Kresy-Siberia "Keep Their Memory Alive"

Dear supporters, we are in the final planning stages of the upcoming "Generations Remember" conference to be held on the 20th and 21st of September at the Sybir Memorial Museum in Biaystok, Poland. What a great program we have this year and we are so grateful to all our speakers for so generously taking part. The conference starts first thing on the morning of Friday 20th September with a welcome from our host, Professor Wojciech Sleszynski, Director of the Sybir Memorial Museum (Poland). The Director will also present the Sybir Museum's new website, "Polish Cemeteries in Uzbekistan". This is followed by our first speaker, member and author Paul Wojdak. His title is "The Siberian Children of 1920, An Exploration of Memory". As a retirement project, Paul uncovered his father's complicated past and wrote a book, published in 2024. His father was an orphan in Poland but somehow had been in Japan and USA. He did not disclose he was born in Siberia and that his life-journey spanned nine countries and crossed two oceans. Following Paul's presentation, we are extremely honoured to once again have Dave Stewart as a guest speaker - son of Captain D. Stewart who was selected as a German POW in 1943 to attend the Katyn Commission investigation into the Polish officers found murdered in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk, Russia. Dave served in the US Army. In 2023 Dave published Volume 1 "Katyn Forest Massacre 1940. A Selection of US government documents" which is the result of years of research from Katyn related documents found in the US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in Maryland. Like his father, Dave is passionate about compiling and analyzing the recently declassified NARA documents which reveal the true WWII U.S. Government reaction to the discovery of the Polish Officers murdered in the Katyn Massacres at the hands of the Soviets. His presentation is titled "A Short History of the Stewart & Van Vliet Jr MIS-X Code Letters Sent from Oflag 64 During 1943-44". We are also welcoming back as a speaker our member from the USA, Dr Maja Trochimczyk, a poet, music historian, photographer, and non-profit director born in Poland and living in California (www.trochimczyk.net). She has published six books on music, two volumes of poems and edited two poetry anthologies. She has published hundreds of articles and poems in 7 languages and presented papers at over 70 national and international conferences. Maja will be reading from her book “The Rainy Bread: Poems of Exile”. The poems tell the forgotten stories tell the forgotten stories of ordeal and survival of Poles living in the Kresy Eastern Borderlands, who were killed, deported, imprisoned, or oppressed after the September 17, 1939 invasion of Poland by the Soviet Union. The afternoon session will start with a panel discussion titled "International and inter-generational dimensions of history. The Muzeum as leader of International cooperation" with Professor Wojciech Sleszynski, Director of the Sybir Memorial Museum (Poland); Dr Dmitriy Panto, Museum of WWII (Poland); Stanley Urban, Kresy-Siberia Foundation (Poland) and moderated by Anna Pacewicz, Kresy-Siberia Foundation (Australia). This will be an opportunity for the conference attendees to participate in the conversation about our international cooperation. Following this, we have another extremely honoured speaker - General Leon Komornicki, Former deputy chief of the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces, Poland; Chairman of the Board of the Fallen and Murdered in the East Foundation and co-creator of the Monument to the Fallen and Murdered in the East (Poland). General Komornicki's presentation is "How the Monument to the Fallen and Murdered in the East came to be". (Incidentally, for those of us in Warsaw on the 17th September we will be partipating in the city of Warsaw commemorative ceremony at the Monument at 5pm). Back to the afternoon of the 20th and the conference will next welcome our Kresy-Siberia Foundation Board Member, Stanley Urban whose presentation is "Return to Kresy (Osada Korsuny) from a one-way trip to Archangel". One of our most popular past conference speakers will be welcomed back to close the day - Thomas Kuba Kozowski, from Dom Spotkan z Historia (Poland) whose presentation is titled "Myths and lies associated with the so-called "Repatriation. About the expulsion of Poles from the Borderlands during 1944-1946”. It will be a huge day! On Saturday 21st September we will be back at the Sybir Memorial Museum for another full day however instead of speakers we are really excited to be having a Film Festival dedicated to the subject of "Generations Remember". The films are - A Forgotten Odyssey – a film by Aneta Naszynska and Jagna Wright; The Officer’s Wife – a film by Piotr Uzarowicz; Once My Mother – a film by Sophia Turkiewicz; The Last Witness – a film by Piotr Szkopiak and Santa Rosa – a film by Sawomir Grunberg. The film's will be running throughout the day and conference guests can watch as few, or as many, as they would like. In addition, throughout the day self-guided tours of the Sybir Museum wiith audio guide will be available (in English, Polish and several other languages). It's definitely our most ambitious conference to date and we are so looking forward to welcoming our speakers, meeting old friends and making new ones. Tickets are available through Eventbrite (link below). For those who are unable to attend in person, video links will be available after the conference. Please do continue to support Kresy-Siberia. Your valuable donations allow the work of our virtual museum - www.kresy-siberia.org - to continue. Thank you.

Links:

• Kresy-Siberia Virtual Museum
• Conference Tickets

• 2024 Conference Program (PDF)
  
• Panel Discussion (PDF)