Polish veterans, survivors' stories live on in new Regina monument

It's been 87 years since the Second World War began. But for Danuta Ukomsky, it's as if it happened yesterday. She was seven years old, living in Poland with her parents and three sisters. When a knock at the door changed everything, Russian soldiers stood at the doorway with guns, ordering the family to leave their home. You have two hours to pack. You take food and warm clothes. If you don't... You're going to die like a dog on the street. Ukomski's family was forced into a crowded wagon with only the belongings they could carry. We didn't know where they were taking us. We've been traveling like this for four or five weeks. They ended up nearly 30 hours north of Poland, forced to work for food and live in a warehouse for three years. We've been starving today and the lice was on us, eating us alive. Polish veterans and Poles displaced by the war, like Łukomski, were honoured over the weekend in Regina with this monument. Łukomski herself helped to unveil it. How can we make maybe a more lasting monument? Bron Nurkowski says the monument's design is a symbol of a culture that survived. Nurkowski's father was just 13 when he was taken with his parents and six siblings. From their home in Kyiv and sent to a labor camp in Siberia. At 16, he joined the Polish army. A part of his life, Nurkowski says, for many years remained untold. Today we call it PTSD, before it was shell shock. ****. But, uh... They were horrors that people really didn't want to talk about. After the war, Nurkowski says many Polish families eventually made new homes in rural Saskatchewan, but they never forgot what they left behind. Danuta Ukomski didn't forget either. Now 94, she says seeing generations of her own family at the monuments unveiling was a reminder that these stories must live on. Her message to young people is simple. I lost my house in Poland and everything else. But the education, nobody can take away from you. Alia Marko-Omene, CBC News, Regina.