This whole story begins in a town in Poland. However, proper spelling of Polish place names was not a major concern of the case worker who prepared my father's transfer form. The town from which Mrs. Proniewicz, her two children, and my father were
evacuated in 1944 was alternately spelled Iwaniewicze, Iwaczewicze, and Iwacewicze. After my friend Evan (who had lived briefly in Poland) and I investigated further, we decided that the town in question was Iwacewicze.
Iwacewicze is in the Brest Voblast (province) of current-day Belarus. However, until 1939 it was part of Poland. In 1939 it was ceded to the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR) under a secret agreement with Nazi Germany. In 1942, the Nazis seized the provincial capital, Brest, decimating the Jewish population. In July, 1944, the Red Army retook the city. In 1945, the province officially became part of the BSSR and the majority of its Polish population was expelled.
According to the testimony given by Mrs. Proniewicz when she turned my father over to UNRRA custody in 1947, she was asked to take care of him in March 1942 by the operators of a children's transport. As mentioned above, they were evacuated from Iwacewicze in 1944 to Weiden, in northern Bavaria.
I have some questions about the reported time frame of the Proniewiczes' departure from Iwacewicze:
1. What military action in the area between May 1941 and March 1942 would have resulted in the necessity to gather orphans into a children's transport?
- The German offensive in the area began in June 1942, completing in August.
2. What agency would have organized this effort? How would an orphan have been assigned to Mrs. Proniewicz? Did she volunteer, or would she have had a soldier or relief worker show up at her door with a baby saying "Here, have an orphan!"?
3. In 1944, they would have been fleeing the Red Army. They ended up in Weiden, which was then under Nazi control
- Why would a Polish family run to Nazi-ruled territory?
- The mass expulsion of Poles from Belarusian territory didn't begin until 1945.
Cross-referencing the testimony with the widely-accepted history of the region in 1941-1944 has given me reason to question a number of details of Mrs. Proniewicz's report. Anyone with any information on the background of these events is encouraged to post a reply to this entry, or contact me via email.
