A Polish woman who survived a World War 2 Russian prisoner of war camp near Siberia and landed up in the Eastern Cape as a young girl separated from her family, has died in East London aged 88.
Stanislawa de Lacy (née Przygornska), her parents and three brothers were rounded up by Russian soldiers from their eastern Poland home when she was 11 years old in 1940 and transported in a cattle truck to be incarcerated in a camp in the Ural mountains.
“I remember my mother telling me she was crocheting with her mother when the soldiers came,” said De Lacy’s daughter Mary Naude, who has lovingly compiled a scrapbook of her mother’s life.
At the camp, the Przygornskis endured appalling conditions and had to survive on half a loaf of bread between them per day.
The family was torn apart when Hitler invaded Russia and they were sent to Persia (now Iraq), where Stanislawa and her mother were hospitalised.
“The worst part of all of this for her was her mother died in hospital of starvation,” said Naude.
Stanislawa and her brother Marian were sent to South Africa with 500 refugee children in 1942.
They lived in a Polish camp in Oudtshoorn and were moved to a Graaff-Reinet convent before being taken in by a Catholic church in East London.
Stanislawa was fostered by a Catholic priest, while Marian was sent to Johannesburg.
She married East Londoner James de Lacy in 1957 and the couple had five children.
Her story of loss and survival has been told in the Daily Dispatch and GO! and Express newspapers in years gone by, particularly when De Lacy was reunited with her father on the Carnarvon Castle cruiseliner when he arrived in East London to visit the child he had last seen 17 years before.
She once again received media coverage when she was reunited with her three brothers in the city 37 years after the war split them apart.
“She went through such a lot in her life, but she always had a positive outlook and she was very humble and kind. She told me she was determined to make it to see her family again,” said Naude barbarah@dispatch.co.za
Sad passing of WW2 prisoner of war who was split from her family
Stanislawa de Lacy (née Przygornska), her parents and three brothers were rounded up by Russian soldiers from their eastern Poland home when she was 11 years old in 1940 and transported in a cattle truck to be incarcerated in a camp in the Ural mountains.
“I remember my mother telling me she was crocheting with her mother when the soldiers came,” said De Lacy’s daughter Mary Naude, who has lovingly compiled a scrapbook of her mother’s life.
At the camp, the Przygornskis endured appalling conditions and had to survive on half a loaf of bread between them per day.
The family was torn apart when Hitler invaded Russia and they were sent to Persia (now Iraq), where Stanislawa and her mother were hospitalised.
“The worst part of all of this for her was her mother died in hospital of starvation,” said Naude.
Stanislawa and her brother Marian were sent to South Africa with 500 refugee children in 1942.
They lived in a Polish camp in Oudtshoorn and were moved to a Graaff-Reinet convent before being taken in by a Catholic church in East London.
Stanislawa was fostered by a Catholic priest, while Marian was sent to Johannesburg.
She married East Londoner James de Lacy in 1957 and the couple had five children.
Her story of loss and survival has been told in the Daily Dispatch and GO! and Express newspapers in years gone by, particularly when De Lacy was reunited with her father on the Carnarvon Castle cruiseliner when he arrived in East London to visit the child he had last seen 17 years before.
She once again received media coverage when she was reunited with her three brothers in the city 37 years after the war split them apart.
“She went through such a lot in her life, but she always had a positive outlook and she was very humble and kind. She told me she was determined to make it to see her family again,” said Naude barbarah@dispatch.co.za
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