This family tree is centred around my Mother, Wanda Firko, who was born in Oszmiana District, Wilno voivodship, Poland in about 1925.  Today, Oszmiana is in Belarus and is known as Ashmyany, Wilno is now known as Vilnius and is Lithuania.

The Firko name seems to originate from Hungary and the earliest records are dated:

1476 - Providus Firko, a business agent of the prince of Oszko (near Szombathely not far from the modern border of Austria and Hungary), and

1477: Vasko Firko a labourer (or possibly a troublemaker) at the same palace. 

The most ancient Polish record is of Iohanni Firka apparently paying his tithe in Lobznicza (possibly modern Łobżenica, near Bydgoszcz, Poland) in 1488.

In modern Polish and a couple of other Slavic languages, firko has the connotation of obtaining something for free, it also means 'a small bird, akin to a sparrow'. Unfortunately, volumes 42 to 45 of the annual 'Slavia Occidentalis' first published in 1921 list the meaning of Firko as 'a person of little worth'.

It seems likely that various members followed the tides of various wars and settled in Croatia, Bohemia, Austria, Galicia, Poland, the Vilnius area of today's Lithuania and onwards to Belarus and Russia.  There is a large concentration of Firko in the Minsk area of modern Belarus and even at least one family of Firko who classed themselves as Polish in Tbilisi, Georgia. Their ancestor, the unknown grandfather of Stefan Firko, was probably one of the 9000 Poles deported there after having been taken prisoner of war by the Russians during Napoleon's invasion of Russia. Stefan's son (and my grandfather's namesake) Kazimierz fought with the Polish Army under General Berling and was highly decorated.

There are many derivatives of the name such as Firka, the female version of the name and Firki, its plural.  Other variants, especially in the US immigration records are Ferko, Lirko, Sirko, Tirko, Virko and Wirko, amongst many others.  Firkowski and Firkowicz are relatively rare and there is even a German version spelled Virchow but pronounced Firko. According to the Register of Ancient Polish Surnames, Virchow is a Slav-German name first appearing around 1450, but no further information is provided. Where possible, I have used the Firko version.

I won't go into the history of Poland, suffice to say that it has had a chequered history.  Following the November 1830 uprising against the Tsar, thousands of Poles were deported to 'Siberia' by the Okhrana, the forerunner of the Soviet-era NKVD, KGB and today's FSB.  The same happened after the January uprising of 1863 and again in mass deportations under Stalin in 1940 and 1941. I must stress that "deportation" in this sense does not mean the 2014 understanding of the word - the legal expulsion of foreigners or illegal immigrants back to their point of origin. Rather, it means the forced expulsion at gunpoint and transportation to a distant part of the USSR/Russia from which there was very little hope of return.

In the aftermath of the 1830 uprising, there seems to have been a split in the Firko clan in Oszmiana.  One member avoided arrest by the Cheka by travelling South to Stanislawow, today's Ivano-Frankivsk in the Ukraine.  He settled with Firko relatives in the Tlumacz area and, according to family legend, his son became vice-consul of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to Germany, in Hamburg, a service for which he was awarded the title 'Ritter von' and became Ignacy Ritter von Firko.  His grandson, Henryk, studied medicine in Berlin and upon the outbreak of the First World War, enlisted in the Austro-Hungarian army, serving in Serbia.  He was wounded twice and when Poland was reconstituted in 1919, he joined the Polish Army.  Unfortunately he was one of the more than 22,000 Polish military and police officers executed by the NKVD in what is collectively known as the Katyn massacre in March 1940.  There is anecdotal evidence that at least a further 15 members of my extended family were killed by the NKVD.

Members of the Firko clan from the Tlumacz and Zlotowice areas emigrated to Pennsylvania during the great migration of the first decades of the twentieth century and members from the Oszmiana area emigrated to, generally, New Jersey.

POLAND

My branch of the Firko Family lived in Alekisejcy, a sub-hamlet of Kolczuny, about 5 kilometres South-West of Oszmiana and not far from Horodniki. The extended family lived in Oszmiana town, Horodniki and Grauzyszki areas in the district.  My  grandfather, Kazimierz, supposedly raised horses in Kolczuny and, according to Wanda, he was killed in a vehicular accident when she was a toddler, perhaps 3 to 4 years old. In fact he died of consumption (TB) in 1928.

Wanda's  mother, Eleanora (nee Bartoszewicz), remarried and went to live in Horodniki but died soon afterwards.  According to family lore, Eleanora's new husband was unwilling to feed extra mouths and threw Wanda and Henryk out of his household.

Wanda was taken in by her aunt, Janina Orlicka (nee Bartoszewicz) and lived in Święty Duch, now known as Budiyonovka, on the south-western edge of Oszmiana town. Henryk was taken in by his uncle, Wladyslaw Bartoszewicz and went to live in Mejszagola (Maisiagala), North of Wilno.

On 1 September 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland and on 17 September, the Soviet Union also invaded Poland.  To cut a very long story short, Stalin ordered the mass deportation of Poles from the territories under his control and the execution of over 22,000 military officers.  Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians were also deported on a massive scale. The first deportation of Poles took place on 10 February 1940, three successive mass deportations occurred, the last one being in June 1941, just days before Hitler launched his attack on the Soviet Union.

Wanda was deported to Borovlyanka, Altai Krai, Siberia, in probably the June 1940 deportation.  She was not due for deportation at this time.  Being, officially at least, an orphan, she was due to be deported in June 1941.  It seems that she had spent the previous night at a relative's house in Horodniki and had returned just as Janina Orlicka and the rest of the Bartoszewicz family were being rounded up for deportation by the NKVD.  She tried to join the family but was prevented from doing so by one of the guards.  As the carts moved off, she followed them imploring to be taken as she could not stay on her own. Her pleas were finally answered when a guard jumped off, grabbed her and threw her onto the cart to join the rest of the family.

This act of 'kindness' was to have far-reaching effects. As my great-aunt Halina Bartoszewicz described it, once the family had received its 'amnesty', they were finding it impossible to board any trains to get away from Borovlyanka.  The station-master was a very nasty piece of work and refused permission for any Pole to travel on a 'Soviet train'.  Wanda spent a couple of days stealing beets from nearby fields and Halina managed to bribe the station-master with the sacks of beets that Wanda had 'collected'.  They were then allowed to board the next train which, fortunately, just happened to be heading in the right direction, West. 
  
 In the meantime, Wladyslaw Bartoszewicz had been murdered near his home in Mejszagola by either the NKVD or anti-Polish Lithuanians and uncle Henryk had enlisted in the Red Army (or had been forcibly conscripted) into the Red Army only to be killed in action in Kolobrzeg around  18 March 1945.

Following the attack by Hitler, Stalin was persuaded by Churchill to release the Poles he had deported.  All these Poles, by all accounts numbering in excess of 1 million, were "amnestied" and were "encouraged" to form a Polish Army to fight alongside the Red Army. The Poles started to make their way to enlistment areas in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

The Polish government-in-exile in London supported General Wladylsaw Anders in his bid to transport as many refugees as possible to Iran and by August 1942 had rescued some 115,000 from Soviet captivity. Many of the men fought with the 1st and 2nd Corps of the British Army. My father, Jozef Nowicki, served in the Italian campaign with the 2nd Armoured Brigade of the 2nd (Polish) Corps.  Thousands of the civilians were given asylum in locations as varied as Uganda, Kenya, Mexico, New Zealand and India, where Wanda found refuge.

Two camps functioned in India. The largest was at Valivade where Wanda ended up,  Another, mainly for orphans, was opened at Balachadi in Gujarat, thanks to the Maharajah of Nawanagar, who had an attachment to Poland, through his friendship with pianist Ignacy Paderewski.

The camp at Valivade had the character of a small Polish town, with a church, schools, common rooms, a cinema, a cafe, and a market. Families were provided with an allowance via the Polish government-in-exile. Wanda was part of the camp Fire Brigade and her friend, Kazia Lyzniak, probably gave her my father's name for penfriendship. It was in Valivade that there appears to have been a falling out with Janina Orlicka.  From what I can piece together, Janina wanted Wanda to remain with her and help care for Eliza and Eugeniusz.  There is also a rumour that Janina had changed Wanda's birthdate to be one year younger in order to prevent her from joining some sort of organisation which would have broadened her horizons even more.  Whatever the truth, Wanda moved into her own quarters and lived her own life. In 2009, Halina Bartoszewicz told me that this was the best thing that Wanda had ever done for herself.

After the war most of the refugees, having suffered in Soviet labour camps and 'special settlements' were wary of returning to Poland where a Moscow-backed communist regime had been installed. The camps were finally closed in 1948, and the refugees settled in the UK, Australia, Canada and other countries, while a small number returned to Poland.  Wanda arrived in London aboard the SS Ormonde on 8 February 1948 where she was met by my father and to the chagrin of the Orlicki and Bartoszewicz families, she was 'whisked off' to Yorkshire and kept infrequent contact with them. I remember my parents and I driving to "Luton" to visit Halina Bartoszewicz in about 1967 and I was surprised to be introduced to an elderly lady and being told she was my grandmother.

My father, Jozef Nowicki was born in 1914 in Radomysl, a small village some 15 kilometres to the South of Luck (Lutsk) in Wolyn (Volhynia) in modern Western Ukraine.  My grandfather, Teodor and grandmother, Agrypina (nee Kuceba) appear to have been fairly prosperous, owning their own house and land.  Jozef does not appear to have had any form of military service prior to World War 2, which is unusual as it was the norm for young men to perform at least 2 years of conscripted military service.  It is possible that he was exempted this service as he was a farmer.  On 19 September 1939, Radomysl was occupied by the Soviets, in keeping with the Ribbentrop-Molotov agreement.  The NKVD immediately started to compile lists of 'politically suspect' people who were rounded up and deported in the first masss deportation of 10 February 1940.

Jozef was arrested by the NKVD somewhere in Mikolay'iv Oblast on 6 February 1940.  What he was doing there will forever remain a mystery but he may have been trying to get to Odessa.  He remained in custody until 24 March 1940 when he was transferred to Kherson prison.  He was tried by an NKVD 'troika' on 1 August 1940, accused of being an 'instructor of Polish citizenship'.  The 'troika' initially sentenced him to death but changed that sentence to 5 years in a corrective hard labour camp (Russian ITL - ispravlyenie trudnoiye lagiery) and sent him to an unnamed ITL in Archangielsk oblast.

In his deposition with the Anders Army, Jozef described the camp as consisting of wooden huts built directly on mud and covered with a tarpaulin roof. The regime was brutal with a constant threat of execution. Each prisoner had to fell 150 metres of timber. He did not elaborate on this quota so I do not know if this was a daily requirement or a weekly one.  He stated that if a prisoner, and there were some 500 in this ITL, achieved his quota, he would receive 50 kopecks, 900 grams of bread and be issued with an item of clothing, either padded jacket, padded trousers or boots.  The 'politruks' (NKVD political officers) constantly brainwashed the prisoners stating that they would convert all Poles to "1000% communists".

After Hitler launched his attack on the Soviet Union, Stalin 'amnestied' the Poles he had deported.  Jozef was 'amnestied' on either 8 or 15 August 1941 at which time he was in Karakalpashkh, Uzbekistan.  How or when he arrived there, he did not state, nor did he describe what he was doing there. He did not detail the next 6 months of his time in Uzbekistan but on 14 March 1942, he registered for service with the Anders Army in Kermine, Uzbekistan.  He was enlisted into 23 Infantry Regiment, 7 Infantry Division on 21 March and completed his basic training on 3 May 1942.

7 Infantry Division was relocated to Krasnovodsk on the Caspian Sea during the period 5 to 9 August 1942. The 663 Officers and 13,386 Other Ranks of the Division were evacuated from Krasnovodsk to Pahlevi (today's Bandar-e-Azali) in Iran on 12 August.  These 14,000 people, which included civilians, were transported on two colliers the Kaganovich and the Zdanov.  Coincidentally, Wanda was also evacuated aboard the Zdanov but it is unlikely that she encountered my father as it was impossible to move once they had boarded.  As other evacuees have described, the conditions were horrendous, bodily functions had to be performed where you were and the smell was wretched.  Despite these conditions, all of them describe the absolute joy they felt at leaving 'Stalin's paradise'.

The two colliers arrived in Pahlevi on the evening of 13 August and all the people were quarantined in an encampment a few kilometers from the port.  The civilians, who had been disguised as soldiers, were taken to camps in Tehran and the actual soldiers spent the next 3 to 6 days being deloused, cleaned up and issued with British Army tropical uniforms.  Between 16 and 19 August, the Division was transported to Khanaquin (North of Baghdad) in Iraq. Jozef spent the next five months in  further training and on 1 February 1943, he was seconded to 7 Engineer Battalion where he got himself into a spot of bother.  On 15 July, he went Absent Without Leave for 1 day when he went to Baghdad.  On return, he was sentenced to 7 days of Restriction of Privileges and 2 days Loss of Pay. He was then returned to 23 Infantry Regiment but the charge did not seem to affect his career as he was allocated to Headquarters Company.

It seems that being an infantryman did not appeal to my father and on 12 October 1943 he transferred to 2 Tank Brigade.  He graduated from Military Heavy Vehicle Driver Course no. 271/43 which was conducted from 18 October to 22 December 1943, and returned to 5 Squadron, 2 Tank Battalion. By April 1944, Jozef found himself on active service in Italy, serving with the Reserve Tank Reinforcement Squadron of the Brigade.  The squadron was not called into action at the battle of Monte Cassino from 11 to 18 May 1944.

On 21 September 1944, my father was officially brought onto the strength of 1szy Pułk Ułanów Krechowieckich  - 1st Krechowiecki Lancers Regiment.  He was allocated to Command Troop, Reconnaissance Squadron where he was the radio operator on a Stuart Recce tank, callsign 'Kret' (mole).  I have no documentary evidence but I believe that this tank was allocated to the Regiment's Second in Command, Major Leon Jankowski. Jankowski and my father appear to have first met in 23 Infantry Regiment where Jankowski was a 2nd Lieutenant, they seem to have followed each other through various transfers and, through my own military experience that any commander worth his salt surrounds himself with resourceful and capable people that he knows and trusts. I am guessing that Jankowski mentored my father and when he arrived in the unit, Jankowski snapped him up as his radio operator along with my godfather, Jan Kopaczynski as driver.  Just prior to his transfer, 1 Pulk Ulanow Krechowieckich had been in combat at Ancona during 1 and 2 September and was overdue for a rest.  The regiment was pulled back from the front on 3 September and enjoyed a long period of rest and recuperation.

By 11 April 1945, the regiment was back in combat, this time at Bologna, (in an odd coincidence, on the Western Divisional Flank of where Edward Fitzpatrick (a relative of my late wifewas fighting with his unit, The Enniskilling Fusiliers).  After a 10-day battle, the city was taken by the 4th (Wolynska) Infantry Brigade and the Krechowiecki tanks rolled into the city.  Bologna was to be the last battle for the regiment during which it had suffered 3 killed, 61 wounded, 8 of its tanks had been destroyed and another 8 had been damaged.  This is probably the first and only time that Jozef had the misfortune to experience full-blown combat although he may have been involved in minor skirmishes elsewhere.  The war ended on 8 May 1945 and the 2nd Armoured Brigade was garrisoned in Loretto where it conducted post-war activities until it was transferred to England, Jozef leaving Italy on the SS Bedford on 23 July 1946.

In England, it was stationed in Sand Hutton, near York.  The British government, faced with about 200,000 Polish soldiers most of whom had no intention of returning to a communist-dominated Poland formed the Polish Resettlement Corps. The PRC was designed to assist the Poles to transit to civilian life in Britain.  Unfortunately, the Trades Union Congress took a dim view of this and ensured that the Poles received only basic assistance and could only obtain employment in jobs well below their capability.  The Trades Unions started a 'Poles go Home' campaign but this petered out after a few years by which time many had emigrated to Canada, USA and Australia.

Within 10 years of the end of the war, the Poles had set up Polish Clubs, attended Polish Churches, sent their children to Polish School at the weekend and had been generally accepted by the rest of British society.  The Poles had reconciled themselves to the fact that the Poland they had known was lost to them so they just got on with making a success of their life in a foreign land.  Today, there is an ever-dwindling number of Poles that arrived during and shortly after World War 2. The overwhelming majority of them never told their children and grandchildren of the extraordinary privations and hurt they had experienced and this family tree has been compiled in memory of my Mother and Father, two (not so) ordinary people.