Ewa i Anna Urbanski in Kazakhstan, 6 I 1941. Phot. Sybir Memorial Museum collection

Before the war, the Urbański family lived in Staryna, in the Novogrodek district. Ryszard Urbański was the headmaster of the local school, his wife Zofia was a teacher. The couple had three daughters: Barbara, Anna and Ewa. In 1929 Ryszard was promoted to the rank of reserve second lieutenant and was assigned as a platoon commander in the 78th infantry regiment in Baranowicze. In the summer of 1939 he received a summons to report to the unit. In the first days of September, his wife and daughters escorted him to the railway station. There they saw him for the last time. Ryszard Urbański was murdered by the Soviets in Katyn. In April 1940, Zofia, together with Anna and Ewa, was deported to Kazakhstan. The eldest daughter, Barbara, stayed with her uncles in Vilnius. In 1941, she received from her mother a photograph of her sisters with a dedication on the back: ‘Basieńko najdroższa I send you a photograph of Ania and Ewa, remember them always mother’. The Urbański sisters were initially sent to the Enbeksze kolkhoz in the Aktiubinsk region, where Zofia worked at herding sheep. The next stage of their wandering was Aktiubinsk and Yastrubinovo in the Voznesensk region of the Ukrainian SSR. In March 1946, they boarded a train to Poland.