In April 1940 Maria Dzikowska, along with her children: Wanda, Józef and Hubert were taken to Lobanovo (a village in Kazakhstan). Maria’s husband was arrested and send to a labor camp in Mariinsk. The family met in 1943 and returned to Poland three years later.

Among the items, that Dzikowscy took with them to Kazakhstan, was a zither bought by Edward Dzikowski in 1914 in Wien.

 “One of the soldiers, telling lies, said to my mum: >>Your husband is waiting for you in a freight car.<< That made my sister, to put a zither into a basket. Because of its shape, the instrument didn’t take much space in the basket. After the years it was a family heirloom.”

from Józef Dzikowski’s memoirs