Growing up in Chicago in the 1970s, I was aware that my parents were Polish immigrants. My father, William Krzos, was an engineer at GTE -- I was intrigued by his vague remarks about being in a German labor camp. My mother, Bernice Migut Krzos, worked in a Chicago bakery and it was actually the vivid tales that she, and her brothers and sister, shared that truly fascinated me.
They were relayed to me once a month, on Saturday nights, when my parents arranged a festive get-together for their Polish friends and my mother's siblings. En masse they arrived at our house on Altgeld Street. These folks were stylishly dressed and impeccably proud. They sat on the edges of our foam-cushioned sofas and chairs from Sears as Kent cigarettes made repeated trips to and from their lips. Full ashtrays collected around the house. Empty highball glasses begged to be refilled. And attention almost always fell upon my gregarious father, who, after just one Scotch and soda, could recite a rhyming Polish joke and have the guests howling with laughter.
These Poles were loud. They were expressive. They were joyous... on the outside.
But beneath the surface lurked stories -- both dark and menacing -- I was too young to fully grasp at the time. When I became an adult, the blinding truth could not be avoided.
In February 1940, under Joseph Stalin's orders, my family was taken by force from their farm in eastern Poland -- now Ukraine -- by Russian soldiers. They were treated like criminals, locked in one of hundreds of boxcars crowded with other Polish citizens, and carted off to a Siberian labor camp thousands of kilometers away. Nearly 1 million Poles suffered these mass deportations. For eighteen long, dismal months, the family endured brutal conditions in the labor camp, conditions so harsh that, eventually, it robbed them of their health and vitality -- and for some, their lives. In the summer of 1941, a surprising turn of events found these imprisoned Poles -- those who survived their confinement -- released from the camps. They were left to wander southern Russia in search of aid. Some of them found it in Uzbekistan. A vast number of them perished. Those who, either by twists of fate or unshakable faith, managed to escape Russia -- thanks to Gen. Anders and the Polish Army in Exile -- found refuge in the Middle East, India and, later, the eastern stretches of Africa or in more distant locales such as Mexico or Australia.
The mass deportations of the Poles during the 1940s was, and to some extent still is, one of the most underreported stories of Stalin's wrath. I take it that the U.S. and the rest of the world never wanted to bring up Stalin's atrocities at the time because he eventually became an ally to defeat Hitler. The world has been blatantly aware -- as well it should -- of what Hitler did to 6 million Jewish people, but so many souls are not fully aware of what Stalin did to Polish people, Jewish individuals, his own people and so many others.
As time went on and I excelled in a media career, I felt haunted and hunted to some extent by my Polish ancestors. Their story needed to be told. Earlier this year, the result of my efforts were birthed in a memoir Grace Revealed. I see it as one part of a colorful, much bigger historic kaleidoscope turning at this moment of time. For it was just the other day, during a recent book event, that a Ukrainian man reminded that, in what had once been Polish territory back in the 1940s, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) murdered an estimated 35,000-60,000 Poles in Volhynia and 25,000-40,000 in Eastern Galicia.
Again, these are among many of the historic events finally coming to light during October, which is Polish Heritage Month. Championing efforts for the Polish community are The Kresy-Siberia Foundation, The Polish Museum of America and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
And Chicago, which still has one of the largest populations of Polish people, has been host to many prominent events.
On Monday, Oct. 19 in Downtown Chicago, a prominent luncheon -- the 20th Chicago Luncheon for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum -- unfolded to remarkable ends. About 2,000 people were in attendance at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel and Towers. Remarkable because the event has become noteworthy for being the largest of its kind in attendance and funds raised. After a soul-stirring introduction by David Schwartz, acclaimed writer Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic delivered a sobering speech about the realities of anti-Semitism and more -- he noted that of the world's Jewish population, the majority of them now live in the United States.
Goldberg's remarks echo the concerns of the Museum, which reports that in 2015, the world is faced with "an alarming rise in Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism -- even in the very lands where the Holocaust happened -- as well as genocide and threats of genocide in other parts of the world."
An Agent of Change on so many levels, the Museum, since 1993, has been on the receiving end of more than 38 million visitors -- this includes 96 heads of state and more than 10 million school-age children. Its website remains the leading online resource and authority on the Holocaust.
Between 1939 and 1945, at least 1.5 million Polish citizens were deported to German territory for forced labor. Hundreds of thousands were also imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps. An estimated 1.9 million non-Jewish Polish civilians were killed by Germans during World War II. The Germans murdered at least 3 million Jewish citizens of Poland, reports the Museum's website.
During Polish Heritage Month, these facts serve as a blatant reminder to preserve history and to continue sharing the often haunting stories of what few survivors remain from that time period. And, while the hashtag #NeverAgain will forever circulate around Twitter and other social media circles, more importantly may be calls to action -- actually becoming involved. For it's in taking action where solidarity actually builds.
Learn more about the Kresy-Siberia Foundation here; education programs at the Polish National Alliance here, the Polish Museum of America here; the USHMM here.
View a gripping video of the 20th Chicago Luncheon from WGN here.