Written by Larry Anklewicz
When I was asked by the Executive Director of EKRAN, The Toronto Polish Film Festival, to write about my favourite Polish film, I had to think about it for a while. I had seen a lot of first rate Polish films but there was one film that really resonated with me because of how close it hit home.
I decided to centre my remarks on the film “Siberian Polska” or “Siberian Exile” by Janusz Zaorski. I found this to be a very interesting film, not necessarily because it is the best Polish film I have ever seen, but because the film puts on the screen a portion of Polish history my parents lived through. As a result it is very personal to me.
“Siberian Polska” or “Siberian Exile” deals with the arrest and deportation of Polish citizens who fled to eastern Poland or to the Soviet Union shortly after the Nazi invasion of Poland in an attempt to escape occupation by the Nazis. My parents were among the hundreds of thousands of Polish citizens who fled eastward.
As my father told me the story, shortly after the Nazis crossed the border into Poland, he and a group of his friends and family members got into a large horse drawn carriage and began moving eastward. The roads were jam packed with thousands of Poles looking to distance themselves from the Nazis and travel was difficult because of the sheer number of people seeking to find safety.
As a result, my father’s group travelled mainly at night when there were fewer people on the roads. In addition, night time gave these refugees some protection from machine gun fire and bombs dropped by the Nazi air force planes.
Many of those fleeing left their wives and families behind. They believed that women and children would not be harmed by the occupation forces. After all, the women and children were not subjected to exceptionally brutal treatment during World War I and they thought conditions would be the same this time.
They were wrong and shortly after the people who had escaped in my father’s carriage reached safety, they returned to the German occupied area to rejoin their loved ones. The only one to survive the War from that group was my father. He was able to bring my mother to join him and.together they lived through the ordeals they were to suffer.
A short time later the Soviets invaded Eastern Poland, arrested those who refused to accept Soviet citizenship and deported them to work camps in the Ural Mountains or in the wide expanses of Siberia.
This is what this film describes–the brutal conditions in these camps–the hunger, the bone piercing cold and the cruelty of Soviet officials.
After about a year of hard labour the Soviets granted most of these prisoners a pardon. They were free to go wherever they wished in the Soviet Union. My parents chose to go southeast, away from the -50 degree Celsius winters to a more hospitable climate in Central Asia.
My parents wound up in Kyrgystan and spent about 6 years there. After the end of the War my parents were allowed to return to Poland but there was no home left to which they could return. Their families had been systematically murdered and their physical homes were gone.
Thus began a further two years of wandering and living in DP (Displaced Persons’) Camps and eventual finding a new home in Canada where a new language and a new way of life presented itself to them and where they were able to start life again.
The film Siberian Polsky was the first time I was able to actually conceptualize the struggles my family faced and conquered and I shall always hold a certain fondness for this film.
LARRY ANKLEWICZ
Larry Anklewicz, B.A., LL.B., is a lawyer, writer and film and video critic.
Mr. Anklewicz has a diploma in Radio and Television Arts from Ryerson University (now called the Metropolitan University of Toronto), a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science from York University and a Bachelor of Law Degree from Osgoode Hall Law School.
Mr. Anklewicz has served on the jury and has been a member of the Board of Directors of EKRAN the Toronto Polish Film Festival.
Mr. Anklewicz has served in various positions for film festivals in Toronto, Los Angeles and Warsaw.
