This article by Rosemary Stockdale was published in the Parish Magazine
When war broke out on 1st September 1939 life changed overnight for Poland and all her people. One such person was Janina Macsimowich (later Kot). The first 2 ½ years were spend avoiding working for the Germans but in March 1942 she was called up and sent to work in a fish processing factory in Cuxhaven where conditions were extremely hard. In summer of 1943 she was snet to work on a farm outside Cuxhaven due to shortage of fish. After the Summer she returned to the fish factory a cycle repeated in 1944 and was there in May 1945 when Cusxhaven was relieved by the British.
Her husband to be J Kot was 20 when the Germans invaded Poland on 1st September 1939 which was followed, 2 weeks later, by Russian Red Army invading from the East. A few months later 13th April 1940 the family was forced out of their home and boarded a Kattle wagon, classified as a ‘Dangerous Element’ on a journey east that took nearly a month, part on the transsiberian railway, to reach their destination of Kustanay from where lorries took 25 families including children and elderly to state farms, in isolated villages on Russian steppes, about 50 miles away called Worobiowka. The local villagers, deported from Ukraine in 1935 welcomed them and they started in their new hard rural life. In summer of 1941 the Germans invaded the Soviet Republic and all young and not so young men were conscripted into the Soviet Republic army to work for victory. In winter of 1941 the , US entered the war, alarming Stalin and negotiations started to via Polish diplomats to release Polish people from prisons and camps to create a polish army. However Russians did not have arms, tenrs or food so after the amnesty Brisitsh and Americans agreed with Russia to take Polish people from Russia to Middle East. In January 1942 they were conscripted by Russia to join the Polish army and eventually arrived in Pah-Levi in Persia (Iran) in April 1942 and then Tehran and then onto a training camp near Bagdad and onto Palestine in May ’42 and Suez Canal.
With situation improving in North Africa the army decided to send some 15,000 soldiers to South Africa to recuperate. The ’Mauretania’ transported Kot, in great comfort, to Durban and by train to Natal where they were pampered with food and drink for 3 months. Then the US and British armies started to prepare for the invasion of Europe and after months at sea Kot arrived in Grenock, Scotland. From there he was sent to Berwick and joined the newly created 1st Polish Armed Division in Light Anti Aircraft Artillery. After a brief holiday touring the Highlands, he was sent with his division and their guns to defend Tilbury Docks. After successful Normandy landings he then went by boat to Normandy and fought his way through France, Belgium and Holland where they spend the winter of 1944 – 45 waiting for the US armies to successfully cross the Rhine and start their push across Germany. In March 45 Kot entered Germany with no passport and successfully occupied the Nestfollen Zone for 2 full years until 1947. The Geneva Convention prevented them from repaying their enemies for the atrocities Kot and his country men had suffered under them. In April 1947 Kot sailed to the Uk and joined Polish Resettlement Corps (P.R.C.) and was snet to Tweedsmuir camp in May 1947.
He had met his future wife Janina previously in a Displaced Persons Camp who after the war was then sent to work in the Cotton Mills. In 1948 they were married in Bury Lancs and then returned to Tweedsmuir Camp, Thursley to start their married life. When their children were born Kot went to London to find work and for next 30 years worked night shifts at Heinz. On retirement, following a partial stroke, he came back to live in Thursley, the village he had fallen in love with, to enjoy life with his wife, children and grandchildren.