Education Poland Project #34365

Kresy-Siberia "Keep Their Memory Alive"

by Fundacja Kresy-Syberia

Project Report | Aug 10, 2025
Getting Home

By Alexandra Topolski | Board Member

Stefan Wisniowski and family, Stash Cafe, Montreal

This summer our founder, Stefan Wisniowski, returned to his native Canada to visit family and touch base with Kresy-Siberia Foundation members. Despite a stroke that severely affected his speech in 2022, Stefan continues to travel and advocate on behalf of the Foundation.

Returning to Sydney from Vancouver, officious and uncomprehending airline officials stopped Stefan from boarding three successive flights. Finally, two days after he was scheduled to, he was allowed to leave for his home of Sydney.

Here were, on a milder scale, echoes from the past: ill-informed and suspicious bureaucrats at a border, lacking agency on the one hand; a tired and health-compromised traveller on the other, struggling to be understood, wanting only to go home, see his loved ones, and rest.

A little story, with a happy ending, but trying nonetheless and full of uncertainty and worry for the traveler and his relatives at the time. When we find ourselves facing moments like these, we draw on the memories of our family members and their history-making encounters at the borders of their countries. Like Stefan, we are able to meet them with equanimity and cheer.

Because, we know, these are nothing. We'll get home eventually, one way or another.

And we think of those who never got home.

Permalink

Apr 14, 2025
April 2025 - We are the Causeway

By Alexandra Topolski | Board Member

Monument to the Fallen and Murdered in the East

Dear Kresy Siberia supporters: We continue to preserve and share the history of our Sybiraks. Next year it will be 25 years since our group was founded. Inevitably there are fewer and fewer left to speak for themselves.

Now, we are seeing grandchildren, young friends, and historians join our world-wide group. They find help and community. Increasingly, we are the causeway that connects the generations that remember with the generations who seek to learn.

Two Sybiraks and Kresy-Siberia members, recently left us, Cecylia Kokorowski and Krzysztof Lancucki.

We remember and celebrate them.

In order that you may make advance plans, please note that we are holding our next “Generations Remember” Reunion and Conference around 17 September 2026 in Warsaw.

Thank you for your loyal support.

Cecylia Kokorowski (nee Kuzio)

(February 7, 1932 - March 16, 2025)

At the age of nine, Cecylia and her family, mother and father Marianna and Jozef Kuzio, and sister Janina, were forcibly transported, under orders from Russia, from their home in Novosiolk to a slave labor camp in Siberia. After amnesty was declared in the summer of 1941, the family moved to a collective farm south of Siberia, where her father worked as a labourer and her mother as a seamstress.

Jozef then joined the Polish army while, in 1943, her mom, sister, and Cecylia slowly made their way through Iran and Pakistan to a displaced persons camp named Abercorn in North Rhodesia -- now Mbala, Zambia. The family lived in a grass hut and Cynthia became a Girl Scout and made many friends. The contrast between her happy life in beautiful surroundings and what she had experienced before was a source of amazement she remembered all her life.

Eventually the camp was dismantled and she and her mother and sister left for the UK in 1948, where her father awaited them. On January 26, 1949, the family arrived in Alberta, Canada. Cecylia married Antoni Kokorowski in 1950. They were married for 57 years until his passing in 2008. They raised two children, Janina and Richard, who are grateful for all the wonderful memories of their kind and loving mother. She took much joy and pride in watching her grandchildren, Laureen and Mark, grow up. Becoming a great-grandmother to Jonah Oliver and Paulina Cecylia.was one of Cecylia's happiest moments.

Krzysztof (Christopher) Jozef Lancucki

(June 1, 1935 - February 21, 2025)

Born on June 1, 1935 in Sanok, Poland, at the age of five Krzysztof and his mother were sent to Kazakhstan in 1940 by the occupying Soviets. In 1942, under the care of the General Anders army, he traveled through Iran and India, eventually arriving in Tanganyika (now Tanzania) in East Africa, where he resumed his education at the Polish Children's Center. In February 1950 he went to Australia. Though he arrived speaking little English, he did well in school, receiving scholarships that allowed him to complete high school at Christian Brothers College in Highgate and then pursue a Bachelor of Science in physics from the University of Western Australia. Beginning in 1959, he worked at the CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) Construction Laboratory in Melbourne, during which time he published at least forty articles in prestigious scientific journals both in Australia and internationally. He retired in 1995.

A natural leader and champion of democracy, Krzysztof Lancucki united and consolidated the organizations he led. He established relationships with federal and state governments across Australia. He kept ties with Polonia in other countries. He was also concerned about the rights of the elderly.

He served as the Chairman of the Council of Principals of Poland Australia (RNPA) continuously for 18 years during a difficult period of political and economic changes in Poland (1979-1997). In addition, he headed the Federation of Polish Organizations in Victoria intermittently for a total of sixteen years.

Krzysztof was a social activist, carrying out key functions in many organizations in Polonia, among them the Polish Union in Melbourne, the Polish House Cooperative, the Editorial Board of "Polish Weekly" and the Polish Radio Committee (1974-80). He was a co-founder of the Polish Art Foundation in Melbourne.

He was also active in many Australian organizations and institutions, including the State Ethnic Broadcasting Advisory Committee of Victoria in the Institute of Multicultural Affairs. After the declaration of martial law in Poland in 1981, he created a fundraiser, "Help Poland Live", that raised $2.2 million for his Polish compatriots.

He supported the "Solidarnosc" movement and Poles suffering persecution at the hand of the communist government in Poland. He was actively involved in the Presidency of the Coordination Council of Poland in the Free World (1984-93). Later in life, he participated in the Australian umbrella organization Fair Go for Pensioners Coalition, which brings together organisations representing pensioners from various ethnic groups and trade unions (2007-2020), seeking to increase pension benefits and improve living conditions for Polish pensioners.

Cecylia Kokorowski

Krzysztof (Christopher) Jozef Lancucki

Permalink

Dec 16, 2024
Commemorating the 85th Anniversary - Deportations

By Stefan Wisniowski | Kresy-Siberia Foundation President

Conference convenor Anne Pacewicz

The celebrations related to the 85th anniversary of the Soviet aggression against Poland and the World Day of the Siberian Deportee were concluded with a two-day conference "Generations Remember". The Kresy-Siberia Foundation has decided again to organize the event in cooperation with the Sybir Menorial Museum.

The Kresy-Siberia Foundation was established in 2008 in Warsaw and brings together Siberian deportees, their children and grandchildren. Its activities focus on popularizing the fates of victims of Soviet repression and deportation. The conference is an opportunity to meet descendants of Kresowianie and Siberian deportees from all over the world.

This year, on September 17, we had the 85th anniversary of the Red Army's attack on the Polish State. We know that this attack initiated the Soviet occupation, initiated the entire system of repression, including four major deportations. The effect of these deportations was, among other things, that hundreds of thousands of people could not return to their own homes. Their descendants live in different parts of the world. The Sybir Menorial Museum is their place, where they can come - said the Director of the Museum, Prof. Wojciech Sleszynski.

A total of seven sessions were held on the first day of the conference. Participants could listen to incredible, moving stories told by descendants of our compatriots who survived the ordeal of World War II. The conference organized by the Kresy-Siberia Foundation in cooperation with the Museum of Memory of Siberia was an extraordinary opportunity to meet people who live in different parts of the world, but whose history began in Poland.

Conference participants had the opportunity to take part in a screening of four moving films. In between screenings, it was also possible to visit the permanent exhibition of the Museum of Memory of Siberia.

The first of the films presented, "Forgotten Odyssey" directed by Aneta Naszynska and Jagna Wright, is a pioneering documentary showing the fate of Poles exiled deep into the USSR, which inspired the creation of the Kresy-Siberia Foundation. The next, "Katyn. Last Witness" directed by Piotr Szkopiak, is a historical thriller inspired by the director's personal experiences. The next, "The Officer's Wife" directed by Piotr Uzarowicz, is based on the director's discoveries regarding the fate of his family, related to the Katyn crime. The last of the films shown, "Once My Mother" directed by Sophia Turkiewicz, is the director's personal journey in search of the truth about her mother's past.

All the presented productions are connected by the deep emotional relationship of the creators to the presented stories. Their presentation perfectly fit the theme of the conference and caused a lot of emotion among the participants. The conference was an excellent opportunity to listen to interesting lectures, participate in discussions and watch carefully selected films. We hope to meet again next year!

Panel: D.Panto, W.Sleszynski, A.Pacewicz, S.Urban

Conference participants

Sibyr Memorial Museum

Participants visiting the Sybir Memorial Museum

Links:

Kresy-Siberia Virtual Museum

Permalink

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ›

About Project Reports

Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.

If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.