One Star Away

Abstract

One Star Away is a highly dramatized true story written from the perspective of the child Ziuta, the author's mother, as she recalls her traumatic deportation with her family from eastern Poland to Siberia at the start of World War II. She and her family's subsequent escape and journey through the Soviet Union and the Middle East and settlement in India before coming to America is still a little-known story that deserves recognition in the history books. This reviewer's own family story is similar to that of the Nowicki family and, in an interesting twist of fate, intertwined.Normally, self-published books do not warrant much attention in the publishing world but given this engaging true account, minor copyediting mishaps can be forgiven as we move through the more compelling and important aspects of the story.We are introduced to Ziuta as a nurse in charge of the Shah of Iran when he is being treated for cancer in 1979 in America. He will only engage with Ziuta because she tells him how grateful she is for Iran (then Persia) for helping her and her family along with hundreds of Polish refugees fleeing the Soviet Union during World War II. Ziuta then proceeds to tell him her family's story.76 Polish American StudiesThe Nowicki family, all eight of them, was unceremoniously uprooted from their home in the Wołyn Province (today in Ukraine) at 3:30 a.m. on the night of February 10, 1940, by Soviet soldiers in what was the first of several deportations of Poles residing in then eastern Poland (today Belarus and Ukraine). Ziuta was eight years old, the fifth of six children.The horrifying conditions of such a journey to the Siberian Gulag has been told in numerous accounts, but this child's perspective makes the conditions seem even more real and horrifying. Through her family's strong support for each other and faith in God, they arrive at the camp that is to be their home for the next nearly two years. At the camp, life is extraordinarily harsh with constant hunger, hard work, assailment from various pests and the never-ending cold. Ziuta witnesses the death of her friend Kasia. “Ziuta sat up on her bunk, relieved to be awake. Nightmares had plagued her sleep. There were many variations, but the night terrors always ended the same way; Mama was gone. Ziuta wanted Mama to wrap her arms around her and promise she would not end up like Kasia.”Their escape from the camp, however, through the harsh land (“The Inhuman Land”) is marked by far worse conditions than the camp, and it is miraculous that they make it to relative safety in Persia. There they are separated as one brother enlists in the Polish Army, as well as the father, while Ziuta and her sisters are sent to India for safety, and their mother and another son stay behind due to the mother's poor health.With much introspection and internal thoughts and feelings by Ziuta, we can sense the effects of what is happening to her and her family, and we become increasingly engaged in the story. Some historical perspective is provided, but this is mostly a human story. Much emphasis is placed on prayer and staying close to God, and this belief in God becomes their saving grace.A great deal of the story takes place in India where the benevolent and much-loved Maharaja Jam Saheb Digvijay Sinhji provides desperately needed refuge for the many orphaned Polish children as the war rages on. In India, through the Maharaja's generosity, life for Ziuta becomes more or less stable as she has plenty to eat, attends school, enjoys the Polish scouting programs with her friends, and is enthralled by the beauty and mystique of India and Indian life.Many photos of the family from their time in Persia, India, and eventually America accompany the text, and it is within those photos that this reviewer's own sister, Mira (Mirosława) Zimmerman, is pictured with Ziuta while in India. These photos provide an interesting perspective and add authenticity to the story, as well as being an important historical record.As the survivors of that era pass away, as Ziuta did in 2018 after attending a reunion of surviving orphaned Polish children in India, such important stories of that era should be recorded in whatever way possible to preserve that compelling history.