Fieldwork in Kołobrzeg and Koszalin
As part of the project entitled “The Diaspora of Polish Siberian Deportees Around the World – A Record of Primary Accounts / Notes and Home Archives of Siberian Deportees in Poland – An Archival Collection” under the National Programme for the Development of the Humanities of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, we have completed the next stage of our fieldwork, this time in Kołobrzeg and Koszalin.
During visits to the branches of the Siberian Deportees’ Association in these cities, we conducted interviews with eyewitnesses to history, documenting extremely moving and valuable accounts. All the conversations were very interesting and allowed us to capture the individual experiences of Siberian deportees during their exile and their post-war fates.
We had the pleasure of meeting, amongst others, President Wanda Przybylska and Jerzy Lewicki, an active member of the Kołobrzeg branch of the Siberian Association and of the Association’s Central Board. It was on Mr Lewicki’s initiative that a monument and a Siberian deportees’ plot were established at the Kołobrzeg cemetery. He was also the driving force behind the construction of a monument in Siberia dedicated to mothers and children – a symbolic commemoration of the tragic fates of the deportees. The meeting with Ms Wanda was particularly important to us, not only because of her commitment and many years of work on behalf of the Siberian deportees’ community, but also because of her connections with Kraków – the President is a graduate of the Higher School of Pedagogy in Kraków, which was a pleasant and personal touch for us and provided an additional basis for conversation and reminiscence.
In addition to the memoirs, the Centre’s Archive has also received source material from the interviewees’ personal archives, which serves as a valuable supplement to the collected accounts.
We would like to express our sincere thanks for your hospitality and warm welcome. We look forward to continuing our collaboration and undertaking further joint initiatives.
