OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE ARCHDIOCESE OF PERTH, ESTABLISHED 1874 Registered at the G.P O., Perth for transmission by post as a newspaper.
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Susan Czepukojc Typifies Spirit of Poland *Victims of Red Terror Welcomed to Australia This is the story of Susan ed the "underground." True, Czepukojc, one of the migrants she couldn't do much. The orwho arrived the other day on ganisation was only a small one A story of and composed mainly of the stuII.M.A.S. Manoora. suffering and torture behind the dents of her High School. - Still, barbed wire of a Siberian pri- it was the underground and her son camp. fight was for Poland. She was a student in the High She was only seventeen, and, School at Vilna (Poland). Full lack1ng in experience, she could
long weeks this continued, and ceived our daily ration of one Arriving in Southern Russia. one day I was taken and herded pound of black bread and a bowl they joined up with the Polish into a cattle truck and sent to of hot water. At about twenty. Army. Drafted to Persia, Susan Siberia." past six we were marched into started her training as a nurse Ten years' hard labour was the forests, where we had to cut in a Polish military hospital. She the sentence read to her. She timber. For lunch and also for volunteered for the Italian front, never knew her judges. The supper we received a bowl of but instead was sent to .India. Russians do not believe in trials thin fish soup. The pound of For five long years she studied for political prisoners. bread had to last us all day. and nursed in the Indian and The journey was a nightmare. Polish hospitals. Great camps "We had to work for twelve of Locked in the van together with refugees were established. Rethirty other women, they were hours a day; that is the usual turn to Poland is out of the Many of the question for her. given only a small piece of black thing in Russia. "1 don't bread and a cup of fish soup girls died of starvation." want to go back to Siberia," she every twenty-four hours. The "We had three national Stalin explained. "All those who joinjourney by rail lasted over three holidays, and one day's rest a ed the Polish National Army are
H.M.A.S. Manoora entering Fremantle Harbour (photo. No. 2). The group of Polish Migrants assembled on the aft deck (photo. No. 5). Rev. Father C. Stinson (('atholic Episcopal Migration and Welfare Association) and Mr. George Hodges (Commonwealth Employment Bureau), who met the ship on its arrival (photo. No. 3). Miss Susan Czepukojc .a former member of the
of energy, she was studying hard with the hope that one day she might be able to enter the University, for above all things she wanted to become a doctor. Then came the war and the peaceful life on her father's small estate was shattered First of all both her parents were killed in one of those raids when the Russian bombers came over in their hordes and blasted
not hope to last for long. At last the fateful day came. The agents of the Soviet Secret Police closed in upon her, and she was taken to the headquarters of that infamous organisation. She was searched and they found some of the underground leaflets hidden on her.
Polish Underground and victim Of the Red Terror (photo. No. 6). Formalities connected with the Alien Registration were completed at the Seamen's Institute (photo. No. 4). Mr. H. T. Stitfold and Mr. P. R. Jackson, together with other officials, interviewed each migrant with a view of obtaining suitable employment for each (photo. No. 1).
weeks and, of course, many died week. We used to spend this on the way. day singing Polish songs. We She was first put to work on would have liked to be able to the wharves of a northern port. sleep, but we were too hungry." "This wasn't too bad," she said, When Germany attacked Rus"but when they saw how well I could work, they sent me to the sia, the Polish General Sikorsky arranged a treaty through the timber camps. I didn't mind work. None of us did. We British Government to enable were all young and foolish, and him to form a National Polish Imprisoned in a dark and wet we knew that we were suffering Army in the Middle East to fight cellar for over six weeks, she for Poland." the common enemy. About one million of the three million Poles the peaceful Polish villages into was subjected to all those subtle Life in the concentration camp in Russian camps managed to varieties of psychological torheaps of smoking rubble. ture in which the secret police was rigorous. There were eight take advantage of it, and Susan, Her two brothers were called excel. They used to wake me other Polish girls with her in together with the other Polish to the colours. One, an officer, in the early hours the morn- the big barrack -like hut, to- girls, set off on foot for the nearwas a victim in the Katyn forest ing, usually about 3 of to con- gether with over two hundred est railway siding, a matter of massacre. The story of which, tinue those endlessa.m., interroga- Russian girls who had been sen- about twenty miles,or so. Then when published, shocked a world tions." she told us. "Hour after tenced to fifteen years' hard labThis accustomed as it was to tales of hour they pounded me for infor- our for some trifling political of- again into Attie trucks. time, however, despite the disbarbarism and slaughter. The mation and tried to trap me into fence. Missing, work for one comfort, the journey was much other contracted typhoid fever confession that I was a member day without a just cause was They could get out at and died in the confines of a pri- of the Underground. 'What is sufficient to earn this punish- better. stations and buy food, and they son camp. the Underground? Who are your ment. knew that they were getting out Susan, inflamed .with a desire superiors, who are you working "We used to rise at 6 a.m.," of Russia and were on their way to do something for Poland, join - for?' Day and night for six she continued. "We then re to freedom.
sent there the minute they arrive in Poland." She put in her application to come to Australia. Months went by and she heard nothing. Stddenly the wire arrived. She was to leave in a week's time. Parting was hard. She had made many friends during those years in the Bombay camp, but she had made her choice. Susan has already started work in Perth. We need more like her. Her fate is the fate of thousands, and it is our duty to see that they get the chance to start their lives anew. This is a debt of honour we owe to that gallant little country who first bore the brunt of the Red Terror and who rallied to our aid in the darkest days of the war. Poland has been betrayed and forgotten by those who owe her most. Let us at least remember them.