No. 16 Vol. 9
www.mypaperonline.com
September 2018
From Mendham To Siberia, Local Teacher Holds Onto Family Connection Through Historic Monument
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By Cheryl Conway picture speaks a thousand words” holds true for Budd Lake resident Dorota Kearney who was recently surprised when she opened the “New York Times” and saw her late mother’s picture. Kearney, a teacher at St. Joseph School in Mendham, has been closely following the controversy over a World War II memorial on the Jersey City waterfront, near the Exchange
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Place PATH Station. Renting an apartment in Jersey City near the monument since 2017 with her husband, Tim, so he could be closer to his job in New York City, got her connected. The sculptured monument, known as the Katyn Statue designed by artist, Andrzej Pitynski, was erected in the 1980s to commemorate the World War II execution of 22,000 Polish officers by the former Soviet Union in 1940 as well as the wartime Siberian exile of some
350,000 Polish citizens, according to Kearney. The monument also memorializes sacrifices in the World Trade Center attacks on 9/11. This past April, Jersey City Mayor Stephen Fulop attempted to relocate the sculpture to allow for a redevelopment of the current Exchange Place site. Since then, an ordinance passed in June by the Jersey City Council authorized the relocation of the monument one block south to York Street has been put on hold with the gathering of 6,796 signatures from the community protesting the move. The situation is personal for Kearney, who grew up in Poland and is the daughter of a Siberian exile. Her mother, Dr. Helena Potoniec-Zamojska, was deported to Siberia in 1941 at the age of 13 and was kept there until 1946. “My mother and grandmother were
a part of the last deportation in June of 1941,” says Kearney. My mother was 13 when they were deported to Siberia and the soldiers gave them 20 minutes to pack; the train ride took weeks. They spent the five years in Krasnoyarski region of Siberia. My mother attended Russian school and my grandmother worked on cooperative farm (Sovchoz). They suffered shortages of every-
thing basically and my mother was sick with typhoid fever and malaria several times while there,” as well as malnourishment, and homesickness. “My mother and grandmother returned to Poland in 1946,” says Kearney. “She was fortunate to return to Poland; Polish Catholics and Jews were allowed to return though Polish citizens of Lithuanian or Ukrainian nacont. on page 2