Michał Iwanowski - I walked 2,000km to trace my grandfather's escape from a Russian gulag
My grandfather and his
brother survived one harsh winter in a Soviet prisoner camp during the second
world war before they made a daring escape to the relative safety of Poland.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/15/trace-grandfathers-escape-russian-gulag-poland-lithuania
It was a treacherous
2,200km journey which saw them separated from their friends during a military
ambush, shot at and chased, and took more than three months to complete as they
hitched rides on freight trains and dodged Russian troops.
My great uncle kept a
record of their journey, taking notes on scraps of paper and drawing out
landmarks as they travelled through Russia, Belarus and on toLithuania and
Poland.
The makeshift maps
made it to Wrocław in Poland with him and now form part of a rich family
archive, as did the metal tobacco tins he made in the gulag to trade for food.
The maps became the
backbone of a book he wrote and self-published in 1994, which I used to retrace
their footsteps from the labour camp in Kaluga – where they were being punished
for partisan activity – to Wrocław where the rest of their family had fled.
It was haunting to
discover that elements of the landscape have not changed for 70 years. My uncle
described a railway bridge leading into Kozielsk in Russia where they were
ambushed and my grandfather was shot. As I stood on that bridge, I could see
exactly where that scene had taken place... read more:
