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<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\nAfter two days of negotiations, the Mexican government announced that it would accept 5,000 Poles evacuated “from Asia” for the time of war in Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Polish refugees \u2014 ultimately in number of 1,500 \u2014 reached America by ship and then they were transported to the city of Leon by train. Right there, a welcoming committee with the mayor in the lead was waiting on the platform decorated with Polish and Mexican flags. The orchestra played “Mazurek D\u0105browskiego” (“Poland Is Not Yet Lost”).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The place of the whereabouts of Poles for the hacienda of Santa Rosa was chosen near Leon. It was closed housing estate with its own administration and infrastructure, school, common room and medical point. According to the assumptions of the authorities \u2014 closed and cut off from the local community. In fact, on the second day, Mexican bachelors appeared at the fence, intrigued by the Slavic beauty of the newcomers, and the Polish boys jumped over the fence at night to seat by the fire with their local peers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “This is how the political assumptions collapsed in a few minutes” \u2014<\/a> said Piotr Piwowarczyk, screenwriter and producer of the documentary \u201cSanta Rosa. Odyssey in the Rhythm of Mariachi\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Piotr Piwowarczyk is a journalist and filmmaker. He has lived in Mexico since 2008. \u2014 In 2011, I met the Polish ambassador to Mexico. We talked about Poles who stayed in Santa Rosa. She encouraged me to make a film about it. So together with S\u0142awomir Gr\u00fcnberg, the director, we started looking for people who could become the film characters. And that’s how I found Joanna in the Internet. She didn’t need to be persuaded to go to Mexico \u2014 the filmmaker joked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Joanna Matias is a lawyer raised in Szczecin. It’s long been her dream to go to Mexico, necessarily with her father, who was born there \u2014<\/a> as a child of two Sybiraks \u2014 young, but already experienced by the fate: Alina and J\u00f3zef Wierci\u0144ski. This was their story:<\/p>\n\n\n\n In April 1940, J\u00f3zef Wierci\u0144ski, coming from near Bia\u0142ystok (his parents worked in a hospital in Choroszcz near Bia\u0142ystok, his father was a veteran of the Polish war) is taken by the Soviets to Kazakhstan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two years later, when under the “amnesty” announced by Stalin for Polish citizens, there is a chance to leave the Soviet Union with forming Anders’ Army, J\u00f3zef does not qualify to be a soldier. Once severely beaten by the Soviet officers, he never regained his health. So he joins the thousands of civilians who are dragging “with Anders” through the Middle East: women, children and men, just like him, unable to fight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the way, he meets Alina Srzedzi\u0144ska, born in Bia\u0142ystok and, like him, experienced with the nightmare of Siberia. They fall in love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They will get married \u2014 surrounded by other Polish refugees \u2014 at the Santa Rosa hacienda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two children, Bogdan and Janina, are born in Mexico to Wierci\u0144ski, and the family plans to emigrate to the United States. Unfortunately, Joseph dies. \u2014 Staying in Mexico extended my grandfather’s life anyway \u2014 Joanna Matias once told us \u2014 he managed to become a husband and father…<\/p>\n\n\n\n The 24-year-old widow finds out that her family found each other after the war in \u015awinouj\u015bcie. With the last transport from Mexico \u2014 through the United States, Germany \u2014 she manages to return to Poland within its new borders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alina starts a new life and remarries J\u00f3zef Matias. She doesn\u2019t speak a lot about her first husband. \u2014 Grandpa Matias was a jealous man. He cut out Grandpa Wierci\u0144ski, literally: he even cut up photos from Mexico with my mother and my father Bogdan, removing J\u00f3zef \u2014 said Joanna Matias during the meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mexico is remembered in the Matias family with great fondness and kindness. Bogdan, Joanna’s father, who left Santa Rosa as a four-year-old, kept many warm memories. \u201cWe will go there someday\u201d \u2014 they repeat to themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 \u201cGrandma died, and Christmas was soon after. My father and I, we both said: we are going to Mexico, we will find our grandfather’s grave \u2014 says Joanna Matias.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She starts looking for information, photos and people who know anything about Santa Rosa. She scours the internet, asks questions on forums. This is how they find themselves with Mr. Piwowarczyk and Mr. Gr\u00fcnberg. The result of a joint trip to Mexico is the documentary \u201cSanta Rosa. Odyssey in the rhythm of mariachi “, which we watched together at the Sybir Memorial Museum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n