Family research

We had the honor of hosting Mr. Oleg Krzyżanowski at the Center.

He came to our facility because he was interested in the secret messages sent by Wiesław Krawczyński from the Lviv prison—it is precisely such personal stories that often mark the beginning of a deeper search for family roots.

Mr. Oleg’s father, Michał Krzyżanowski (born September 29, 1921, in Czortków, Tarnopol Province), was one of the victims of Soviet repression. Sentenced to 20 years of hard labor, he was exiled to the north. He ended up in Vorkuta, where he worked in a mine for 12.5 years, enduring the inhumane conditions of life in the labor camp.

During his visit, Mr. Oleg had the opportunity to see a model of the labor camp in Vorkuta, created by Henryk Kosior—a witness to those events. This moving testimony allows for a better understanding of the daily lives of the deportees and the realities of the Soviet labor camp system.

Another special moment was discovering a family connection in our permanent exhibition “Deported to Siberia…”—in one of the photos depicting the formation of the Polish Army in front of a recruitment office, Mr. Oleg recognized his uncle, Zygmunt Krzyżanowski.

Such encounters remind us how important it is to preserve memory and uncover the history recorded in archives and family memories.