Tseza Mikhailovna MYSHKOVSKAYA (MYSHKOVSKA) was born in the settlement of SEMKI (today KHMELNITSK district (KHMELNIK), region of VINNITSA on the 01.03.1915. Her father Mikhail Ludvikovich MYSHKOVSKIY (1881-1966), Pole, Catholic, was a farmer and a lover of music, who used to play in an orchestra of wind instruments on the occasion of festivities. His wife, Yelena Yakovlevna Myshkovskaya (1882-1968), Ukrainian, turned Roman Catholic after the wedding. Apart from daughter Tseza there were two sons: Ivan (or Yan), 1911-1988) and Franek (~1908-1937, see below) – in 1928 he already did not live in his parents’ house anymore and escaped the deportation. Their farm was not a big one: one horse, one cow and a chaff-cutter.
Approximately in October 1928 the family was exposed to lootings by the State. The authorities confiscated their house, the whole farm, as well as the crop yield, and did not even give them the permission to dig out the sugar beets from their own property (the harvest time for sugar beets was just in full swing then). They were deported to an old little house, together with another expropriated family, the country doctor assistant TELYATNIK, his wife and two sons. This medical attendant treated all people in the village and, apart from that, ran a mill. It is possible that this mill was the reason for the expropriation. The remaining villagers were not exposed to any reprisals at that period of time.
In March 1929 they arrested the father, and the country doctor assistant at the same time. The Soviets came for them at night. In July of the same year the family was sent, for some reason or other, to LOSOVOYE, KAMENETS-PODOLSK region (today KHMELNIZA region) and accomodated them in a nice house, but later they were sent back again. In October 1929 the Myshkovskiys and the family of the medical attendant were forced to go to the train station and were sent away to VINNITSA by narrow-gauge railway. There they were transloaded on another train (broad gauge track) and driven away to Siberia. In this very moment they lost sight of the medical attendant's family; nothing is known about their fate.
The train consisted of about 20 waggons. One could see this from the hatches when the train turned. In the goods waggon equipped with tow-storey plank beds there were approximately 50 people, among them many children. On the plank beds everyone would have found a free place, however, mothers with little children preferred to sleep on the floor, crowded together near the oven, which stood in the middle of the waggon. The terrible cold was the reason for it. They were only given little coal, only after having past the Ural they received more.
Once, during a train stop, 3 or 4 young looters stormed into the waggon, jumbled up all the exiles' belongings and took away everything that yet ed to be of some value, up to kitchen utensils. The guards did not move away from the waggons and did not allow anyone to get off the train, until it had reached its final destination, YAYA station, KEMEROVO region, two weeks later.
Snow had already fallen there. The exiles were not immediately allowed to get off the waggons: the barracks for their accomodation had not been completed yet. When they were reday, the deportees were chased there under convoy - and this place was 12 km away from the train station. The wooden, one-storeyed barracks were equipped with plank beds, always three on top of eachother. Terrible narrowness. The daily food ration consisted of 300 grs bred and 1 liter of a thin trash soup. Nobody was allowed to leave the barracks; they even brough over the necessary water, which was then distributed into bowls inside the barracks.
From hunger, cold and boredom arose diseases. The rate of illness and death was particularly high among the children. The plank-bed neighbours of the Myshkovskiys lost all three children within a week and soon afterwards the mother died herself. At that time her husband lived already in exile in Igarka.
In these barracks the people were kept throughout the whole winter Many died from typhus or scurvy. In May 1930 the exiles were chased to YAYA station and sent away to TOMSK. Brother IVAN, who had been infected by typhus and was enfeebled by scurvy, was unable to walk anymore. The sister took him upon her shoulders and took him all the way (12 km) up to the station.
Having arrived in TOMSK the deportees were driven about 2 km away from the train station; at the edge of the town, in KSENDZOVKA, there stood 12 large barracks, surrounded by wired fences. This was a real guarded zone. At the gate there was a big house for the guards.
In fact, one could leave the barracks and then move around within this zone.
In the barracks, were the Myshkovskiys were forced to stay, there were about 300 exiles. Outside the baracks earth had been piled up, so that the windows were all at ground level. Inside plank-beds: along the walls continous bed-boards in one level, in order not to cover up the windows, and along the dividing line of the barracks - three-storey wooden plank bunks. Between them and at both sides, along the walls, there were small aisles.
Here they also received those 300 g of bread and 1 liter of thin trash soup, but there was the possibility to work: load timber, empty bags and things alike, and in return they would be given a "three-course lunch" and 1 kg of bread, which they usually took home to the barracks.
They were taken away to work in groups of four - under escort. On the way the locals often used to slip something into their hands - bread, milk or other foodstuff. During the working hours the guards would usually sleep. They only returned from work when dusk was already falling and those who were taken ill by scurvy and, caused by this disease, also suffered from night-blindness, had to lean on those, who yet disposed of a better visual faculty. They either had to work at the railway station or in the mill combinate, and to reach these places they were under way for about one hour. The went alongside the river Tom, and there was a foot-bridge across on of its little tributaries.
From TOMSK the exiles were sent further to the north, to NARYM. But the MYSHKOVSKIY family received a letter from the father in IGARKA in the summer of 1929 and petitioned for being allowed to go to him. The deportees already knew about Narym - there they were doomed to death for certain.
The authorities gave their consent and sent the MYSHKOVSKIYs to Krasnoyarsk. Here they had to stay four a whole week, being forced to spend the nights under the open sky, somewhere in the bushes on the river Yenissey; but then they were allowed into quite a clean "transit" barracks, where the spent another two weeks.They took their meals in the canteen.
They got to IGARKA on a barge, finding accomodation in the dark cargo compartment at the lower deck, where two-storey bed boards had been set up.
The whole of IGARKA consisted of 3-4 wooden buildings and 7-8 barracks. The 3 barracks on the hill were called the "Karskiy" barracks. The immediately found the father. In the following years he played the barytone in the orchestra of wind instruments at the movie-house; then he worked for the same movie-house as a cashier and ticket seller, and later as a signalman for the fire department.
In 1930 or 1931 exiled farmers from Transbaikalia arrived in IGARKA; the were chased into a barn not far from the brick-works. Many of them died during the first winter.
During the first years there were only few deportees from the Ukraine in IGARKA, about 10 families. Twice a month they had to appear at the commandant's office for registration and check, later only once a month. They had to pay a share of 5% from their salary "for the mainenance of the commandant's office". The commandant was CHUBCHENKO. Deported families had to get registered and appear for period checks at one commandant's office and the men, who had already been exiled earlier than their relatives, at another. Military command was abolished in 1934 or 1935.
In IGARKA Tseza Mikhailovna married the Ukraine-German farmer Richard Adolfovich BARKE (1913-1967), who had been deported from the ZHITOMIR region. In the same way as her father did, he also loved music. At home he had played the trumpet in the Catholic church. When the Communists came to carry them off, his father succeeded to hide away, but later, when he learned that his son had been deported to Siberia, he went to the GPU himself hoping that they would send him to his son. However, he never saw his son again: approximately in May of the year 1930 Adolf BARKE died in TOMSK (he was already aged), just in those very barracks, where the MYSHKOVSKIYs lived.
In YAYA, and later in TOMSK, there were two Ukrainian women among the exiles - Maria VIVDICH (born +1885) and her daughter Katerina Savichna VIVDICH (born in 1912 or 1913), who ad been deported from a village near ZHITOMIR. Maria's husband Savva VIVDICH (born ~1882) had been arrested earlier and carries off to IGARKA. His wife and daughter also received the permission to go to him. Savva VIVDICH worked in IGARKA as a carpenter. In 1937 he was arrested and did not return.
In IGARKA Katerina VIVDICH married Georgiy Ivanovich GOLOBOKOV, who had been deported from Transbaikalia. There address: 630004, Novosibirsk, Chelyuskintsy street 18, aprtment no. 168 (beside the train station).
In IGARKA there lived an elder doctor and surgeon; his name was KAKAULIN (KOKOULIN?), a deportee from the Ukraine. Approximately in 1934 he received the permission to return home.
In the spring of 1938 the arrested M. (L.) MYSHKOVSKIY and took him to the prison in IGARKA. Soon afterwards they also came for R. (A.) BARKE. In autumn they were transported away to KRASNOYARSK. Until spring they stayed in prison, and as soon as the river navigation started again, they sent them back to IGARKA. Immediately upon his arrival in June of 1939 M. (L.) MYSHKOVSKIY was relased; however, R. )A.) Barke had to stay in prison in IGARKA: for some reason or other the instructions for his release he not arrived from Krasnoyarsk. Then Tseza Mikhailovna set out for Krasnoyarsk and there she suddenly learned that her husband had been given 10 years without having the right of correspondance!
She returned to IGARKA without delay, where she received the official confirmation that her husband was to be released. And finally, on the 11.11.1939, he was set free. However, in accordance with the "decree" of the 28.08.1941 he was put under military command again and the so-called polar bonus (which workers, who did their job under the difficult climatic con-ditions in the Polar region used to receive) discontinued. Until 1964 included (!) he regularly had to appear at the commandant's office, like other Germans in Igarka, for example Pavel SCHINDLER and Vladimir SCHINDLER.
In 1941 I. (V.) MYSHKOVSKIY was mobilized, however, he did not have to go to the front, but worked at the NKVD in Krasnoyarsk (house-keeping services) as a truck driver.
In 1964, when he had finally been released from military command (from the registration procedure at the commandant's office), Tseza Mikhailovna and her husband could move to Krasnoyarsk. Mother and father lived there already. And here they are buried.
Tseza Mikhailovna's eldesr brother, F. M. MYSHKOVSKIY, already had his own family in 1928 and was working as a book-keeper for the KRASNOYE sovkhoz in the VINNITSA or ODESSA region. In 1937 he lay in hospital after an appendectomy, was arrested directly from there and perished in prison. His son and daughter live in Krasnoyarsk: his daughter in Pokrovka, his son Anatoliy Franzovich in a three-storey house opposite the STI (Siberian Institute of Technology), in Markovskiy street, apartment No. 10. He does not want to talk about his father.
17.12.1989, recorded by V. S. Birger, Krasnoyarsk, "Memorial" Society