**“We lost everything and had to start over again,” one Stalin survivor said. “I’m afraid many of these Ukrainians will have to, as well.”**
They were children when the Russian soldiers came for them in the dead of winter 1940.
The armed men who barged into their homes and gave them a half-hour to get dressed and pack a bag were called Soviets back then. And in the early days of World War II, they rousted Poles from their homes in what is now western Ukraine and shipped them off to the gulags in Siberia.
For these survivors, reports that Ukrainians are now being deported to “filtration” camps deep inside Russia brought back painful memories of their own ordeals — mixed with deep sympathy for a new generation of victims.
“I was just 3-and-a-half when the Russians came for us in the middle of the night, but I can still remember the sound of them banging on the door with rifles and bayonets and yelling ‘Out! Out!” Marie Wypijewski, 85, told NBC News. “They made my father stand with his face to the wall while my mother packed and dressed us in the warmest clothes she could find.”
More than a million Poles were sent by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin to Siberia.
Wypijewski’s husband, Dennis, 91, said they were branded “enemies of the state” simply for being Polish. His hand trembling with emotion, he said he was shocked that “history seems to be repeating itself.”
“I admire the way the Ukrainians have resisted, they have been very courageous,” he said. “I never thought we would see something like this happening again. People being thrown out of their homes, losing everything they worked for in one night. People being taken by trains to Russia.”
“Serce mi sie kroi,” he said in Polish, which means it breaks my heart.
China has tons of camps also. Also Guantanamo
When this war is over. The regions that Russians took over will mostly comprised of people that Russia brought over probably forcibly, and any original inhabitants forcibly removed or worse. So these regions can separate from Ukraine.
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**“We lost everything and had to start over again,” one Stalin survivor said. “I’m afraid many of these Ukrainians will have to, as well.”**
They were children when the Russian soldiers came for them in the dead of winter 1940.
The armed men who barged into their homes and gave them a half-hour to get dressed and pack a bag were called Soviets back then. And in the early days of World War II, they rousted Poles from their homes in what is now western Ukraine and shipped them off to the gulags in Siberia.
For these survivors, reports that Ukrainians are now being deported to “filtration” camps deep inside Russia brought back painful memories of their own ordeals — mixed with deep sympathy for a new generation of victims.
“I was just 3-and-a-half when the Russians came for us in the middle of the night, but I can still remember the sound of them banging on the door with rifles and bayonets and yelling ‘Out! Out!” Marie Wypijewski, 85, told NBC News. “They made my father stand with his face to the wall while my mother packed and dressed us in the warmest clothes she could find.”
More than a million Poles were sent by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin to Siberia.
Wypijewski’s husband, Dennis, 91, said they were branded “enemies of the state” simply for being Polish. His hand trembling with emotion, he said he was shocked that “history seems to be repeating itself.”
“I admire the way the Ukrainians have resisted, they have been very courageous,” he said. “I never thought we would see something like this happening again. People being thrown out of their homes, losing everything they worked for in one night. People being taken by trains to Russia.”
“Serce mi sie kroi,” he said in Polish, which means it breaks my heart.
China has tons of camps also. Also Guantanamo
When this war is over. The regions that Russians took over will mostly comprised of people that Russia brought over probably forcibly, and any original inhabitants forcibly removed or worse. So these regions can separate from Ukraine.