It is 85 years since the first of four mass deportations to Siberia and other areas, carried out by the NKVD of the Soviet Union. They began on 10 February 1940 and lasted until June 1941. As the years go by, this tragedy is still largely not well documented beyond Polish circles.

Run or walk between 8 -28 February
Today, you can sign up for the VIRTUAL SYBIR MEMORY RUN (click here) to honour the victims of these deportations and reflect on their fate. This initiative is organised by the Muzeum Pamięci Sybiru (Sybir Memorial Museum) together with the Białystok Biega (Runs) Foundation giving Poles worldwide the chance to add our kilometres to those of the runners in Poland, so that this year’s memorial run is the longest in history. All the kilometres, whether run in Białystok on 8 February or Wrocław on 15th February or by you in your home town, will be added up and perhaps together we will reach the distances the Sybiracy (deportees to Siberia) travelled.
An act of memory

This run has taken place at night, in Poland in forest areas for several years. Art installations and historical reconstructions line the path and those remaining Sybiracy often support the run. Virtual participants can either walk or run for the minimum 5km. Whatever we do, we cannot imagine what it would have felt like in 1940 in the harshest of winters of the 20th century where the night time temperature dropped to as low as -40. Here are some suggestions for reflections, kilometre by kilometre, in the words of those deported:
One: The knock at the door

I imagine this almost as a silent movie without emotion as the reality was chaos and terror. Houses were searched, fathers were held at gunpoint against the wall whilst mothers and children tried to pack. Some were taken immediately, some given half an hour, an hour or more. Soldiers helped families, kindly neighbours helped others but some had their own interests at heart. “Jaś was watching them carefully and he soon noticed that their best jackets and jumpers were being set to one side…neighbours….were going to send them on their unknown journey with sacks of worn out clothes.” Bryan Wiles „The Chocolate Suitcase”
” In the house everything is broken into, overturned and destroyed. Papers are torn. photographs scattered, a lot of shattering pottery and clothing is strewn across the floor. Terrible turmoil. It appears that we have all but no time to pack and leave our house for ever……I picked up photos from the floor, slipped them into my school bag.” Eulalia Olsiewicz (Hubert)
As we start our walk or run we are well prepared, but did they manage to put their winter boots on? These moments of preparation were crucial to survival in the unknown.

Two: truck or sleigh ride into the unknown
It is nearly daybreak, when they set off. For our virtual run we have probably planned our route but they had no idea where they were being taken. Some were taken by sleigh, the normal way to travel in these kind of temperatures, others by truck. It could have been a school or public building for an uncomfortable night, crowded in tightly. Others were taken straight to the train station.
“We were loaded onto the waiting sledges. It was snowing lazily with huge flakes as the sledge moved into the unknown” Jadwiga Pawłowicz
“Bid farewell by our tearful servants, blessed by our neighbours – we set off…. through the empty streets, past houses of friends, we looked with anxiety to see if trucks stood in front…. at the station …. in the pale dawn, muffled by thick falling snow, the piercing lament of thousands of our exiled companions rose up” Magdalena Dubanowicz, Na Mongolskich Bezdrożach

Three: Onto the train and at the border
The trains had been waiting for weeks at key stations in occupied eastern Poland, whilst they were being adapted from cattle trucks to hold people. The stoves, the wooden shelves, the hole in the base of the wagon for a toilet. The deportations had been meticulously planned and soldiers travelled in a separate carriage.
“The station echoed with the sounds of weeping and lamentation, The train set off from Leśna and made its first stop at Baranowicze, but the trucks were locked from the outside, so that no one could get off. When the train moved again, all in the truck began to sob very loudly with women murmuring “Pod Twoją Obronę – Under Thy Care” Edward Gierud

“Constants were the smells of unwashed bodies, unchanged underwear and urine. Mortality was high…The dead were placed on the snow by the railway tracks. Where and how they were buried no-one knows” Henryk Grubczyk
Four: Through Moscow and beyond
As the wagons were shut from the outside and gaps were boarded up, people tried to look through the gaps in the wooden planks to see station names. Some recognised Moscow as it was such a large station. No one was told where they were going but they suspected, as Poles had been sent to Siberia after every uprising in the 19th century.

“Even today when I close my eyes I can still hear the rhythmical clatter of the wagon wheels and the announcing whistle of the engine as we passed through different stations…. There was no means of washing or changing for the night, no food but, cold and hungry. we felt like animals caught in a trap. unsure what the next day would bring. “ Henryka Łappo (Utnik)

“When the doors were opened and a few men from each wagon went off to collect water and sometimes bread and soup…. our fathers, still soldiers at heart…..hemmed in by armed guards as they marched…. showed scant regard for the rifle butts and sang ‘Our hearts and souls are joyful when the 1st Brigade is attacking the Russians’ – and other such legionnaire songs.” Maria Poźniak (Turzyńska)
Five: To the final destination
The journey to the settlements in the middle of nowhere, in Archangelsk, Perm and Wologod Oblasts, in Kazakhstan, wasn’t any easier. Many were taken again by sleigh to the camp, others by lorries with no roof, open to the elements, sometimes along frozen rivers as the only passable routes. Those taken later in the year in April or June fared slightly better as the weather had improved. But all were told “you work to live” in forests, mines and fields. Often the barracks were not ready, there was a lack of stoves, some windows were unglazed. Others were dropped in small hamlets, forced to dig in to make some kind of shelter.

Three weeks later….“we were told to disembark and unload our belongings….Despite the hunger and everything that had been endured on the journey, I found it was simply glorious just to be outside the wagon on a lovely spring day.…..we all managed to get into the same lorry and set of from Petukhov to a collective in Kazanka, north Kazakhstan. We were now over three thousand kilometres from Kwatery, and although we didn’t know it then, we were never to return.” Helen Bitner-Glindzicz, Song for Kresy

Thankfully for those who survived, it wasn’t the final journey. They weren’t to know that what awaited them after suffering loss and the brutality of the camps was to be the longest journey yet. Into the eastern areas of the Soviet Union, south, across the Caspian Sea to the Middle East, more tragedy and death. Military Service, orphanages or family camps in India and Africa and then scattered around the world. Others made it home after many years but it wasn’t the one they knew. As we reach the end of our walk or run, the never-ending tułaczka (wandering in exile) hits home.
Register for the Virtual Run
- Register on the website in English which will take you to the Bieg Pamięci part of B4sportonline.pl Set up an account here once your email has been verified. All instructions and rules are in English on the Virtual Run Site
- When inputing your details, remember to tick the box that your items are to be sent abroad – this adds another 20PLN to the cost. The cost is 69 PLN[or equivalent in your currency] – total 89 PLN. Once registered, your name will appear on the participants list with a race number, sent a headband and a medal (in the 5 weeks following).
- At one point the site loses its translated elements – to put in a family member or close friend whom you are running for – put the family name or first name and surname in the box next to: Moja własna dedykacja. Tutaj możesz wpisać imię i nazwisko Sybiraka ze swojej rodziny (My own dedication. Here you can write in the name and surname of the deportee from your family).
- Run or walk between February 8 and February 28, 2025 preferably in a forest with a minimum distance of 5 km in a single activity. There’s no upper limit so you can run 10km or 50km in stages!
- You can link your timing to the official runs taking place at 18.00 Polish time on 8 February in the Turczyński Forest, Białystok and on 15 February in the Osobowicki Forest, Wrocław.
- After the run, log back into the account to add your result by entering the results (time) manually, uploading a file/photo or synchronising with a Strava account.
Honour and Share

Please note there is no competitive element – it is commemorative in nature. I hope you do walk or run – do let me know if you do. Organise joint runs and tell others about the run, even if it’s not your thing. Do visit the Muzeum Pamięci Sybiru site . My son and I have already signed up to honour those in our family who survived the deportation and settled in the UK.
You may wish to read:
NB: Where there is no book title to the person’s name these quotes have been taken from: Stalin’s Ethnic Cleansing in Eastern Poland: Tales of the Deported 1940 – 1946 Published by the Association of the Families of the Borderland Settlers, London 2000