Regina

Seperated sister- common name Renia

After the Amnesty

The rest of the family set off south from Kotlas some months later and it’s during this journey that Renia ( 13 years old) gets off the train in search of food ( leaving family in cattle truck ) the train is gone when she gets back.

Tadzik recalls that he and his father Stanislaw made their way back to the station but Renia was nowhere to be found.

Renia does get to Tashkent on her own - but the door to the west has now been closed. A Russian family in Tashkent take her in and she becomes part of their family. She lives with them for nearly 5 years until 1946/47? (two years after WW2 fininshed). By then Russia had re-established some of the transport infrastructure and Renia (now 21) could make her way back home to Poland. Despite her Russian family pleading for her to stay - her Polish roots were too deep not to follow back. Later Jurek recalls how she mentioned to him how good the Russian family were to her - but despite this she never wrote to them - her hatred of Stalin and the Russian system stopped her from doing so - something that she regretted in later years.

When Renia got back to Poland she found Elzbieta now married as Szczerbinska and lived in Warsaw. It is the Szczerbinski family who looked after Regina ( Renia ) after she got separated from the family in Russia.

This bear picture was taken 15th Aug 1946 in Jelenia Gora and signed Regina -

sure it's the same bear that's lifting Lila two years later. See Stanislaw page.