Adam Rybczynski’s story can be uncovered through his many identity cards. He grew up in a part of Europe where national borders have shifted often and violently during the twentieth century. The Second World War changed his life and identity forever.
Adam was born in 1909 in a village in the Wołyń region of eastern Europe when it was in the Russian empire. By 1920, it was part of newly independent Poland. Most people living in the region were Ukrainian but the Rybczynski family were Poles, speaking Polish and going to the Roman Catholic Church.
After the Soviet invasion of eastern Poland on 17 September 1939, Adam’s village became part of the Soviet Union. Over a million Poles were taken from their homes with little warning and deported to camps deep inside the Soviet Union. Among them were Adam, his wife, and family.
‘We have received an enquiry … in Geneva on behalf of your father, Mr. Jozef Rybczynski, … who is anxious to hear from you.’
Their ‘crime’ was simply that they were Polish and, as a result, an enemy of the Soviet Union. Nothing is known of how Adam survived this time. Conditions in the labour camps were very harsh and many Poles died of hunger, disease or because of the hard labour they were forced to do.
In June 1941, Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union and Stalin made an alliance with Britain. Because Britain and Poland were allies, the Soviet Union could no longer treat all Poles as enemies. Along with thousands of others, Adam left his camp, probably in September 1941, to join a new Polish army being formed under the command of General Anders. It was made up of Poles who had been prisoners of the Soviets and wanted to fight for their country.
Adam served as a driver in the ‘Anders’ army, leaving Soviet territory in 1942 to train and serve alongside the British Army. He fought at the Battle of Monte Cassino in May 1944.
At the end of the war Adam did not want to return to his village because it was now in communist Ukraine. Along with thousands of other Poles, he chose exile in Britain even though this separated him from his family. He died in Britain in 1980. It is not known if he was ever able to go back to his village.
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