Although Frozen Tears tells the story of the Karpinski Family’s ‘long series of travels, or adventures’, the sub-title The Polish Wartime Odyssey is employed – rather than a Polish Wartime Odyssey – because theirs encapsulates that of many thousands of Poles who came to Britain during the Second World War.
Deported by the Soviets to ‘Siberia’ – more properly, in the Karpinski’s case, to the forests of North-Western Russia – they were released under an amnesty, transported south to the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, thence to British-mandated Iraq, to Africa, and so to the United Kingdom.
Variations in this routing by those they associated with include the 1939 Polish Armed-Forces’ exodus following internment in Romania, to France, and with the fall of France, to Britain.
Others include those followed by Poles having schooled in Palestine, or sent directly from Palestine to the RAF in Britain, or fighting alongside the British Eighth Army up the length of Italy.
It is out of fashion to talk of ‘winning’ wars, but whoever might be held to be the winners of the Second World War, there is no doubt that the Poles – with safety pledges against Hitler unfulfilled by allies Britain and France; and for all their gallantry – were the losers.
This odyssey, though, is not about gallantry, but about the indomitability of the human spirit.
Deported by the Soviets to ‘Siberia’ – more properly, in the Karpinski’s case, to the forests of North-Western Russia – they were released under an amnesty, transported south to the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, thence to British-mandated Iraq, to Africa, and so to the United Kingdom.
Variations in this routing by those they associated with include the 1939 Polish Armed-Forces’ exodus following internment in Romania, to France, and with the fall of France, to Britain.
Others include those followed by Poles having schooled in Palestine, or sent directly from Palestine to the RAF in Britain, or fighting alongside the British Eighth Army up the length of Italy.
It is out of fashion to talk of ‘winning’ wars, but whoever might be held to be the winners of the Second World War, there is no doubt that the Poles – with safety pledges against Hitler unfulfilled by allies Britain and France; and for all their gallantry – were the losers.
This odyssey, though, is not about gallantry, but about the indomitability of the human spirit.
