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The Experience of World War II in Postwar Biographies of Pre-war Belarusian Activists
Abstract
We can look at the Second World War as a Turning Point in the Biographies of Pre-war Activists from different angles. After 1945, the situation of Belarusians in Poland was not easy. Polish authorities took Belarusians as former allies of the Germans. Therefore, anyone who possessed any newspapers in Belarusian language or pictures from Belarusian teacher courses, or any documents looked for the ways to destroy them. Most often such things were burned in fire or hid in a secret place to make sure nobody finds them. The situation was the most difficult for those, who legally worked during the German occupation as teachers, officials, or police officers. People who after the war stayed in the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR) were sentenced to death or exiled to remote areas of the USSR. Having experienced Soviet power in the years 1939–1941, out of fear of Soviet reprisals, Belarusians often fled to the West in the summer of 1944. Some believed that even moving to Poland would protect them from Soviet authority. That is why they settled in the so-called Recovered Territories, hoping to live and work safely. Periodically they had to change their personal data, dates and places of birth, and their own biographies, especially from the period of the German occupation. However, Soviet authorities also operated in their post-war sphere of influence – in socialist countries. Soviet authorities arrested people, who were somehow connected with the Belarusian movement, deported them to BSSR, and sentenced them to 25 years in labor camps. Examples include Jan Żamojcin, the sisters Aniela and Weronika Kotkowicz, Wiktor Jarmołkowicz, Łarysa and Jan Hieniusz. To have a chance for survival in the early post-war years, Belarusian activists settled in small towns. Mikołaj Dworzecki settled in Łaszka, Helena Kozłowska – in Trzcińsko-Zdrój, Eugeniusz Bartul – in Lębork, Jazep Najdziuk (under the name of Józef Aleksandrowicz) – in Inowrocław, Eugeniusz Bartul – in Lębork, Michał Tulejko – in Radziejów. Nevertheless, Security organs of BSSR were after every well-known Belarusian activist of interwar and wartime periods. Having been found in Poland, activists were forced to cooperate with security services for the sake of saving their reputation and family members (including those, who lived in Belarus). The article focuses on the fates of two well-known pre-war Belarusian activists in Poland:Bartul and Tulejko. Their post-war destinies have remained unknown to Belarusian historians for a long time.
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Eugeniusz Bartul, Michał Tulejko, Belarusians in Poland, the experience of World War IIMost read articles by the same author(s)
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