This unique tour of the permanent exhibition allowed participants not only to explore our exhibition with a museum guide but also to listen to the accounts of the invited Sybiraks.

This was yet another installment of our special guided tour. This time, our guests who shared their stories on the Soviet deportations were Tadeusz Borowski-Beszta, Stanisława Tankiewicz, and Janina Rutkowska.

In the room with a display case containing items taken to Siberia, Tadeusz Borowski-Beszta, who was born in Łapy in 1934, told his story. His father was murdered in Katyn.

On April 13, 1940, then six-year-old Tadeusz was deported with his mother to the kolkhoz in Kazanga, Siberia. They returned to Poland in the spring of 1946. Tadeusz Borowski-Beszta, now a Doctor of Medicine specializing in clinical psychiatry, established the first hospice in Białystok in 1987. In 1992, he founded the first stationary hospice “House of Divine Providence” in Białystok, Poland and continues to work for the patients of the facility to this day.

Near the display case devoted to forced labor in Siberia, Stanisława Tankiewicz, born in 1946, shared her story. Her parents, Stefan and Józefa, were farmers, and her family cultivated patriotic traditions. In 1950, the family was deported to the Khabarovsk region in Siberia. They were separated from her father, who was sentenced to twenty-five years in a labor camp but was released after four years due to an amnesty following Stalin’s death. And at the time he rejoined his wife and daughter.

Stanisława Tankiewicz owes her survival to her mother, who took care of her in her father’s absence. In 1956, the family returned to Poland. They settled down in Sanok at first. Then, Stanisława moved to Białystok and became a pharmacist.

Our final guest, Janina Rutkowska, née Jasudowicz, was born in 1940 in the estate of Urniaże in the Kaunas Region. Her parents were Ludwika and Jan. The father was sentenced to ten years in a labor camp in 1945. Three years later, Janina, along with her mother and siblings – Wanda, Michał, and Tadeusz – was deported to the sovkhoz of Dierbiniec, Krasnoyarsk Krai. They left the Soviet Union after reuniting with her father, who had been released from the labor camp. The family returned to Poland in 1955.

After returning, Janina finished the Pedagogical High School and the University of Warsaw. She settled down in Białystok, where, for many years, she worked as a teacher and school principal. She is active in the local Branch  of the Association of Siberian Deportees and the Community of the Grandchildren of the Sybiraks.

We sincerely thank everyone for participating in this extraordinary tour.