from, uh, to, um, then I'd contacted the municipal authorities in that town to see if there was any, anyone there by that kind of surname, etc. And anyway, eventually, um, found, um, you know, my dad's remaining kind of aunt, so his mother's sister and a whole bunch of cousins. And so we quickly arranged a trip to meet them all, and it was just an amazing, amazing time where you just felt like you knew these people for ages already. Yeah, and I could just see the joy in my father's face with, you know, when he got to kind of know these people, because they then shared lots of information that they'd received and that might father hadn't been aware of at all, like for example photographs of his mother's funeral. And, you know, as unpleasant as that kind of subject matter is, it was just amazing to see, and it was actually from those photographs that I eventually managed to locate her grave in Germany, and, you know, my daughter and I went to visit that a couple of years ago. And do you put flowers on the grave? Well, yes, there's that. And we also had this, um, a little wooden box where we'd— because my father's buried in Poland, um, and so we had this little wooden box and then we put just a little, you know, it's a symbolic kind of gesture. We put some of the earth from that, um, from that grave, from that place in Germany, into that box and we kind of placed it with— on my father's tomb, on my father's grave, with a little plaque. Just as a, you know, bringing together of them finally. Yeah, because, you know, children, although they're separated from their mothers, they always obviously have a resonance with that person, always want to know who they are. That, you know, we need to know as human beings, who are we? Where do we come from? How do we understand ourselves and our lives and our history? And our history makes up a part of who we are. Absolutely. And I think, you know, the story you're telling now gives a richness to the reason why you picked up on the diaries, because each of these people, you know, much like your father, had to make sense of his life in those, as you say, those moments at the end of a day or at the end of a family get-together when you've been drinking. Something is missing, you know, and it's in that moment of something missing that you brought these diaries to life. You created something to give everybody a place to find a meaning, and whoever reads these diaries may find just that little bit of the puzzle to their story, their life. I wonder, yeah, because as I said, you know, the, the contents of the diaries are quite varied, but I think it does give that kind of human insight. It opens that human kind of door and really enables us to feel that very real human kind of experience, like what you feel, what you think, and what your priorities are when you're suddenly thrust in this kind of situation. You know, I look back at the, the odysseys of that generation, of my grandparents and their generation, and I, you know, wonder how on earth I would have survived having to kind of, you know, being confronted with such with questions, you know, what do you do, you know, you're in a situation, what do you do now, you know. It was terrible, and I think that particularly from my mother's side, the eastern side, and perhaps this is where your mother, your grandmother, your father's True Mother, biological but True Mother, not that your step-grandmother didn't play a massive role in your life and is absolutely revered, Absolutely. But her torment, the Eastern Polish torment, was horrendous. My mother had a gun to her head at the age of 3, and I knew that when I looked at my parents that she was able to withstand a lot more terror in her life than my father found very difficult. Sorry, beg your pardon. No, and I just think that that— it's not what you want to have to withstand, but you do, and somehow you build up on that and you build up and you build up and you can take take on, and then you get to the root of who are we in life, and the root of who we are in life is ourselves, our loved ones, our families. Fundamentally, that's what means something. Indeed, absolutely. I kind of take inspiration from the resilience of these people, you know, whilst the trials and tribulations that I or we may kind of, you know, go through at this present day or juncture in our lives, respective lives, is a you know, could be a little bit different. But I think there's things to be learned from, you know, how they kind of faced what they did, you know. And I just, yeah, I just get strength from it. I cannot just say, oh, you know, everything will be fine. I just need to remind myself about how difficult it was then, and then everything in my life now is just going to be fine because they had it worse, you know. Absolutely. And if you know your ancestors had it worse, I always remember in, you know, if I ever had, oh my goodness, what's happening to me today moment, I always used to think, well, my goodness, my father got through Siberia, that the depths of the cold of Siberia, with a ball and chain around his ankle, and he carried somebody and saved another man's life. You know, mine isn't— I can get through this because of look what they got through. But coming back to because we're beginning to run out of time in such a fascinating subject. Yeah, exactly, but we should do more about this. But, um, it's very good that we can do it on Your Mind Matters, uh, and Men's and Women's radio station. And we've got the wonderful Melis, our producer, who is listening to all this and helping us make sure that this runs correctly. But why the Katin story itself is so powerful, that when the war ended and we know this with the Polish pilots, we know this with your father and all the Poles that fought as my parents fought in North Africa with the Eighth Army and then Monte Cassino. When they came over here, they could not— they were not allowed to engage in the Victory Day parade because of the Yalta Agreement, and the British did not want to upset the Soviets. Consequently, over here, the British, even when my parents were in London, had no idea about the Polish, uh, sort of history, what had happened to the Poles during the war. They purely and simply felt it was the Nazis and the, you know, it's from the Germans that something had happened to. So, um, that effect on a lot of people, I think, was very traumatic and very damaging and actually, you know, caused a lot of deaths because of them not being able to announce who they were. And when letters were sent from Siberia and places into England, a lot of them were censored because the British government didn't want people to know what the Soviets had done. Absolutely. I think this is part of why it kind of, you know, it kind of gripped me so much is that even when I was going to the school and when I was going to school in the UK in the '70s and '80s, I was just so surprised that, you know, for example, in history lessons why none of this stuff that my family had been talking about was, was taught and, and kind of known. And the impression I kind of got about what the Poles were and, um, etc., was I just didn't understand it. The public opinion really surprised me because it didn't kind of tally with what, you know, my family was kind of experiencing and telling me and whatever. But in terms of, for example, you know, the Katyn massacre in particular, and why that has such a resonance. I think, you know, maybe it's because that is because of the subsequent cover-up, etc. It wasn't just that it happened and that it was brutal, and that in itself is enough reason for it to be told and remembered and explained and whatever. But the fact that it was then eagerly— well, I say eagerly in inverted commas— kind of covered up by those which were supposed to be our friends and who are on the same side as us. So let's just go through that. 1943, the Red Cross uncovered with the Nazis the Katyn burial ground. So it was the Germans that, um, that came across these, um, you know, mass graves on their kind of subsequent kind of attack on, on the Soviet Union. Now the, the Soviets just said, ah, what a load of rubbish, you know, they're just using all of this to, um, you know, to, to, to, um, to show, you know, to get disunity among, among us. It wasn't us that did it, it was the Germans. But the Germans, you know, they then got some independent, one could say, um, experts to, to, to look at it. And, and the conclusion essentially was that they, they got killed in kind of April, May, um, 1940. Um, whereas the Soviets, you know, up until 1990 were maintaining publicly that it was the Germans what did it. And I think it's the fact that, you know, can you imagine, like, you know, for me, I've kind of felt it's like being accused of a crime you didn't commit and then being made to kind of, you know, atone for that. That must be a horrible feeling for someone. And for me, it's sort of like, you know, you as a national family go through this, but you're not even allowed to tell the truth. You're not even allowed to acknowledge that you know, that you went through this or endured this hardship and suffering or whatever, or that this individual did, and wanted to remember that. You weren't allowed to do it, and that's what I think makes it even more distressing, is the fact that not only did it happen, but it was kind of covered up. Yeah, and it was covered up over here. Yeah. And that the Poles were not allowed to be seen in the parade, Yeah, and you know, although when I meet with soldiers, and I do sometimes with the Paras, have, uh, various meetings, sort of gatherings, and they have various lunches, and I've been welcomed there, we talk about it. It's not from the soldier's point of view, this was from the politician's point of view. This is very true, isn't it? You know, politics are such a murky thing, um, where, you know, a government rides roughshod over things like this in, in what they believe is their nation's, um, interest, best interest. So, you know, these are kind of, you know, this is collateral damage for them as far as they're concerned. Yeah, it's time that I think that we have so much opportunity to see the truth, to read the truth, uh, and so much access to the truth. This is why it's such a wonderful book that's come out, and I think people will buy it because they want it in their hands because everything at the moment, as we know, is being distorted online. It's who owns whatever online actually wins the story. So to actually have the book in English translated that you can actually pick up and keep is something that nobody can take away or change, and that's why it's such a powerful thing to have done. And it also took a long time, I should think, for you to do this. Well, yeah, because I kind of— my bread and butter is in a completely— I kind of work in a completely different field, so I've had to kind of do this in my kind of spare time, really, evenings and weekends and whatever. And yeah, so it— but once I started it, it's something that, you know, no matter that it was kind of dragging on and whatever else, and other kind of things in life needed to take precedent at times, so I had to kind of put it down. I'm just so chuffed and happy that I've, you know, seen it to some form of fruition. And people are buying the book on Amazon, which is lovely. I was just interested to see that there are people buying it in the UK and Canada and the US, and long may that continue. I just hope— I've even had like, like calls and emails from people in the States saying, oh, my great uncle or my granddad was murdered in Cattin, do the diaries mention kind of X kind of surname? Yes, so you become the go-to for them. But then it's— I'm just so gutted then that Obviously most of these people, because there was obviously 22,000 prisoners, we've got, you know, is it 15 diaries, sorry, 17 diaries all together, and, um, you know, the likelihood that their person is going to come up here is not great, but, um, you know, but they get an interest, and by reading these, I suppose, you know, any kind of family member will get an insight into what their own nearest and dearest, or not nearest and dearest, but their own um, ancestor, you know, had to endure what they went through. Um, exactly. As I said, they give a real mix. Um, yes, so they give you that sort of understanding that they were not prepared, and maybe it's just as well they weren't prepared, because the torment of knowing that— it's like being in death row otherwise, in Auschwitz. Having been there, you're on death row waiting, waiting,, and how do you reconcile that? And I think, you know, religion plays a big part in this, but tell me, how do you bear the weight of the evil that you were dealing with when you were writing this? How do you bear that? Um, you know, sometimes, you know, unfortunately my mind's eye is quite active and I kind of start imagining things I read, right? And I kind of picture it, um, and sometimes, you know, you can pretty bad, you know, quite grueling and whatever, but ultimately, you know, my goodness, I just have to read about it, I don't have to endure it, I'm not necessarily directly related to, you know, the son or father of one of these people who had to do it, whereas obviously if I was reading it and I had that kind of direct connection, then, you know, my heart would be broken even more. But I was thinking, my goodness, well, you know, I'm just a conveyor here, I'm just an interface, from one language to another, um, to just to kind of show this to a wider potential audience. I didn't have to go through this, um, no, but your background led you to find— I'm interested in all things history, particularly in the convoluted period of the early to mid-20th century and my own family's kind of journey through that. And, you know, essentially, well, why am I here? How the hell am I here? What am I doing in the UK? That kind of thing. So yeah, it has been really, really helpful in that. And I, I do understand why people are connecting with you to help find their journey. They, you know, sort of, um, the whole truth of our lives. And Viktor Frankl wrote about this in the concentration camp. Man's, um, search for meaning is making sense of your world. And Joseph Campbell talks about the hero's journey. How did these people— how do you find your your role in life? How do you find something that you can actually bequeath to the world? Because we know when you've had parents that have gone through this and how with one bullet, bullet to the back of the head, as happened with the people in Katyn, one bullet to the back of the head is the end of your life. What do you leave in the world? And I do think this highlights it, you know, who are we, what are we doing, how do we bequeath something to the world? And that's what you're doing. What do you think, how do you hope your future will come out of this? What do you hope to happen for you? I just hope that it manages to kind of, you know, interest people, that some people find it of use and helpful. From my own personal perspective, I hope people buy it, but I just, I think I'm kind of adding to a because people know about the Katyn massacre, etc., but I think just this adds extra kind of layers, extra personal layers, that I think people may kind of understand what people going through kind of similar tragic or traumatic circumstances, what it means to them and what it means to their wider families. And sadly, you know, it's a crazy brutal world out there and, you know, similar things are going on, maybe to like slightly lesser degrees, but you know, there's still a lot of brutal stuff happening out there. And I just hope that, you know, people, by reading something that someone else has gone through, that they can get an idea of what other people are going through on this planet and how— and how to bear the torment of life that seems unbearable at this moment. And as you read, you know, Solzhenitsyn, he writes, in the depths of Cancer Ward or A Day in the Life of Ivan Daneshvich. That's such an amazing book as well. And any stories like this just reminds us that we can get through this. We can get through whatever we're enduring, and there are people out there somewhere that we can connect with. Now, we are coming to the end of the program, and it's been so amazing talking to you, Marek. And this is Marek Sobieralski, who has written The Katyn Diaries in English. Please buy the books. On Amazon, and then you can write some more. And thank you so, so much for joining me on Your Mind Matters, Dr. Maria Kempinska. Thank you.