Jerzy Sikora’s childhood was a whirlwind of war and exile. His father, a spy, vanished; his mother died, leaving him alone in Manchuria with his young sister. Arrest, hunger and betrayal shadowed his early years until an American soldier plucked him from chaos, setting him on a path back to Poland. But survival was just the beginning – reunion, loss and resilience would define the rest.
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The story might have begun in 1936, when I was born, but let’s start with 1939, when my parents and I fled east after the war erupted. My mother (1909–1946) and my father (1907–1957) traveled as far as Busk, a town 40 kilometres east of Lviv. It was there that I was baptized, most likely in the Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady of the Rosary and St. Stanislaus. But our time together was short. On 15 September 1939, we were forced to separate from my father. The Polish military gave the order – it must have been in response to the Soviet invasion of Poland from the east. My mother and I suddenly found ourselves trapped in Soviet-occupied territory. Under the cover of darkness, we made a daring crossing of the Bug River, fleeing westward. After a long and arduous journey, we reached Siedlce, where fate intervened. By sheer chance, we encountered my uncle; with him, we made our way back to Warsaw.
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Then, in early 1940, a Japanese man appeared at our door. Perhaps he was connected to the Japanese Embassy – I will never know for sure. But he carried something that would change everything: a letter from my father. In it, he begged my mother to apply for an official passport from the German occupation authorities to seek permission to leave for Japan. Somehow, money was arranged – perhaps through the Japanese messenger – enough to fund our journey. And so, in the spring of that year, we left Nazi-occupied Poland. Our escape was surreal – Berlin, Rome, Naples. We traveled by train, crossing hostile territory, until finally, we boarded a ship – the Hakozaki Maru. The journey carried us through the Suez Canal, across the Indian Ocean, at last reaching Japan, where we reunited with my father.
Our time in Japan was brief. Before long, we set sail once again, this time bound for Manchuria, eventually arriving in Changchun (then known as Hsinking). We settled in a small, single-story house with a garden, in a neighbourhood inhabited primarily by Japanese families in the northern part of the city. I spent my days playing with the local children – Japanese boys and girls from the neighbourhood. I picked up enough of their language to communicate with them easily. Childhood, even in the shadow of war, had its moments of normalcy.
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On 29 January 1942, my sister, Anna Elżbieta, was born. At first, I barely registered her presence in my life. It wasn’t until nearly a year later that I truly ‘noticed’ her – when she sat down on our cat, and the cat did nothing. I was stunned. My own relationship with that cat had been nothing but claws and scratches. Whenever I tried to pet it, it defended itself fiercely. And yet, when Anna plopped down on top of it, the cat didn’t protest at all. Life changed again around that time. We moved into a larger, multi-story building, closer to the city centre. My father had an office on the upper floor, a space that was strictly off-limits to me. And yet, of course, that only made it more tempting. I snuck in a few times. Inside, I found kind, polite Japanese adults, but nothing particularly exciting. No grand mysteries, no hidden treasures – just stacks of paper and colourful pencils.
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One day, I found myself witnessing a remarkable event: the last emperor of China, Puyi, being driven through the city. A convoy of cars made its way through the streets, and what struck me most was not the sight of the emperor himself but the fear that surrounded him. Fifty metres from the road, policemen blocked all movement. No one was allowed to approach. Worse still, we were ordered to turn our backs to the procession. No one was to look directly at him. One man hesitated – perhaps he didn’t obey quickly enough. A policeman slapped him across the face. I managed to sneak a glance. And what did I see? Just a few cars. That was all. And yet, the air was thick with tension, as if a single wrong move could change everything.
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Not far from where we lived stood a Franciscan convent complex, surrounded by a high, solid wall. It wasn’t just a convent – inside, there was a chapel, a shelter for the poor, a small hospital, a school with a boarding house for girls and even a farm with cows and pigs. In the fall of 1945, I was admitted to the school as an exception – the only boy in an all-girl class.
Once again, I was faced with the challenge of forming letters into words – but this time, in English. I still resisted it, just as I had with Polish. Far more interesting were the mandolin lessons and drawing classes, especially because the drawing teacher was not a nun. She was a young woman, different from the others. I still remember how patient and kind she was, guiding my hand as I struggled to draw a pear. She showed me how to use three colours – yellow, red, and green – to make it look real. Her name was Larysa Ogienko. At the time, I knew little about her. Only later did I learn that she was the daughter of a White Army officer who had fled Russia during the October Revolution. I didn’t know it yet, but she would play a crucial role in my survival in China after I lost my parents.
The end of World War II was not a sudden event for me – it was a slow fading of the world I had known. The Japanese gradually disappeared from our surroundings. My father stopped going to work. I remember him sitting at home, carving wooden clogs. Was he trying to earn money? I’m not sure. Despite the massive changes happening around us, I didn’t sense hostility from the local Chinese. Life seemed to go on. And then, one day, everything changed.
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It was the fall of 1945. I was playing outside in a courtyard with my friends, completely unaware of what was about to happen. Suddenly, my mother came running. There were tears in her eyes as she hugged me tightly. ‘Your father’s been arrested.’ I didn’t understand. He was often away from home – wasn’t this just another one of those times? The drama of the moment blurred even more the next day, when my father returned – escorted by two Soviet officers in uniform. They weren’t aggressive. They didn’t shout. They were calm, formal. They told me they had brought my father so I could say goodbye. I still didn’t grasp what that meant. At that age, I admired soldiers. Their uniforms, their posture – they seemed powerful, fascinating. I didn’t realize then that I could be seeing my father for the last time.
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By then, it was warm outside – probably March or April 1946. Anna and I had regained consciousness in the hospital. But we were weak, frail and starving. I couldn’t even stand. The first time I tried to get up, I collapsed. My legs wouldn’t hold me. I could only crawl.
We were given very little food – they said that after typhoid fever, the body couldn’t handle large meals. But hunger doesn’t care about medical explanations. It consumes you. It burns inside you. It’s a feeling you never forget for the rest of your life. And then – something unexpected happened. One day, a visitor arrived at the hospital – Larysa Ogienko, my former drawing teacher. She was around 30 years old, with golden hair. She wasn’t just a friendly face – she had brought food. And more than that – she fed us. I asked about my mother, but she didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. Because what she did next saved our lives. After we were discharged from the hospital, she took us both into her home.
Larysa lived with her mother, whom I would soon call Babuszka [grandmother in Russian, AD]. She was without a doubt the most caring, loving person – and in the near future, she would become our only protector.
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Then, one day, an American soldier arrived at Larysa’s home. His name was Henry, and he asked me a single question: ‘Would you like to go to Poland?’
The answer was obvious. I would go anywhere – as long as it meant escaping. At that time, a few Americans had arrived in Changchun. The city had briefly been retaken by Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist army, pushing back Mao Zedong’s forces. Henry and others like him were working with UNRRA (the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration) and the International Red Cross, searching for people who wanted to be repatriated from China. Everything happened quickly. Mao’s troops were preparing to encircle the city again, and it was only a matter of time before they stormed back in. Among the few belongings I managed to take with me was my father’s collection of postage stamps, acquired during his time in Manchuria.
In May 1947, we boarded a DC-10 aircraft with Major Henry, departing from Nanking (Nanjing). We spent a few days there, though I learned only later that it was in Nanking that the Polish consul had issued us passports. I still have mine to this day. It was also there, on a beach by the Chinese sea, that I tasted something extraordinary for the first time – an ice-cold Coca-Cola. The next flight took us to Shanghai, and I quickly discovered that early aircraft had a terrifying flaw – whenever they hit thinner air, they would suddenly drop, plummeting before stabilizing again.
The feeling was horrible, but after a few days of travel, we grew attached to Henry. And then – another unexpected separation. In Shanghai, Henry was not allowed to continue with us. Instead, we were placed in the care of another American – Erling Logan. At first, I felt uneasy, even afraid. Henry had been our guardian, our protector – who was this stranger? But the fear didn’t last long. Erling Logan wasn’t just kind and protective – in some ways, he reminded me of my father. Even his age was similar.
We stayed with Erling in a luxurious hotel, a stark contrast to everything I had known. It was blisteringly hot, and to our surprise, taking a hot bath turned out to be the best way to cool down. For the first time in a long while, I felt safe.
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In June 1947, we boarded the SS Marine Lynx – our final passage out of China. Our cabin housed four people: me, Anna, a German woman, and her young child. Meanwhile, Erling Logan was in charge of the entire transport of about 700 emigrants to Europe. We saw him only occasionally, as he was busy overseeing the journey. The voyage from Shanghai to Naples, Italy, lasted nearly two months, but despite its length, it was anything but boring. The sailors created a small pool for the children, stretching canvas to form a makeshift basin where we could splash and cool off.
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The last leg of our journey took us by train to Warsaw, arriving at the Main Railway Station. From there, we rode in a horse-drawn carriage to Hotel Polonia, where we spent our final night together with Erling. The next morning, on 7 September 1947, we traveled to Anin, to the home of my aunt – my father’s sister. Our return to Poland was even mentioned in the newspaper Wieczór (Evening). And then – it was time to say goodbye to Erling. I was not happy about it. Once again, I felt that I was being handed off like an object, given away to someone I barely knew. I only learned many years later that Erling wanted to adopt us. He had no children of his own and had grown deeply attached to Anna and me. But to make it official, he needed my aunt’s permission. And she refused. At the time, I thought I was saying goodbye to Erling forever. There was no reason to believe our paths would ever cross again. And for years, with no word from him, rumours even surfaced that he had died during the Korean War.
After returning to Poland, I found myself in the home of my extended family. We lived in a modest apartment with my aunt and uncle, Irena and Wacław, along with their four children – Hanna (born 1934), Jan (1936), Tadeusz (born 1945) and Marek (born 1946). Also living with us was Aunt Wilunia (my grandmother’s sister) and her daughter. For a child, adaptation is instinctive. The will to survive is powerful, and at a young age, the mind is still flexible. Within a few weeks, I regained my ability to speak Polish, and soon I began making new friends.
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In early spring of 1954, some family friends in Anin mentioned that they had received a letter from my father. I was stunned.
Why had they not shown us the letter? It seemed impossible that my father could be alive. Then, about a month later, a phone call came from the local post office. I picked up the receiver. And on the other end, I heard my father’s voice. He asked for directions to where we lived, and we arranged to meet at the crossroads near our house.
And just like that, it happened. He walked toward us as we approached from the opposite direction. He was thin, unshaven and wore a quilted jacket and trousers. His entire life’s belongings were packed in a bundle slung over his back. It’s impossible to describe the feeling of that moment. It was so unreal that none of us could fully comprehend it at first. For nearly eight years, my father had no idea whether we were alive. For nearly eight years, we had no idea that he was alive.
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I was fortunate to preserve my father’s handwritten biography, written by him in 1954. From this document, I was able to reconstruct key moments of his life.
