When we left off last week Aniela Plonka had arrived in England in January of 1944 and taken training as an RAF flight mechanic working on Lancaster bombers. They were the bombers that played such a critical role in subduing the German war machine. Aniela and Czeslaw (Chester) were married in England in February of 1945 and it was there, in Edinburgh, Scotland, that Aniela had the first of her six children. He was born July 30, 1945 and was named Jerzy Czeslaw Plonka, but we here in the Pass know him as George aka Doctor Cool. In telling her story Aniela goes on to say, “When the war was over, my husband’s mother wrote us and told us not to come back home. “Stay where you are. If you come back, you will be sent back to Siberia,” she wrote. She also told us my mother was alive and had been ordered by the Russians to leave her home and go onto the Polish side of the border because her house was in newly acquired Russian territory. She also said in her
Continuing on with Aniela’s story we find her in Alma-Ata in 1942, in Kazakhstan struggling to make her way west. Aniela goes on to say in her memoirs, “In Alma-Ata, we worked in the cotton fields for a while. We lived in a small cottage built of clay and straw. When we lay down at night, we could see the stars shining through the holes in the roof. There, I got sick with a severe case of dysentery, and I thought I wouldn’t survive. One morning, a Russian soldier came to our door and said he was collecting all the Polish people he could find to get them to one place for a transport. The place was near Tashkent. He was sorry to see me so sick. He put us on a wagon and gave us some bread and boiled water to drink.
Part I
Aniela Plonka at age 18 just before she was taken
Many times I have delved into the past history of a Pass immigrant family and in so doing have been taken on a tremendous journey of adversity, perseverance, tragedy and eventual success. That’s why I love digging deeper into these stories. The Pass was built, in large part, by immigrants who chose Canada and ultimately the Crowsnest Pass, working within our logging and coal mining industries, to rebuild their lives and find opportunity. Amongst us, living in Hillcrest, is a man by the name of George Plonka, more commonly known as Doctor Cool, a colourful character who can fix just about any appliance. Recently I came across the story of George’s mother Aniela and would like to share it with you the readers. Aniela had six children and wound up in Fernie where she passed in 2009. George is her oldest son and was born in Edinburgh, Scotland just after the war ended. Be forewarned, this story will prob