Diary of Ada Didyk

7/05/2025

A photograph of colourful kid's diary. — A diary of Ada Didyk. Sybir Memorial Museum collection.

On 21 March 1940, NKVD officers burst into the home of the Didyk family living in Lviv. They arrested the father of the family, Stefan – a postman and member of the underground and, in the past, of the Polish Military Organisation. They put him in prison and then murdered him in Kyiv with a shot to the back of the head with more than 22 thousands polish prisoners of war murdered in the Katyn Massacre. His wife Maria and daughters Lucja (aged 10) and Ada (aged 8) left the city out of fear for their fate, but returned in June and were almost immediately deported to Siberia. During their stay in the East, Maria died and Lucja and Ada were placed in a Soviet orphanage. During this time Ada began to keep her diary, in which the earliest entry is dated 5 June 1943. It is full of entries and drawings made primarily by the children staying at the orphanage. Its colour contrasted with the difficult experiences the two sisters had to face in Siberia. Łucja and Ada fortunately returned to Poland in 1946.

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