Marian Jonkajtys’ potato masher - Muzeum Pamięci Sybiru

Marian Jonkajtys’ potato masher

Felicja Jonkajtys and her children: Edward, Marian and Józefa were deported from Szczuczyn to Siewierny in Pawlodar Oblast (Kazakhstan).

“They came on April 13, [1940] in the night. Mother took everything, she could. She even took a potato masher. How could she know, that where we were going, no one was going to mash potatoes. Here hardly you had cooked a potato you ate it. Who would mash a potato! For me a potato masher was ‘a great friend’. When I went to the fields, I took it with me. I thought that thanks to it I would be able to defend myself from wolfs…”

(from Marian Jonkajtys’ memoirs)

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