Sybir Memorial Museum

Lights of remembrance: Poignant trail of candles light up ‘horror tracks’ used by Soviets to deport Poles to the East

Gathering at the Sybir Memorial Museum last night, museum officials, scouts, local politicians, and groups representing the deported families lit a trail of candles and lanterns on the remains of the train tracks that once took Poles east. Artur Reszko/PAP

Occurring on the night of February 9th and 10th 1940, around 140,000 Poles were roused from their sleep in the first of four wartime deportation actions that would see several hundred thousand forcibly exiled from their ancestral home.

History sleuths uncover photo evidence of boy hero who became ‘symbol of resistance to Soviet aggression’

Dressed in baggy clothes, his cap set at a rakish angle, the photograph depicts the grinning 15-year-old with his hands plunged deep in his pockets. To his side, his mother gently smiles to the camera whilst uniformed men mingle in the background. Behind, a flat-capped onlooker stares deeply at the mother and son, adding a haunting poignance to the scene.

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