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When the Russian army occupied Bialystok, in Poland, Yvette’s father was
sent to Siberia for re-education by the NKVD alongside large numbers of other professionals. He was
released when the Nazi- Soviet no-agression pact came to an end in 1941 and managed to come to the
UK to work in a Polish Military hospital. Yvette had remained with her mother in Poland, here is a
photo of them together in happier times. She lived with her mother and governess until the Germans
took their town and as her mother was designated a Jew, they were removed to the local ghetto.
Yvette’s governess arranged for her to escape from the ghetto and organised hiding places for her
until the end of the war. Leaving her mother was very hard for Yvette but even harder for her mother
who perished in Auschwitz alongside millions of others.She wrote the book as a memorial to her
mother and to dissipate her anger against those who carried out the atrocities and those who looked
the other way saying they didn’t know what was going on.
After the war, her father who was
working in a Polish military hospital in the UK bribed someone to bring her out of Poland illegally,
as it was officially a Russian satellite state with no exit visas, so she could travel to the UK.
Unfortunately the guide dumped her in a camp for displaced persons in Austria and she was on her own
at 14 in a foreign country with no means of support. Luckily she made friends with a family who took
her under their wing. When one of their relatives came to pick them up to take them to Italy she
asked if she could tag along as she had 2 aunts in Italy with the Polish army.
Left to right:
Mrs Chik of China; Father Thoma of Syrian Orthodox Church; Rev. I. Luka of Cairo; Dr Wei of China;
Archbishop Seraphim; Archpriest Janson of Latvia; Archbishop Stephan of Sofia; Bishop Isariah of
India; Mr Manuda; Rev. Gorodiszcz of Poland.
First World Conference on Faith and Order, Lausanne 1927.
http://archives.wcc-coe.org/Query/detail.aspx?ID=81766
Miss Caldwell (the Bishop`s niece), Bishop Heard of the African M. E. Church, Rev. Piotr
Gorodiszcz at the World Conference on Faith and Order, Edinburgh, 1937.
Piotr Gorodiszcz, superintendent Misji Barbikańskiej w Białymstoku z wnuczką Yvette Syrota. WiT
Eugenia Syrota, z domu Gorodiszcz, córka superintendenta Misji Barbikańskiej w Białymstoku ze swoją córką, Yvette. WiT
Eugenia Syrota, z domu Gorodiszcz, córka superintendenta Misji Barbikańskiej w Białymstoku ze swoją córką, Yvette.
WiT
