I shouldn’t be forced to have the Covid Vaccine – it is just too risky!
How many fought and died to end racism, segregation, discrimination, persecution and genocide; does Nazism and Stalinism ring any bells? Image Copyright (C) George W. Helon: Australia; 2021-2024. CLICK picture above to view larger image.
CORPORATE MEDIA CENSORSHIP: Within 15 minutes of posting this article and accompanying video to YouTube on Friday 26 November 2021 it was promptly deleted and replaced with the text message: “This video has been removed for violating YouTube’s Community Guidelines (Medical Misinformation).”
I received email advice from YouTube stating “YouTube doesn’t allow content about COVID-19 that poses a serious risk of egregious harm.
“YouTube doesn’t allow content that spreads medical misinformation that contradicts local health authorities’ (LHA) or the World Health Organization’s (WHO) medical information about COVID-19.”
Appeal against decision laid and promptly rejected!
IMPORTANT UPDATE: 9 DECEMBER 2021
“May all those who could of, should of, but didn’t attempt to prevent Humanity’s Slide to Dictatorial Totalitarian Rule, Medical Apartheid, Segregation and Discrimination, may you be Damned to Hell!” Image Copyright (C) George W. Helon: Australia; 2021-2024. CLICK picture above to view larger image.
G’DAY Everybody!
My name is George Helon and I live in Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia.
Today I’d like to tell you why some people like myself are holding out, and against having the Covid-19 Vaccine at this time?
First of all, none of us has, or had any choice in having this ‘so-called’ vaccine!
Let’s just call it ‘the jab’!
CHOICE is having the power or right to choose between 2 or more of any number, possibilities, varieties; well – anything!
Should I eventually be left with no option but to have ‘the jab’ – and suffer any ADVERSE REACTIONS, or worse still, DIE – this video is my living testament to be cited, held and used in evidence against any person, private entity, company, organisation, government agency, or politicians.
I can’t reconcile in my mind any reason how having ‘the jab’ could mitigate the risk of not having it.
The ODDS and the GODS have never favoured me; it’s Just TOO RISKY, and I am not a gambling man!
Hear me out, make up your own mind, and honestly ask yourself if you walked a mile in my shoes – “would you risk having ‘the jab’?”
Like many others – and should existing and proposed government mandates prevail – I will find myself treated like a leper: ostracised from society, alienated, discriminated against, marginalised, segregated, excluded and punished because of my ethics, moral principles, religious convictions, personal views, and my quite valid concerns?
I alone should have free will; the choice to say what goes into my body, especially when I firmly consider the consequences for allowing myself to be a guinea pig in a medical trial to be disproportionate to any mooted benefits from having an under-tested, possibly debilitating and potentially fatal bio entity administered to into me.
I’m not an anti-vaxxer, tinfoil hat nutter, vaccine hesitant, or vaccine resistant; I was born a free thinking and free-willed human being who is concerned for my well-being, life and for the future of my family and the human race; more particularly my elderly and infirm mother for whom I am the primary 24/7/365 carer of.
WHEN the administration of a ‘so-called’ vaccine is not by voluntary choice, but forced upon everybody through mandates, coercive tactics, forced compulsion, threats, bullying and duress;
WHEN over 4000 qualified and independently minded Queensland health care workers (including doctors and nurses) have been suspended or stood down for refusing ‘the jab’;
WHEN thousands of police, emergency and volunteer service workers have been forced to resign because they have chosen to not be forcibly injected with an unknown bio entity;
WHEN hundreds of thousands of ordinary people have to choose between submitting to ‘the jab’ or lose their livelihoods;
WHEN governments, political and religious leaders and their representatives openly promote alienation, discrimination, marginalisation, segregation, persecution and vaccine/medical apartheid;
WHEN bribes are offered by the establishment to ‘encourage’ people to submit to ‘the jab’;
WHEN having ‘the jab’ does not guarantee one not getting Covid-19;
WHEN there is no thought or discussion about the potential for long term and intergenerational health impacts;
WHEN basic ‘freedoms’ are used as an incentive for getting ‘the jab’;
WHEN both governments and pharmaceutical companies have liberated themselves of any liability from any responsibility for adverse reactions, their effects and resulting deaths, and when any information, views, comments and opinions contradictory to the government’s narrative are moderated, vetted, edited, censored, or deleted from the internet in order to maintain and promote a biased mainstream media agenda, what we are being forced to have put into our bodies is not a vaccine by any stretch of the imagination but an experimental bio entity administered through unconstitutional medical procedures which no person, entity or government has the right to force anybody to be subjected to.
What governments are compelling and coercing people to do amounts to crimes against humanity.
Being explicitly forced to submit to having ‘the jab’ is tantamount to being given a death sentence in the hope that it might be commuted to life and you live to tell the tale.
Freedom of choice and health care are inherent human rights that should always be upheld without question or doubt, fervently protected and vehemently defended.
I have very sound and exceptionally valid reasons for my opposition against mandated and forced vaccinations.
You see, since I before I was born the ODDS, and the GODS have never been good to me!
When pregnant my mother took thalidomide, a drug that was marketed as a sedative and treatment for morning sickness in pregnant women in the late 50s and early 60s.
This drug subsequently caused some babies to be born with a range of disabilities.
My mother also contracted German measles early in her pregnancy.
I was born with an extremely rare genetic disorder called Pallister-Hall Syndrome (or PHS), of which there are only about 600 cases known about the world over.
Pallister-Hall Syndrome (PHS) is it is a multiple anomaly congenital disorder affecting many parts of the body and is responsible for innumerable medical, health, neurological and psychological issues, conditions, abnormalities and malformations.
Myself personally, I am affected by physical anomalies, an enlarged heart with regurgitating valves, throat defects and ongoing kidney and other issues; just to name a few!
I have a large 3 to 4cm hypothalamic hamartoma, or brain tumour, deemed inoperable because it is of, not in the hypothalamus.
Not many of you would know just how important the hypothalamus is to one’s very existence?
By definition, the hypothalamus is one of the most important parts of the brain for it participates in a number of vital activities. It regulates a variety of hormonal functions by action on the pituitary gland, and it exerts magisterial control over the blood vessels and glands of the body via the autonomic nervous system. It is an integral part of the limbic system which influences important aspects of our behaviour and even our very survival.
The hypothalamus controls heart rate and blood pressure, body temperature, fluid and electrolyte balance, appetite and body weight, endocrine processes, sleep cycles and most automatic functions of the body.
Autism Spectrum Disorder (or ASD) is often one of the tell-tale calling cards of a hypothalamic hamartoma, and well, yours truly has that too!
Symptoms include seizures, cognitive impairments, emotional difficulties, behavioural issues, episodes of hypothalamic rage and endocrine disturbances.
As a direct result of my brain tumour I have suffered all my life from an extremely rare form of epilepsy which results in generally uncontrollable gelastic (or laughing) seizures and narcolepsy; I also have profound neuro-sensory hearing loss and hormonal deficiencies for which I am taking hormone replacements.
Fortunately for me, my epilepsy has been stable these past years so l am able to drive my mother everywhere she needs and wants to go: specialist appointments, weekly doctor visits, weekly blood tests, x-rays, scans, shopping, errands and irregular travel.
I have read ‘the jab’ can trigger seizures.
That stated, if l have a seizure l am off the road for a minimum of 12 months!
Who is going to look after our appointment and other travel needs and accept responsibility for the costs to get us about?
More burden on the tax payer and the already over stretched and under resourced support organisations!
In 2008, and quite by accident, I was found to have a 4.1cm (now 4.4cm) lesion in the presacral region (that’s about the tail bone) of my spine later identified as a retro rectal hamartoma, or tail gut tumour / teratoma.
Retro rectal hamartomas are rare in women, and almost unheard of in men; these tumours are usually benign, but can turn malignant very quickly so they need constant monitoring.
Once again the odds are against me.
In August 2016 I had a TDAP (Diphtheria Tetanus Pertussis) vaccine and became violently ill within weeks.
My GP has told me that because I had a more than 24 to 48 hour delayed reaction to the TDAP vaccine I can’t get an exemption from ‘the jab’.
Yet I was terribly sick for over 3 months with: breathing difficulties, a lung infection, crippling body aches and pains, the loss of my voice, headache, fever, diarrhoea, red and irritated eyes, conjunctivitis and general malaise; and over a dozen people can attest to my suffering!
In September 2016 a sputum test resulted in my being diagnosed with haemophilus influenzae type b, or Hib.
Considering the preceding symptoms, was it really the flu I had, or was it Covid?
And for all of this I have copies of my medical records and imaging as proof of my claims.
According to the CDC (USA), “adults of any age WITH CERTAIN UNDERLYING MEDICAL CONDITIONS are at increased risk for severe illness from the virus that causes COVID-19. COVID-19 vaccines are recommended for and CAN BE ADMINISTERED TO MOST PEOPLE with underlying medical conditions.”
My multiple and chronic health conditions in no way give me any reprieve or exemption!
There are some out there who have no understanding of my complex medical conditions and who would argue quite vehemently that having chronic medical conditions is more the reason to have ‘the jab’.
Those who have had ‘the jab’ and survived with little or no effects – for the moment – are lucky, and they shouldn’t be pointing the finger at, and passing judgment on others who are genuinely concerned for their health, wellbeing, and most of all, life!
Having pre-existing medical conditions makes you more vulnerable to the consequences of many of those things compromised by adverse reactions; it is not a precarious situation one wants to put oneself in.
Now please excuse the pun, but I am not a normal person so to speak, I am a vulnerable person with already altered DNA; I am a person who has never had the odds and the Gods in one’s favour, therefore I consider myself potentially more at risk of adverse reactions, or even death if I have the so-called Covid-19 vaccine – ‘the jab’!
These ‘jabs’ have been tested on – let’s say – normal people, not those with chronic genetic disorders and rare diseases.
Our veterans, fathers and grandfathers fought and sacrificed so much combating Fascism, Nazism and Stalinism so that we could enjoy many basic freedoms; they must be turning in the graves with shame and regret!
And to think that (like my family) so many refugees who fled totalitarian regimes were welcomed into our communities to live in freedom with choice and dignity only to find themselves jumping from the pot into the frying pan!
Instead of effecting mandates, punishing, dividing people and encouraging them to turn on one another, governments should be asking what they can do for those who either can’t have, or don’t want to have ‘the jab’ vaccine for medical, ethical, or religious reasons.
Let’s stand together as one – the vaccinated, the unvaccinated, war vterans, the peoples of Australia; shoulder-to-shoulder – and say no to government mandates!
UNITED WE STAND, DIVIDED WE FALL!
Revisions:
Article originally published 22 November 2021. Revised: 30 November 2023; 16 January 2023; 31 December 2021; 10 December 2021; 2 December 2021; 25 November 2021; 24 November 2021.
PAL-LA-SHAY you might be encouraged to say of our Queensland Premier’s surname, but nothing could be more erroneous; culturally, historically and linguistically insulting to those of fair dinkum Polish ancestry.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk pictured in 2016. Image source: Wikimedia Commons. CLICK picture above to view larger image.
As a genealogist, etymologist and nomenclaturist (retired) I am occasionally asked by persons of Polish and eastern European descent to assist them with their family history research when the going gets tough.
When locating ancestors overseas appears an impossible task, and access to vital records seems an elusive dream, researchers often forget to utilise the simplest facts right in front them to elicit new avenues of enquiry to discern the origins of their family – names; personal and place!
It is interesting just how much information you can glean from an individual’s Christian name, surname, and the names of the places they originate from.
In the case of our esteemed Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, it is written in her Wikipedia biography that she is “the daughter of veteran state Labor MP Henry Palaszczuk, who was born in Germany to Polish parents.”
According to the Palaszczuk family immigration records publicly available at the National Archives of Australia, Annastacia’s grandfather Hipolit/Hipolite was born in Wolka/Wulce and her grandmother Ludviga/Ludwiga born in Racje/Rajca/Rajzca, Poland.
Extract from National Archives of Australia (NAA) public record: PALASZCZUK, Hipolite born 2 July 1922; Series Number A12155 (Migrant Selection Documents – NAA: A12155, 81-84); Item ID 4260617; p. 3 of 51. CLICK picture above to view larger image.
Now the surname Palaszczuk is both a toponym (i.e. a place name derived from a topographical feature) and a blended patronymic derived from the word PALASZ (say, pow-w-ash), which in the Polish language means ‘broadsword’ – basically a nickname for a combative or fierce individual, a soldier – and the suffix CZUK (say, chook).
In Ukrainian and Russian Cyrillic script the surname Palaszczuk is rendered Палащук.
The suffix CZUK is particular to surnames found and originating in western Ukraine, an area that was once occupied by Poland.
CZUK (sometimes spelt CIUK – and yes pronounced chook) when written singularly, means a ‘mouth’ or ‘snout’ in Ukrainian.
When used as a surname suffix, CZUK, sometimes transcribed CHUK, designates one as being the son of.
Palaszczuk, basically, one who is the son of a soldier, or one who points out errors in others – someone who is censorious or pedantic?
As for the correct rendering of the name, the ‘L’ in the surname Palaszczuk originally had a diacritical (or accent/pronunciation) mark through it (Ł); this being best described as a forward slash ‘/’ through the ‘L’.
So the correct pronunciation of the Pałaszczuk surname is Pow-w-ash-chook NOT Pal-la-shay!
The actual rendering of the Queensland Premier’s surname is Pałaszczuk, and the correct pronunciation is Pow-w-ash-chook! Image Copyright (C) George W. Helon: Australia; 2021-2024. CLICK picture above to view larger image.
Annastacia is more rendiscent and common of an eastern Slavic (Ukrainian) Christian name than Polish.
The Polish rendering of Anastasia is Anastazja – not Annastacia; just as the correct form of Ludovica is Ludwika – not the eastern Slavic Ludviga or Ludwiga!
The place name Wolka (usually spelt with a diacritical mark, or an apostrophe, over the o) is indicative of a hamlet, or a new settlement and is in most cases conjunctive with another appellation to form a place name, e.g. Wólka Lubieszowska.
Wulce on the other hand, more correctly spelt WOLCZE (the ‘L’ having a diacritical forward slash ‘/’ through it) is now known as Vovche (sometimes Volche, or Volchýe – 49°21’ N x 22°91’ E) and located in the Ukraine about Turka (49°15’ N x 23°03’ E).
Now given that the surname Pałaszczuk is most certainly eastern Slavic, or Ukrainian in its origin, it is more than likely the family originates from that area about Palashevka/Palashivka in the Ternopil Oblast in western Ukraine (48°98’ N x 25°57’ E).
Original map of Western Ukraine sourced from Google Maps with original additions showing localities of Palashivka, Turka and Vovche. CLICK picture above to view larger image.
Palashivka is only 195.57 kilometres directly due east of Volche it is a 5 hour 27 minute, or 325 km road trip.
Pałaszczuk is a surname commensurate with that of an ethnic Ukrainian, and for all intents and purposes the family originates from the Ukraine; it is not of Polish origin!
In plain sight; the truth hidden in a shadow! Pałaszczuk is a Ukrainian surname NOT a Polish one. Image Copyright (C) George W. Helon: Australia; 2021-2024. CLICK picture above to view larger image.
So why does our Premier insist on the pronunciation Pal-la-shay?
Well, Pal-la-shay does have a distinctively nice sound when enunciated, a bit like the French palais – a palace, especially a French government or municipal building.
Or could the pronunciation be more a case of family lore, or even an attempt by the Pałaszczuk family to hide their true ethnic roots by passing themselves off as Poles.
Passing-off one’s self as being of Polish ancestry was typical of an earlier era of immigration in the twentieth century when linguistic hostility prevailed against eastern Slavic (Ukrainian) families who tried to mask the stigma of their true ethnic identity and origins in order to cross international borders, emigrate, and assimilate into unwary foreign populations unacquainted with their history and inherent animosity towards Poles.
Of course, not saying that our Queensland Premier’s family was involved in anything untoward or mischievous.
Eastern Europe was in turmoil, a bloodbath during the first decades of the twentieth century and the animosity between Poles and Ukrainians was particularly vehement as a result of a series of bloody conflicts and ethnic cleansing perpetrated mainly against Poles by Ukrainians over lands won by Poland during the 1919-1921 Polish-Soviet War.
The Polish-Soviet War saw the birth of the Second Republic of Poland (Polish, Rzeczpospolita Polska) and the reclamation of her lands lost through years of partition, cultural, political and economic suppression.
Coat of Arms of Poland 1919-1927 (Godło Polski z lat 1919 – 1927). Image source: Wikimedia Commons. CLICK picture above to view larger image.
Poland had not existed as an independent sovereign state since the Third Partition of her lands by Prussia, the Austrian, and the Russian Empires in 1795.
To reduce the probability of further military and political aggression and incursion into her newly acquired lands, the Polish State settled ethnic Poles (mainly those with a military background) along her eastern borderland corridor (the Kresy); this resulted in a growing and well-entrenched animosity between Poles and Ukrainians which continues to this day.
And contrary to some claims, rumours and wishful thinking, the name Pałaszczuk does not appear in any of the registers of the Polish nobility and our Queensland Premier is certainly not a Princess.
About me? With William F. Hoffman I co-authored First Names of the Polish Commonwealth: Origins & Meanings. Polish Genealogical Society of America: Chicago, USA; 1998.
In September 2018 I was asked by Warner Bros. International Television Production Australia to consult on the WDYTYA? Australian Television Series episode of Dr Karl Kruszelnicki which SBS Australia aired at 7.30pm on Tuesday 21 May 2019.
The lead researcher and field producer remarked: “it really helps with making sure we tell the right facts on our programme. You clearly know your stuff so it is great for us to have found you. Your help has been invaluable on this and I am very grateful.”
As well as holding an M.A. in Foreign Languages, William F. Hoffman is a former member of the Board of Directors of the Polish Genealogical Society of America (PSGA), a prolific writer, translator and professional linguist.
Revisions:
Article originally published The Chronicle: Toowoomba; 8 May 2018. Revised: 30 November 2023; 16 January 2023; 31 December 2021; 6 December 2021; 2 December 2021; 31 October 2021.
WARNING [RDA]: Some of the details contained in this article are graphic, can be quite confronting and may cause sadness and distress to some. Reader discretion is advised.
Many of the 2,636,000 million Poles deported and exiled to the wastelands of the Siberian Tundra, Kazakhstan and the Russian Arctic by the Soviet NKVD between February 1940 and June 1941 were children; they too were forced to work, to scavenge and forage about in order that their family might survive. CLICK picture above to view larger image.
This year 2022 marks the 77th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on Saturday 27 January 1945, the cessation of the Second World War after Japan’s formal surrender on Sunday 2 September 1945, and the ending of the Holocaust as we know it on Tuesday 8 May 1945; but did you know there were two major genocidal Holocausts of the Poles in the twentieth century: one perpetrated against the Jews by Hitler and his Nazi henchmen and one perpetrated against ethnic Poles by Stalin and his NKVD cohorts?
There were two major genocidal Holocausts of the Poles: one perpetrated against the Jews by Hitler and one perpetrated against ethnic Poles by Stalin! Image Copyright (C) George W. Helon: Australia; 2013-2024. CLICK picture above to view larger image.
Twenty-twenty-two also marks the 82nd anniversary of the beginning of the systematic deportation and exile of 2,636,000 Polish peoples from the fertile Eastern Borderlands (Kresy Wschodnie) of Poland to the inhospitable wastelands of the Siberian Tundra, Arkhangelsk, Kazakhstan, Kolyma, Uzbekistan and the Russian Arctic (collectively referred to as Siberia by many deported Poles) where they were enslaved, starved, repressed and murdered in ‘special settlement’ forced labour camps (‘Specposiolki’) and Gulags by the communist regime of the Soviet Union.
Location of the Soviet ‘Special Settlement’ Labour Camps (‘Specposiolki’) spread throughout the Archangelsk Oblast (Region) of the then U.S.S.R. CLICK picture above to view larger image.
Those Poles deported, exiled, and who suffered greatly under the yoke of Stalin’s communist utopia – and the hundreds of thousands who never returned – came to be collectively known as ‘Sybiracy’.
The United Nations has still not recognised the event, nor World leaders condemned; there will be no marches, no memorials or other events across the globe remembering this Forgotten Holocaust – the silence of the media will be deafening. Of the unspeakable suffering and loss: No one recalls! No one mourns! No one acknowledges! No one commemorates!
The silence of the media is deafening! CLICK picture above to view larger image.
Of this Forgotten Holocaust you will never read about because the Allies were complicit in burying it.
Not one person who ordered, organised, aided and abetted, or condoned the actions of the Soviet terror machine and the actions (and inactions) of the Allies has ever been outed, apprehended, charged, indicted, tried, or convicted of any wrong doing against the Polish peoples.
History’s greatest cover-up for which no one has been held responsible or accountable for! Image Copyright (C) George W. Helon: Australia; 2013-2024. CLICK picture above to view larger image.
Now the evening of Friday 9 and Saturday 10 February 1940 was one of the coldest winter nights on record (about -30C); families were woken in the middle of the night and given no more than 15 minutes to pack.
Most families were woken in the middle of the night and given no more than 15 minutes to pack. CLICK picture above to view larger image.
After the formalities of reading the orders of conviction, arrest, forfeiture of property and deportation, the families were evicted from their homes and marched at gunpoint to waiting trains, 50 to 60 men, women and children at a time were herded and crammed into rancid smelling cattle wagons to be transported in their thousands to Siberia.
So began the ‘Forgotten Holocaust’.
Many succumbed to starvation, frostbite, dehydration, mental derangement; some even resorted to eating their own extremities and cannibalism.
Some mothers smothered their babies and infants because there was no food and children were sometimes murdered because they wouldn’t stop crying.
The only view of the outside world many had during the horrific odyssey was through small openings under the roof top, or in the floor which were used for passing out excreta and corpses.
Fifty to 60 men, women and children at a time were herded and crammed into rancid smelling cattle wagons to be transported in their thousands to Siberia. CLICK picture above to view larger image.
After a most incomprehensible journey lasting for some over two or three weeks, families and communities were often dumped in the middle of nowhere, in the deep snow, with no shelter and wearing inappropriate clothing, no food; they endured unimaginable hardship and suffering.
Their destination was the northern and central regions of the Soviet Union; the area between the Arctic Circle in the north and the Mongolian border in the south: to the Siberian Tundra, Kazakhstan, Arkhangelsk, Kolyma and Uzbekistan – to Siberia!
Families and communities were dumped in the middle of nowhere. Their destination was the northern and central regions of the Soviet Union. CLICK picture above to view larger image.
The rations provided by the selfish and pitiless guards en route were meagre, infrequent and hardly palatable to say the least: black sour bread, often mouldy, dirty, or dry; fish soup (known as ‘Komsa’ or ‘Ukha’) which consisted of salted fish entrails: heads, bones, eyes – but rarely any meat; cabbage soup (known as ‘Shchi’, or ‘Szczi’ which was made from scraps and/or the core of the cabbage) and Russian ‘tea’ (called ‘Kipyatok’) which was made from boiled water flavoured with just about anything you could get your hands on like grass or general vegetation; but if you were fortunate enough, chicory or tea. Sometimes all the deportees received was just simply hot water.
The consequence of partaking in such putrid banquets was usually diarrhoea and dysentery!
In many cases the wagon doors were not opened until the transports were safely on Soviet territory.
Arriving at the Siberian labour camps and settlements red painted planks adorned with white letters read in Russian Cyrillic: “КТО НЕ РАБОТАЕТ ТОТ НЕ ЕСТ (KTO NIE RABOTAJET TOT NIE KUSZAJET – WHO DOES NOT WORK SHALL NOT EAT).”
Greeting the deported Poles on their arrival at the Siberian labour camps and settlements were red painted planks with white writing: “WHO DOES NOT WORK SHALL NOT EAT.” Image Copyright (C) George W. Helon: Australia; 2021-2024. CLICK picture above to view larger image.
The Poles were told by their captors to forget about Poland, that they would not see their homeland again, Poland was no more and they had to resign themselves to their new lives as Soviet citizens.
But unlike the tender mercies extended to the Jews by the Nazis, there were no such comforts awaiting many of the Poles when they arrived in Siberia. The Poles were thrown meagre tools and told “if you want to survive and live – build!”
Whereas Hitler’s preferred modus operandi for resolving his ‘Jewish question’ was mass murder on an industrial scale using gas and summary executions, Stalin’s M.O. for dealing with his ‘Polish issue’ was to inflict as much suffering as posible upon the Poles so that they would perish slowly, painfully and in a most excruciating way: deportation, starvation, frostbite, dehydration, mental derangement – the elements of nature!
But unlike the tender mercies extended to the Jews by the Nazis, there were no such comforts awaiting the Poles when they arrived in Siberia. Image Copyright (C) George W. Helon: Australia; 2013-2024. CLICK picture above to view larger image.
A complete cross-section of Polish society had been deported: government and civic officials, clergymen, academics, military personnel, industrialists, merchants, land owning veterans (soldier settlers) of the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1921 (‘Osadniks’) and land owning peasants (‘Kulaks’) – they were branded rebels and enemies of the Soviet State and no matter how bad the circumstances they had to adapt, and to survive they had to work; that meant working each day, no matter the weather, even in temperatures as low as -50°C below zero.
Children too were forced to work, to scavenge and forage about in order that their family might survive.
Working twelve to fourteen hours a day with no rest in the week many suffered from malnourishment and exhaustion, and after a very short period succumbed to disease – dysentery, typhoid, malaria and cholera – which ultimately led to their deaths.
Many Poles suffered from exhaustion, sickness and disease; many just froze to death. CLICK picture above to view larger image.
Of those eight members of my father’s family (HELON) deported during the evening of Friday 9 and Saturday 10 February 1940 to the ‘special settlement’ in Mucznaja, Arkhangelsk (see Location of the Soviet ‘Special Settlement’ Labour Camps (‘Specposiolki’) map, Camp number 82 boxed in red) only 4 survived. My mother’s (MISIURA) family fared not much better in their deportation to Ujma in Arkhangelsk (see above map, Camp number 45 boxed in blue); only 6 out of 10 members of her family survived.
On Friday 2 August 1940 my great grandmother Karolina Helon died after a short illness brought on by starvation; on Saturday 14 September 1940 her distraught husband Pawel followed her to the grave, and on Tuesday 28 January 1941, my only paternal aunt Jozefa perished from malnourishment and starvation. She had chewed and sucked the end of her fingers off!
Pawel and Karolina were buried in makeshift graves; Jozefa – even in death – was forced to endure more humiliation because the ground was frozen solid when she died and her scantly wrapped body was left for weeks in the doorway before the permafrost melted sufficiently for her to be finally buried, but alas not before the process of decomposition had begun.
But on Sunday 22 June 1941 when Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa and invaded the Soviet Union, the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, made a radio broadcast in which he held out the hand of friendship to the Russians.
Through Churchill, the Polish General Wladyslaw Sikorski initiated negotiations with Stalin for the release of all Poles, which included thousands of soldiers and officers kept in captivity through the vast expanses of the Soviet empire. The Polish-Soviet (Sikorski-Maisky) agreement brokered in London on Wednesday 30 July 1941 – with the blessing of the Allies (Britain and the United States) – only allowed for an ‘Amnesty’.
The Sikorski-Mayski Agreement was signed in London on Wednesday 30 July 1941. CLICK picture above to view larger image.
But the term ‘Amnesty’, applied to the many hundreds of thousands of civilians carried off by the NKVD, was regarded by most Poles as being both insulting and compromising. It begged the question of the deportees’ guilt, since, after all, only those who had been convicted of a crime can be given an ‘Amnesty’. Wherein lay the guilt of the many thousands of mothers and children, the sick and elderly, who had been swept up in the NKVD’s maw?
Of the 2.636 million Poles condemned and sentenced in absentia to an arduous life in exile, only 115,000 (or 4.36%) made it out alive and were officially accounted for! Where are the other 2,521,000 lost souls?
Of the 2,636,000 million Poles deported and exiled to the wastelands of (among other places) the Siberian Tundra, Kazakhstan and the Russian Arctic by the Soviet NKVD between February 1940 and June 1941, only 115,000 (or 4.36%) were officially accounted for. CLICK picture above to view larger image.
After the ‘Amnesty’, those who made it out of Siberia journeyed through Persia (now Iran) with the remnants of their families to displaced persons’ camps far away in Africa; later to join Anders’ Polish Army under British command to distinguish themselves at Monte Cassino and in other theatres of war fighting for the Allies, for a free Poland!
Stalin’s evil Soviet empire committed this Holocaust with the full knowledge of the Western Allies and the silence, secrecy and concealment surrounding the hardship, suffering, inhumane treatment, torture, murder, execution, and extermination of the Poles still continues to be perpetuated.
Stalin was grateful to the Western Allies for their conspiracy of silence, for preserving his good name. He was even more grateful after the Yalta, or Crimea Conference (Sunday 4 to Sunday 11 February 1945), when the Western Allies granted him the right to enslave all of Eastern, and half of Central Europe under the yoke of communism.
Sold-out and betrayed, the Poles were not even allowed to march in VE (Victory in Europe Day) commemorative parades until their first in London on Sunday 10 July 2005; and that was only after fierce campaigning – and coincidently on the 60th anniversary celebrtating the defeat of Nazi Germany and Japan in World War II.
Poland was sold-out and abandoned by the Allies at the Yalta Conference in February 1945. CLICK picture above to view larger image.
It is time that the silence, secrecy and concealment surrounding the wanton and inhumane treatment, hardship, suffering and ruthless genocide of the Poles at the hands of Stalin’s sadistic apprentices was acknowledged, remembered, recognized and proclaimed – it happened; we who survive are living testimony to that!
And sadly to this very day there are destitute descendants of those Polish citizens abandoned by the Allies still stranded and helpless in former satellite states of the Soviet Union!
The United States and Britain – supposedly the upholders of democracy and freedom – were then, and are still reluctant to acknowledge that they aided and abetted the Soviet communist regime at the expense of Poland and the freedom of her peoples as promised by the Allies.
The United States and Britain aided and abetted the Soviets at the expense of Poland and the freedom of her peoples. Image Copyright (C) George W. Helon: Australia; 2013-2024. CLICK picture above to view larger image.
It is time that those who were complicit and conspired to commit genocide and ethnic cleansing, those who aided and abetted in crimes against humanity, and those who abused, mistreated and murdered ethnic Poles are brought to account.
The persons so named are WANTED for genocide, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. Copyright (C) George W. Helon: Australia; 2013-2024. CLICK picture above to view larger image.
This is one of history’s greatest cover-ups! A whitewash for which no one has ever been held responsible or accountable for; a Pandora’s Box of home truths, broken promises, lies, conspiracy and betrayals.
This is one of history’s greatest cover-ups for which no one has ever been held responsible or accountable for; a Pandora’s Box of home truths, broken promises, lies, conspiracy and betrayals. Image Copyright (C) George W. Helon: Australia; 2013-2024. CLICK picture above to view larger image.
SYBIRACY! The Conundrum of Accounting for the Deported, Victims and Survivors!
As there are no definitive figures to be found from gleaning ‘official’ government, archival, institutional, historical, or scientific sources, determining the actual number of ‘Sybiraks’ deported and exiled to the wastelands of the Siberian Tundra, Arkhangelsk, Kazakhstan, Kolyma, Uzbekistan and the Russian Arctic by the Soviet NKVD between Saturday 10 February 1940 and Sunday 22 June 1941 is always going to be a problematic endeavour, a vehemently provocative matter, a rather contentious subject, and a perpetually debatable issue.
However, utilising the personal testimonies of the survivors and independent witnesses – and by systematically re-examining, re-assessing and re-evaluating extant sources of credible data – a comprehensive, unbiased and accurate conclusion can be reached to quantify the actual number of deportees and survivors.
Albeit some highly regarded and respectable historians, academics and scholars estimate and concede the number of deportees to be between 1.2 and 1.7 million (Piotrowski: 2002; p.11.) their figures are devoid of the actualities, dumbed-down for reasons of political and financial favours and pander to the whims of governments and their sensitivities to known wartime atrocity statistics revealed to them.
Not surprisingly the personal and horrendous testimony of my late father and dozens of other survivors consensually contradicted not only the accepted bureaucratic estimates as to the number of Poles deported to Siberia, but the number of those purported to have survived.
The synopsis of my studies, research, investigations, findings and conclusions were the subject of the article Kresowa Czystka Etniczna (Purging the Ethnic Borderlands) penned by the late Professor Roman Antoszewski (20 January 1935 – 27 November 2017) who was at the time editor of the Kurioza Naukowe (Scientific Curiosities) Journal which was published online in New Zealand (Antoszewski: 2005).
Screenshot of the article Kresowa Czystka Etniczna (Purging the Ethnic Borderlands) penned by the late Professor Roman Antoszewski who was at the time editor of the Kurioza Naukowe (Scientific Curiosities) Journal. CLICK picture above to view larger image.
In re-visiting the conundrum I corresponded with a number of Sybiraks from all parts of the world; those people who were actually part of history as it was being made, living witnesses to the historical and tumultuous events they were swept up in.
Aged or not, these observers, eyewitnesses and survivors were not only articulate in recounting their personal experiences, but steadfast in their observations and testimony:
M.O. (United States of America) – “Fifty to a wagon was often reported. I know for a fact that the train carrying my family was packed 50+.” T.P. (United Kingdom) – “My uncle and mum confirm 65 people to a wagon.” E.G. (Sweden) – “My mother said that there were 72 people in her wagon.” Z.H. (Australia, my father) – “There were over 60 of us in the cattle wagon I was in.”
Of the mass deportations and the journeys of the exiled Poles, Dr Keith Sword, Research Fellow at the University of London’s School of Slavonic Studies and East European Studies wrote: “after the trauma of being ejected from their home, the long train journeys to the east were a further terrifying experience for the deportees. Most were transported in freight wagons, packed with as many as 50 or 60 people to a truck” (Sword: 1994; p.19.).
The “transports, or ‘eszelons’” (Sword: 1994; p.19.) as they were called, were “organised in columns of 65 wagons” (Sword: 1994; p.15.).
Now according to noted author, lecturer and Professor of Sociology in the Social Science Division of the University of New Hampshire, Manchester (USA), Tadeusz Piotrowski, any ‘official’ figures do not take into account “both children and adults (who) froze to death by the thousands on their way to the stations and in the box cars in Poland and all along their long journey to their final destinations” (Piotrowski: 2002; p.16.).
Calculating the Number Deported, the Victims, and Survivors?
“Figures produced by the Ministry of Justice in London in 1949 suggested that around 1 660 000 Polish soldiers and civilians were deported to the USSR” (Allbrook & Cattalini: 1995; p.17.).
“In addition, there were approximately 647,000 POWs, Red Army recruits and concentration-camp victims in the Soviet Union as of June 1941” (Piotrowski: 2002; p.12.); so when coupled with the Ministry of Justices’ accounting for the number of soldiers and civilians deported, the number of deportees swept up in the NKVD’s maw would total 2,307,000 persons.
Now considering the observations, testimony and accounting of observers, eyewitnesses and survivors as previously stated, it is possible to judiciously reckon the average number of people per wagon for the purposes of statistical calculation, analysis and evaluation: (M.O.) 50 + (T.P. ) 65 + (E.G.) 72 + (Z.H.) 60 + (Keith Sword) 55, or 302 ÷ 5, which would equal 60.4 persons per wagon.
Sword (1994; pp.15 & 19.) states each ‘eszelon’ (transport) was made up of a “column of 65 wagons,” therefore if the number of wagons (65) is multiplied (X) by the average number of persons per wagon (60), then it can be reliably concluded there was on average 3900 persons per column being deported from each location.
Another promising approach to the “question of numbers is provided by Polish railway employees who, after all, had firsthand knowledge of the preparations being made for the deportations and who operated the trains bound for the interior of the Soviet Union. According to their reckoning, the occupation authorities utilized from 120 to 150 trains for each of the deportations” (Piotrowski: 2002; p.12.).
Having this vital evidence on hand and relying on additional information, it is estimated that: “110 trains were used in the first deportation (Friday 9/Saturday 10 February 1940), 160 in the second (Friday 12/Saturday 13 April 1940), 120 in the third (Friday 28/Saturday 29 June 1940), and 120 in the deportation of (Friday 13 – Sunday 22) June of 1941” (Piotrowski: 2002; p.12.).
Therefore, based on the fact that the transports were to be “organized in columns of 65 wagons” (Sword: 1994; pp.15 & 19.), and in view of the number of persons occupying them at estimates ranging from “sixty or so” (Sobierajski: 1996; p.25.), to “50 or 60 to a truck” (Sword: 1994; p.19; Allbrook & Cattalini: 1995; p.27.) it would be pragmatic to conclude the total number of persons deported would have been in the vicinity of 1,989,000, or 2,636,000 when coupled with the known “647,000 POWs, Red Army recruits and concentration camp victims in the Soviet Union as of June 1941” (Piotrowski: 2002; p.12.).
Of the 2.636 million Poles condemned and sentenced in absentia to an arduous life in exile, only “about 115,000” (Piotrowski: 2002; p.21.) were evacuated from Soviet territory and officially accounted for by the Allies. Some 2,521,000 ethnic Poles remain unaccounted for.
Doing the Math!
The first deportation of 9/10 February 1940 @ 60 (persons per wagon) X 65 (number of wagons per column) = 3900 persons X 110 transport columns = 429,000 persons deported.
The second deportation of 12/13 April 1940 @ 60 (persons per wagon) X 65 (number of wagons per column) = 3900 persons X 160 transport columns = 624,000 persons deported.
The third deportation of 28/29 June 1940 @ 60 (persons per wagon) X 65 (number of wagons per column) = 3900 persons X 120 transport columns = 468,000 persons deported.
The fourth deportation 13-22 June 1941 @ 60 (persons per wagon) X 65 (number of wagons per column) = 3900 persons X 120 transport columns = 468,000 persons deported.
Therefore, the total number of Sybiraks deported from February 1940 to June 1941 would have numbered in total 2,636,000 persons; being 1,989,000 civilians plus the 647,000 POWs, etc.
It is time the world acknowledged and accepted there were two major genocidal Holocausts of the Poles during World War 2: one perpetrated against the Jews by Hitler and his Nazi henchmen and one perpetrated against ethnic Poles by Stalin and his NKVD cohorts!
It is time that the silence, secrecy and concealment surrounding the wanton and inhumane treatment, hardship, suffering and ruthless genocide of our Polish kin, kith and brethren at the hands of Stalin’s sadistic apprentices was acknowledged, remembered, recognized and proclaimed – it happened! We who survive are living testimony to that.
It is time that those who ordered, orgainised, and were complicit and conspired to commit genocide and ethnic cleansing, those who aided and abetted in crimes against humanity, those who abused, mistreated and murdered ethnic Poles, and those who condoned the very same are brought to account.
References:
Allbrook, Maryon and Cattalini, Helen. The General Langfitt Story: Polish Refugees Recount Their Experiences of Exile, Dispersal and Resettlement. Australian Government Publishing Service: Canberra; 1995.
Piotrowski, Tadeusz. Deportation, “Amnesty,” and the Polish Diaspora. The Soviet Ethnic Cleansing Campaign Against the Poles During World War II. Occasional Papers in Polish and Polish American Studies, Number 12. The Polish Studies Program, Central Connecticut State University: New Britain, Connecticut; 2002.
Sobierajski, Telesfor. Red Snow: A Young Pole’s Epic Search for His Family in Stalinist Russia. Leo Cooper: London; 1996.
Sword, Keith. Deportation and Exile: Poles in the Soviet Union, 1939-1948 (Studies in Russia and East Europe). St Martin’s Press Inc. New York; 1994.
Revisions:
Article originally published 2013. Revised: 30 November 2023; 16 January 2023; 8 February 2022; 10 January 2022; 7 January 2022; 31 December 2021; 2 December 2021; 4 October 2021; 27 September 2021; 11 February 2021; 10 February 2021; 9 February 2021; 3 February 2021; 1 February 2021; 30 January 2021; 1 February 2020.
On Monday April 13, 2020 the media gave national columnist and self-appointed ‘know-it-all’ Andrew Bolt an opportunistic free-kick to vilify and demean victims of childhood sexual abuse, denigrating their suffering and trauma as “far-fetched” fantasy inspired by “false memories”.
“Chasing Justice!” This about Sums-Up Justice for Childhood Sexual Abuse Victims! Image Copyright (C) George W. Helon: Australia; 2020-2024. CLICK picture above to view larger image.
Bolt, who authored two syndicated articles – ‘Extreme Get-Pell Prejudice Exposed’ and ‘ABC Guilty as Sin of Cardinal Errors’ (The Chronicle, Monday 13 April 2020) – was given a whole page to vehemently spruik his opinion on the treatment, arrest, hearings, criminal trials, jailing, appeals, and finally the release of George Pell on April 7.
As an abuse victim survivor campaigner and advocate I believe the media owed it to victims, their families and support organisations to allow space for a firm right of reply.
Any attempt I had made to address Bolt’s diatribe had been hindered; I was effectively gagged by the mainstream press.
That being stated I went as far as submitting copy for a ‘paid advertorial’. YES – I was prepared to pay hundreds of dollars to get our voices heard, but the press refused to print it citing unspecified “legal reasons”.
I approached the editors of Real News Austalia who were only too willing to publish the story in full; immediately thereafter the story was picked-up by News Corp Australia and syndicated.
CBD Exodus More Sinister Than a Parking Problem! The obelisks planted into the ground in our CBD are inverted, or reversed; this is akin to pushing needles into a voodoo doll to elicit bad tidings upon a person, or in this case, the heart our community.
Inverted Obelisks: Toowoomba’s Own Da Vinci Code. Image Copyright (C) George W. Helon: Australia; 2019-2024. CLICK picture above to view larger image.
