Vincent Pokrywka

Other Events:

• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-142524

Notes:

Separated 55 Years, Sister Sees Brothers

A 60-year-old Polish - born woman who spent five years in a forced labor camp under the Russians finally met her two Kitchener brothers over the weekend - after 55 years.

"It's the happiest day of my life," smiled Frank Pokrywka, 73, of 79 Strange St., one of the brothers.

"It's wonderful," said her other brother Vincent Pokrywka, 70, of 42 Moore Ave. "We ,are all getting old and I never thought we would ever see each other again."

The trip to the .United States to see her son and to Canada to see her brothers has been a life-long dream for Mrs. Rudolf (Eva) Rauth. It only began to take shape eight years ago when she started to save for the trip.

KEPT IN TOUCH

The two brothers left Poland when their sister was five years old. They have kept in touch all through the years, except for a 10-year period during and immediately after the war, when they lost contact with her.

The loss of contact wasn't surprising since the German and Russian invasions of Poland resulted in her family fleeing from one end of the country to the other.

In 1939 Mrs. Rauth fled with her four children from Russian occupied Poland into German-occupied Poland. In 1943 when the Russians started advancing, they attempted to :flee deeper into Germany.

But the Russians caught them and on their return to Poland, she and her two sons, one eight and the other 11 years old, spent the next five years in forced labor working in the fields for as long as 15 hours a day, seven days a week.

"Occasionally we would get a Sunday off," she said.

LOST CONTACT

Meanwhile, she had lost all contact with her husband, a German, who had been captured by the Russians.

It was only in early 1950 she was allowed to enter West Germany. There she was reunited with her husband who had been just released by the Russians.

But talk of war and hardship vanished over the weekend as all the Pokrywka relations gathered at 79 Strange St. to celebrate the reunion in typical Polish style. Mrs. Rauth will now spend a holiday in Pittsburgh, Pa., with her son, Stanley, before returning to West Germany, whey she and her family now live.

Kitchener-Waterloo Record 8 Jul 1963

Other Events:

• Name: Maria Pokrywka
• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-144634