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Kazimierz Bachmiński Polski

Memoirs of the Arkhangelsk Taiga, Kazakhstan and Iran

The harrowing experiences of deportation to the Arkhangelsk taiga and of wandering through the countries of the Middle East have, despite the passage of 80 years, left an indelible mark on my memory.

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English translation of the second Polish edition, Wrocław 2021. About 2 h 21 min of reading.

This is an English translation of the Polish original. The printed edition, with its original layout, photographs and documents, is available as a PDF in Polish.

Book cover: taiga forest and a mosque in Isfahan

Contents

The chapters follow the route the Bachmiński family travelled between 1940 and 1947: from Wołkowysk through the taiga by the White Sea and the steppes of Kazakhstan to Iran, and on to Africa.

  1. IntroductionOn the sources and origins of the memoirabout 1 min
  2. Chapter IMy Family and My TownWołkowysk, 1928–1940about 18 min
  3. Chapter IIDeportationSzomboziero and Katiszcze, Arkhangelsk Oblast, 1940–1941about 64 min
  4. Chapter IIIAmnestyKatiszcze, August–October 1941about 8 min
  5. Chapter IVThe Journey to KazakhstanFrom Glazanikha to a kolkhoz near Dzhambul, 1941about 11 min
  6. Chapter VIn DzhambulDzhambul (Taraz), 1942about 20 min
  7. Chapter VIIn IranPahlavi, Tehran, Isfahan, Africa, 1942–1947about 15 min
  8. EpilogueWołkowysk, 1999 and 2016about 4 min
Map of the route from the printed book: from Wołkowysk through the Arkhangelsk Oblast, the Urals, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to Iran.
Map of the route from the printed book: from Wołkowysk through the Arkhangelsk Oblast, the Urals, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to Iran. p. 5 in the PDF

About the author

Kazimierz Bachmiński was born in 1928 in Klonów, in the Kielce district of Poland, into a forester's family. From 1936 he lived with his parents, brother and sister in Wołkowysk. On 10 February 1940, aged eleven, he was deported with his whole family by the Soviet authorities to the special settlement of Szomboziero in the Arkhangelsk Oblast.

After the amnesty of 1941 the family ended up in Kazakhstan, where his father, Stanisław Bachmiński, died. In August 1942, with the evacuation of General Anders's army, he reached Iran, and from there Africa. He passed his school-leaving examination in 1947 in Lusaka, Northern Rhodesia, and returned to Poland on 25 July 1947.

He wrote the first version of his memoirs in 2015. The second edition, expanded and corrected, was prepared between 2019 and 2021.

I dedicate these Memoirs to the memory of my Father, who did not survive the exile, and to my Son and Grandsons, so that they may remember this sad family story.

I extend my special thanks to my grandson Łukasz for his great commitment to laying out the text, selecting the photographs and maps and preparing the Memoirs for print.