This photograph of the Nowik family from the military hamlet of Zababie near Pruzhany was taken in 1933. The parents, Józefa and Michał, pose in a (probably improvised) atelier with their children: Wanda, Leokadia and Edmund. Six years later, in November 1939, Michał would be arrested and imprisoned by the Soviets. The last news of him would reach the family a month later. Józefa with her children and relatives would be deported by the NKVD to a labour camp in Kargovina on the Dvina River in February 1940.
Leokadia recalled years later: “it’s 10 February 1940. Thirty degrees of frost. Early in the morning, three NKVD men came banging on the door. At first, Mom did not open it, but the knocks on the window made her realise that they were even ready to break the glass, and it was the middle of winter after all. Trembling all over, she moved the bolt. They immediately asked if there was a man in the house. Mum, petrified by the intrusion, forgot that her brother Klemens, who had come for a visit from Zimnochy near Białystok during the night, was in the bedroom. She said that no one was there. One of them then took a piece of paper out of his pocket and read: “[s] rozkaza wierkhovnovo sovyeta pyeryeselyayem vas to drugovo obvoda [on the order of the high authority, you are to be resettled to a different place].” Mum, who did not speak Russian, understood little at first. It was only when he told her to get going that she began to realise the gravity of the situation. She burst into tears and said she wouldn’t be going anywhere because the children were in Pruzhany at school and her husband was there too – in prison. “Give me back my husband!,” she shouted loudly, and this woke up uncle Klemens. He came out of his bedroom startled by the noise. The NKVD men sprang to their feet. One of them put a gun to Mum’s chest and shouted: “you said there were no men in the house! Who is it?!” Mum stopped crying and started to explain (…). At that time, the second of the NKVD men was searching the uncle. (…) When it turned out that he had no weapons, they calmed down and ordered him to sit down. After a long explanation of where he had come from and why, they ordered my uncle to harness his horse and go to Pruzhany to bring me and Dad. To Mum they said: “don’t cry, your husband is already waiting for you there.” (…) Since we had already been thrown out of our house once in October 1939, we thought that this time too they would take us somewhere nearby. So we did not consider it a great tragedy, because surely when everything got clarified, we would all return home. (…) But we were wrong (…).”
Photo: The Nowik Family, before 10 February 1940. From the Sybir Memorial Museum collection
