Childhood
It is January 22, 1940, when lieutenant Witold Dewojno is born with a son, whom he probably does not know, because he was then a prisoner in Kozielsk. Mieczysław – a young mother and her family are taken to Kazakhstan, while in April 1943, Lt. Witold Dewojno died in Katyn. Inhuman conditions, many people do not survive. Mom is dying of typhus. Little Wincenty stays alone with his aunt in the steppes of Kazakhstan, where the only joy is a hot potato as a meal. They live in Pavlodar, and when Stalin breaks relations with the Sikorski government, they are sent into the steppe.
Finally at home
After the war, the house is no longer the same house (his own remained in Bialystok). He goes to Greater Poland. His second grandmother, his father’s mother, brings him up already in Poland. He lives in a village near Szamotuły in Greater Poland (it was then that he changed his name to Dowojna in his birth certificate). In communist Poland – because of his father he was expelled from junior high school. The father’s older brother from Wrocław comes to the rescue. There at school in a maths lesson, the teacher tells him that he knew his father: they were together in captivity with at the Soviets, they wanted to escape, but the father couldn’t make it. Uncle and aunt repeat that he shouldn’t talk to anyone about father and Katyn. They are afraid. For years, Witold does’t even say that he was in Kazakhstan.
Memory
Half a century after his return in 1946, Wincenty, who lives in Poznań, reads a book by Jadwiga Tomczyńska about deportees to Kazakhstan. He makes contact with his peers and goes together to Kazakhstan – the Pavlodarczyk Club is formed. He doesn’t find his mother’s grave, lost in the steppe. He says the prayer heard by the steppe and the merciful God.
Finally can be speak loudly.
At the same time, he creates the Poznań Memoramus Association, whose task is to educate young people in the spirit of remembering the fate of their ancestors. Every year, young people visit the Katyn cemetery in April. Memory, but not hate. Wincenty Dowojna, was the one who built bridges. He did not want to account for anyone, but to build the future on understanding what was and drew conclusions, so that the nightmare of war never returned and the youth of both nations will be created a future based on cooperation.
This One has gone ...
The one who woke us up and joined us, has gone. A man of remembrance and our friend. Finally, the son is together with his parents, which cruel fate did not let him experience on earthly pilgrimage.
You will remain in our grateful memory.
You will remain in our grateful memory.