Writing From Israel - Zygmunt Frankel

WRITING FROM ISRAEL
fountain pen tip
Zygmunt Frankel

SIBERIAN DIARY
An autobiography

This is a part of the story, comparatively neglected by historians and publishers till the recent events in Russia and the availability of KGB files - of thousands of families deported by the Russians from former Eastern Poland in 1940. I was eleven years old when, following my father's arrest, the rest of my family was deported, and seventeen when we returned from Siberia after the war.
My father, a lawyer, owner of some property, and ex-Polish officer, was arrested by the Russians in 1939 and - this transpired only recently, when NKVD files became available - shot a few months later, together with 7-8,000 other civilian prisoners, in addition to the long-known execution of 15,000 Polish POW officers.
In spite of constant hunger, freezing winters, my father's absence, and the handicap of being skinny and Jewish, there was also fishing, trapping small animals and birds, skiing, friends, high school, Russian literature and songs, first loves, the scares of venereal disease and pregnancy, and even a few parachute jumps from a small two-seater biplane at the local aeroclub. (You had to get out on the wing to jump.)

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION
MISS HALBERT
MAMA
FATHER
HOME
SUMMER VACATIONS
MIDNIGHT BATTERIES
SORROW
ISRAEL LISTENING
GRANDFATHER DIES
INDEED, SUCH A PITY THE SUMMER IS OVER
WAR
THE RUSSIANS
FATHER'S ARREST
WINTER 1940
DEPORTATION
ON THE WAY
ARRIVAL
KAIRAN
THE KOLKHOZ
BARNAUL
SCHOOL AGAIN
POLAND WILL NOT PERISH
WORSE THAN HUNGER AND LICE
MIDNIGHT OIL
THE SHOEMAKER
ANOTHER KOLKHOZ
MURKA
DOWNTOWN SCHOOL
BLADE AND BULLET
ORDERS FROM ABOVE
THE AEROCLUB
VICTORY
YOUNG HEARTS IN THE SNOW
THE WAY BACK

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