Irena Cecylia Manturo. Photo: Sybir Memorial Museum collection

In April 1940, Irena Cecylia Manturo was deported to northern Kazakhstan together with her mother Julia Manturo née Szczepańska and two siblings. After the outbreak of the war, the father of the family, Zygmunt, as a soldier of the Polish Army, was arrested and imprisoned, initially in Białystok, later in Łomża. In June 1941, after the Soviets escaped and before the Germans entered, the inhabitants of Łomża broke down the prison to free people who were being held there. Zygmunt couldn’t walk, was swollen from hunger, and had night blindness. One of the women from Łomża took him out of prison in a wheelbarrow. Irena attended the Secondary School in Donetskoje, and in 1945 she took part in the Olympiad in Kokchetav organized by the Union of Polish Patriots. Irena returned to Poland with her mother and siblings in 1946. Currently, she is a renowned linguist and professor emeritus of the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences.