Recipes for Living Rev. Adam Kuczma

Rev. Kuczma is a Methodist pastor in Poland. He and his family have been friends of the Underwood family for 40 years, and various members of the family have visited in Osceola. Adam has spoken in the Osceola church several times. When he retired, he wrote his autobiography, which tells of life in Poland under Russian domination, the Nazi regime, and Communism. It seems appropriate to include excerpts of his story in this edition because he had a "Recipe for Living" that brought him through the experience. Hopefully, cutting the story from its original 80 pages will not destroy its message. The complete story, Book of My Life, is available at the Public Library or that of the church.

Adam described the Poland he knew in his childhood-''Fertile fields yielded the richest crops of wheat and rye, buckwheat and barley, potatoes and sugar beets. The fields were surrounded by forests full of wild animals and birds." Adam had two brothers and two sisters. His father was a worker in a mill and his mother looked after the household, tended a garden, a cow, and several dozen chickens, thus increasing the family income. They had a small house built on a plot of four acres of land, which had about two dozen apple trees.

The parents were very religious. "All of us had to follow the devotional discipline which was practiced in our everyday life. We usually began the day with an early prayer, all of us on our knees telling God about our problems and thanking Him for His loving care. Father or Mother concluded the prayer. After that we had our breakfast. If the daily schedule permitted, we had a similar prayer at noon time. At the end of the day, before going to bed, again we had to get down on our knees to thank God for His blessings during the day." Sundays and religious holidays were spent in church. "Sometimes, when I was kneeling down and heard boys playing football outside in the church yard, I said to myself, 'When I grow up I will never be a Christian.'

"A sudden shock came upon all of us when a visit to the doctor revealed that Mother was seriously ill. The diagnosis was cancer and it could only be removed by surgery. The operation saved her life for a few months, but she never recovered from her illness. The day before Mother died, she called each one of us individually to her bed to say good-bye. When my turn came, I went to the bedroom where she was lying. I saw that my mother was very weak. She hugged me, pressing me as hard as she could to her bosom, and in a very feeble voice she asked me, 'Adam my child, will you be a Christian when I go to my Fathers home?'

"I was too agitated to understand what she was asking me. I simply said, 'Yes, Mom, I will be a Christian.' She kissed me again and, smiling, she said, 'I am happy you gave me this promise.' On the following day she committed her soul to the Heavenly Father, whom she loved so much. The tragic, unforgettable moment came on September 10, 1938, when her life ended.

"Soon my father married again. He needed a woman to look after the household. It was too much for him to do it all. He chose to marry my mother’s sister, who was a widow at the time. Thus my aunt became my step-mother. Very soon I discovered how poor a substitute for my mother she was. The whole warmth of our family life was gone. I felt lonely and alienated. In this situation I started to look for friends who would substitute for my family. Soon I found myself involved in all kinds of worldly activities. The church was more a hindrance than a help.

"I still was under the strong discipline of my father who demanded that I attend church, as had been our family ritual, but I would find all kinds of excuses to stay away. Alcohol, cigarettes, girls, cinema, and theater had become my daily entertainment. It didn't take long to forget all the promises I made to my mother. But there was Somebody who was an eye-witness to that last conversation, and He reminded me about my promise under the most unusual circumstances.

"In September of 1939, the Second World War broke out. The Nazi Germans invaded Poland from the west. Two weeks after the German invasion, on the grounds of a secret treaty known as the Ribentrop-Molotov Treaty, Stalin had sent his troops to invade Poland from the east. Thus, in three weeks time, Poland ceased to exist.

"The day of September 17, 1939 will never be forgotten. It was a Sunday afternoon when the first Soviet tanks, and after them ragged Soviet soldiers, entered our peaceful town. All night from Sunday through Monday we could hear shelling and shooting. When I got up in the morning the Soviet soldiers could be seen everywhere. The invaders looked very poor and hungry. Their uniforms were just old rags. Instead of shoes, many had rags on their feet. Their long, pre-revolutionary rifles were tied with ordinary string behind their backs. They would go from shop to shop looting everything they could lay their hands on, especially bread.

"During the first days of Russian occupation, they arrested all those who were official state officers. Every night, usually after midnight, the KGB police would come to a previously selected home and knock at the door or window. The family thus would be waked up without warning, scared to death, and given 15 minutes to take whatever they could. They all were ordered out to a van or even a horse cart, taken to the railway station, loaded into the cattle wagons, and under a strong escort were deported to Siberia, Kazachstan, or other uninhabited places of the Soviet Union. There they were left there to die, or survive if they were strong enough. Many, particularly elderly people and small children, died on their way. Only the strongest survived and adapted themselves to the new, very cruel conditions.

From September 1939, when the Soviet troops moved in, through March 1940, many thousands of Polish families were deported according to the KGB's plan. They made lists of the so called "nieblagonadiozyj" element, which roughly could be translated as "untrustworthy element." In their jargon it meant "the enemies of the Soviet Union." For those so classified, it was enough to listen to a foreign radio, read a forbidden book, criticize a Soviet leader, preach the Gospel, or distribute Bibles.

"A month after the invasion, all the shops were empty. This was a deliberate policy of the Communist system-first to starve people and then to give them a little bit to eat. They wanted to fix people's minds on food. That would not give them time to think of anything else. We had to stand in lines for hours, sometimes whole nights, to get a loaf of bread, or occasionally a piece of meat, a little bit of sugar, flour, or soap, which was a particularly rare product.

"In 1939, when the Soviet occupation came, we children were still of school age. All of us had to go to school. Polish schools were closed and we were forced to go to the Russian ones. How different they were from our old Polish schools! First they replaced morning prayer with a special chant praising Stalin. Every morning we had to gather in the gym hall and a special political instructor would lead us in the chanting. For five minutes we had to chant in Russian, 'We thank you, Comrade Stalin, for our happy childhood.'

"After that we got some more indoctrination in socialism as the most glorious system in the world and in Marxism-Leninism as the leading philosophy. After this indoctrination we had to sing the “international Hymn” and then we would go to the class room. The teaching program was full of Communist doctrines. Pupils were subjected to a very strict discipline. We were not allowed to attend churches. To speak about God was strictly forbidden. Boys and girls had to be members of the "Pioneers," which was a Communist organization for children. Sundays as well as holidays were abolished. We attended school for five days and every sixth day was free and was called "wychodnoj." So our "wychodnoj" could be on any day of the week.

''There was a strict discipline about school attendance. The only justification for an absence was illness certified by a doctor. There was a day when I came home from school and found out that my shoes had a hole that needed mending. It was my only pair and it was a cold winter. My father said, 'Tomorrow you stay at home and I will take the shoes to the cobbler.' The day passed by while I sat barefooted at home. The cobbler, who was my father’s good friend, brought the mended shoes in the evening so that on the following day I could go back to school again. At the very first lesson, the usual roll call was taken and when the teacher came to my name, he stopped, looked at me, told me to stand up and asked, 'Kuczma, why weren't you at
school yesterday?' I simply answered, 'My shoes had a hole and needed to be mended, and while the cobbler was working on them, I was barefooted at home.' The teacher looked at me seriously and said, 'Go immediately to the Director's office and explain yourself!’

"I tried to explain to him what the situation was, but the Director did not want to listen. He simply went on roaring like a lion, '"What do you think? The working people of a socialist state are toiling to give you free education, and you dare to ignore the effort of the teachers who work hard to lead you to the bright future of Communism? Such pupils like you are dragging your class down in the socialist competition. We of the socialist school have enough power to discipline you and to teach you how to appreciate socialist education.' I went back to the classroom. The teacher looked scornfully at me and told me to take my place." It was necessary for Adam's father to accompany him to school the following day for a similar lecture.

"One Sunday my father, who worked at the post office, arrived at work 15 minutes late. He had gone to church and the service lasted a little bit longer than usual. The Russian manager was waiting for him. He coldly said, ‘Kuczma, you are 15 minutes late, and this is because you have been to church. You realize you have broken the socialist discipline.' My father wanted to explain the circumstances in a friendly manner, but the manager, a devout Communist, said, 'You are accused of breaking the social discipline. You will be sued in court.'

"Indeed, a week or two later Father was summoned to the court. The trial was short. The sentence was pronounced: six months in prison or 50% reduction of salary for a period of a year. Father accepted the second choice. He realized that if he went to prison he might not come back. Thus my father had to work for only half his salary for the whole year. The material situation of the family had been very bad. Now with this reduction it became disastrous. The worst of this was that we all had to keep silent and not complain: Any sign of dissatisfaction would put us in trouble. We were aware of the possibility of being deported to Siberia. We did not know until much later that our family had already been on the list for deportation to Siberia:

"The two year period of Soviet occupation was suddenly interrupted. The very few people who could listen to the BBC or Voice of America were secretly talking· about the possibility of a war with Germany. The rumor intensified in the spring of 1941. The interesting thing was that normally people would be afraid of war, but under our circumstances people wanted war. This was the only hope of getting rid of the barbaric Soviet system.

"On the 20th of June, the school broke for vacation. On that very day my parents decided that, because of the shortage of food at home, we children were to go to the nearby village to stay with our aunts to help them on their little farms. On the morning of June 21, 1941, my peaceful rest was interrupted by military planes roaring in the air all around the area. People supposed that it was a part of the military maneuvers. But soon we all learned the truth-war between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union had become a fact. In the afternoon there was the first Nazi air raid on Tarnopol. It took two weeks for the German troops to take over the town. The Russians were running away in great panic. Because of the shortage of fuel they were leaving behind their huge, tanks and vehicles loaded with ammunition. They did not have time to evacuate prisoners who were held in the Tarnopol jail, so they shot several thousand of them.

"When the Russians left, the. first German SS soldiers appeared in the streets. Young, handsome; neatly dressed in SS uniforms, they made a great impression on the civilians. I was still with my aunt in a village when I got a message from home that I was to stay where I was, not to go anywhere near the German troops. Yet my curiosity to see the victorious Nazi. army was greater than my fear. In spite of the warning I went into town. And what did I see? Streets covered with the dead bodies of Jewish people-men, women and children!

"For the first three days of the Nazi occupation, the SS would kill any Jew who appeared on the street. They would take them to wash their cars, lorries, or tanks, and after they had done the job, they would be killed. As I was going along the streets, heading towards home; I saw them lying in the gutters, with the shirt sleeves rolled up and mops in their hands, just as they had finished their work. Soon the civil German administration was established. A part of the city was designated as the Ghetto and a high fence was put around the area. It was in that part where most of the Jews lived. In addition, Jews from neighboring towns and villages were brought to the Ghetto, making it mercilessly crowded. There was only one gate through which the Jews were taken to work every morning. They all had to wear a band bearing the Zion Star on their sleeves. Any Jew caught without such a band was severely punished.

"Father was angry when he saw me at home. He shouted at me, ‘How dare you appear in the streets where so much killing is being done?!' I returned to the village to be with my aunt, but after a week or so it became more dangerous there than in my town, because the Germans started taking young men and girls to work in Germany. Boys would be sent to work in military factories, and girls would be sent to houses of prostitution to serve German soldiers when they were on leave. To be secure, I had to get a job, which was difficult for a 16-year-old. Luckily my father had a friend who owned a baker’s shop and he needed a worker. Thus I got my first job. It was hard work but one of the main benefits was a two-pound loaf of bread which I brought home daily as part of my wages. Many people envied me when they saw me returning home with a whole loaf of bread under-my arm. That was more than a week’s ration.

"The year 1943 brought an intensification of Hitler’s plan to 'solve the Jewish problem' by annihilating that entire nation. The Tarnopol Ghetto was inhabited by about 40,000 Jews. ‘From early spring, every afternoon I would. see groups of 200 to 300 Jews, men and women, elderly and children, escorted by German and Ukrainian police to two execution places outside the town. At sunset we could. hear the echo of machine-guns from both places. Every such echo meant the death of 10 to 15 Jewish human beings. The executions lasted until late at night.

"It has always been a puzzle to me how it was possible that six armed police were able to escort 300 people, who were aware they would be killed that afternoon by those six murderers. Yet they did not make any attempt to run away. Many could have saved their lives if they had dispersed and hidden themselves between the buildings and thenvin the forests. Only once did I see such a thing happen. The police managed to kill one or two but the rest ran away. When those victims were brought to the execution site, they had to dig out a big grave for themselves. Across the grave they had to put a board, kind of a bridge. When everything was ready all of they had to undress; then they had to stand naked on the bridge, and there they were machine
gunned.

"We all realized the great tragedy of those people, but nobody could help them. For Poles in general, life under Nazi occupation was not easy but people at large felt a little better off than under the Russian occupation. Both the Germans and the Russians treated the Poles as second class people, predestined for extermination. In a sense, we all were waiting our turn to be killed.

"The Nazi occupation of my home town of Tarnopol continued until the spring of 1944. More and more news came to us from various sources about the failures of the German army and the victorious march of the Soviet troops. Finally, in March 1944, the first Russian soldiers appeared in our vicinity-poor, ragged creatures, dirty and half-naked, with fear in their eyes. They were going to house after house, asking people if they had seen the German soldiers anywhere nearby. While in the city the Germans were strengthening their positions, overnight the suburbs of Tarnopol were taken by the Russians. The day was quiet. There was no shooting. The soldiers were digging trenches and strengthening their positions with heavy arms.

"On the following day the German soldiers came to tell us that we had to leave and to run as far as possible from Tarnopol, because there would be a big battle in our area. We hurriedly took whatever we could put on our shoulders and went to the west suburbs. Very many civilians left the town that day-women with little children in their arms, men carrying loads of all kinds of things on their shoulders-boys, girls, and old people-all running westward, not knowing where we were or what was our destination. We were simply running away from the Soviets who, we were told, were moving fast. Our nomadic life lasted about eight weeks, as we wandered from village to village, begging for food, sleeping in barns, in the fields, or by the roadsides.

"The ‘liberation’ of Tarnopol was completed in the middle of May 1944. After two months of nomadic life, we returned home to discover that the city, where most of the battle took place, was completely ruined. Our house in the suburbs, however, was not destroyed. The walls had many marks of the bullets and the iron-sheet roof was like a strainer full of holes. Inside, the Russian officers had set up a temporary staff office. Some of our neighbors were already back, but, as our house was occupied by the Russian officers, we had to wait until the middle of May 1944.

"From the first day of 'liberation' the Russian military authorities established their law and order. They started with the burial of dead bodies which were scattered all over town. Huge mass graves were made. Except for Russian soldiers, buried separately, the German soldiers and dead animals-horses, dogs, etc.-were put together in one grave. All were forced to take part in this mass burial, myself included, working under the escort of the Russian soldiers. It took several days to clear the town of dead bodies. The smell of the decaying corpses spread all over town. We had to hurry the job because of the threat of disease.

"It did not take us long to realize we were back under Soviet occupation. Soon they started to take people away from their homes. On October 10, 1944, about 6:00 in the afternoon, I was arrested. Except for my two brothers, the family was at home eating our supper when two armed soldiers and a KGB officer invaded our house. They pointed at me and the officer said, 'You, young man, get ready and come with us.' I was not given much time to say goodbye. The officer now and again shouted, "Bystryj, bystryj!" ("Hurry up, hurry up!") My step-mother quickly gathered the most necessary personal things along with the remaining piece of bread from the table. My father got up, went quickly to the shelf, took down a pocket-size New Testament and, hugging me, said, 'Take this, my son. This little book will be a great comfort to you wherever you are.' Those were the last words I heard from my father. I never saw him again.

"The van stopped in the yard of one of the schools, which I used to attend when I was a boy. I was taken to the gymnastic hall which was guarded by armed soldiers and KGB police. Two or three dozen victims like me were already there. All through the night new groups of young men who were brought to the hall. By morning the hall was full. Late in the evening they told us to get ready. Under strict guard we were marched to the railway station and there we were loaded into cattle cars. My journey to the labor camp began.

"The journey was a torture in itself. We could not see anything. The wagon had a little window high up by the roof. It was open to let in fresh air, but it was sealed by barbed wire. Once a day, when the train stopped at a station we were allowed, in small groups of five, to get out under escort to take care of our physical needs. Once a day we were supplied with a very scanty ration of bread, dry salty fish, and water. All the time we were treated like animals. We sat or laid on the floor, no mattresses or blankets. Every day of our journey was colder and colder, which indicated that we were traveling northeast.

"After a week or so, in the middle of the night we arrived at a very small station in a forest. There was no name on the station. All of a sudden we were ordered to get out of the carriages. Sleepy, weary, and hungry, we were ordered to stand in a double line in front of the train. They counted us and then, under strict escort, we were moved several hundred yards until we came to a big wooden barrack. We had to pass through two barbed-wire gates.

"I could not see much through the dark, but my first impressions were scary. I felt very cold. There was a lot of fresh snow on the ground. Shivering all over we were taken to the barrack. We were told to remove all our clothes. We were allowed to take only a handkerchief and a purse. We were told to put all other belongings, together with our clothing, on the stack of similar stuff, apparently from the previous transport. All of a sudden I faced a serious problem: What shall I do with my Bible? My intuition started to work very hard. I quickly wrapped my little book in the handkerchief and held it along with my purse. The handkerchief was not too clean, and maybe this was why I could safely carry my New Testament through the guards, who were carefully watching every individual.

"From this barrack we moved to another section, called 'banja,' which roughly could be translated as a 'bathroom.' Of course, it did not in any way resemble a bathroom in the sense the civilized world knows it. It was a big room with several barrels filled with warm water. The room was cold and the steam from the barrels filled the place. I could not see much through the steam. The cleaning procedure began with removing hair from all parts of the body. We were served by women in white, dirty aprons. After I was shaved, I was given a tiny bit of dark soap and a wooden bucket. With the bucket I went to one of the barrels, and there another woman gave me a portion of lukewarm water, which I was told, was all I would get. There would be no refill.

"In spite of the circumstances I was pleased to wash myself after the long journey in the dirty train. There were several common towels, pretty wet from having been used by several previous groups, but I dried myself and was ready to go. The guard opened the door and told me to run to another barrack. I ran about 50 yards, naked and barefoot, on the snow. In that barrack, I was given shabby clothing and two left shoes, probably taken from soldiers killed in battle.

"After some time they took the whole group to a big barrack where there were many simple tables with coarse benches on both sides. This was to be our dining hall. The sergeant gave the order to take our places, five on each bench, ten persons to each table. From each table one person was selected to go to a little window of the kitchen. We were each given a little bowl made from the disposed cans of American canned food. These little bowls and wooden spoons were assigned to every prisoner with the instruction that we would have to take good care of this property. 'This is STATE PROPERTY,' the officer stressed. 'GOSUDARSTWIENNOJE IMUSHCHESTVO.' ('There will be severe punishment if you damage or lose it.')

"I was too hungry to listen to this instruction. Finally a bucket of soup arrived at our table. Ten persons were to share the contents of the bucket. The person who was designated to bring the soup was responsible for just distribution. Ten bowls were put in two rows. All of us watched the distributor to see that there was an equal division in each bowl. The soup was made of rotten cabbage. The smell was terrible! In addition, we were given a piece of dark glue-like bread. It was like a piece of clay. You could easily make figurines from it. I was very hungry, too hungry to worry about the taste of the stuff. At that moment all I wanted was to fill my stomach, no matter what I put in it. I finished my soup instantly and did not feel I had satisfied my hunger. No refill, no request for more. There was no time for questions or conversation. This was my first breakfast and a foretaste of the food I would be given for the rest of my stay in the camp.

"After breakfast we were taken to our 'dormitories.' It was light now and I saw no buildings. Instead, there were rows of little hills, like huge molehills, where prisoners lived. We came up to one of the man-made caves. The door was made of rough boards, the opening so narrow that we had to enter single file. Coming from the light at first I could not see anything. There were no windows, only two kerosene torches burning at each end. When my eyes finally got used to the darkness, I saw three layers of bare shelves. No mattresses or blankets. These would be our sleeping quarters.

"We were all very tired. We were introduced to Corporal Samcov who said, 'Until lunch time you can rest on these berths.' I chose the middle shelf and discovered that I was mistaken when I thought earlier there was nothing on the shelves. There were straw mattresses. The straw in the dirty sacks was not fresh. The odor of the rotten straw filled the whole cave, giving that characteristic smell which had struck me when I first entered the place. Soon we all smelled this way. Our bodies, clothing, everything stunk like the straw in the mattresses."

Adam describes this time in his life, until April 1945, as hell on earth. ''We were not treated as individual persons. We were treated as a flock of working animals." The food never varied from the rotten cabbage soup and glue-like bread. Their work was "chopping wood, sweeping off snow, cleaning latrines, and similar things. I was 18 years old, normally the most beautiful time in the life of a young man, but conditions of the labor camp gradually robbed me of my humanity and of my most basic, God-given dignity. I was becoming more of an animal than a human being. I became depressed and frustrated as I realized there was no way out of the situation. Hunger, cold, hard work, and inhuman conditions completely broke my spirit.

"More and more every day, my colleagues who were physically weaker began to die. It was most depressing to look at them, see their glossy, lean faces, which began to swell, and on the following day to learn they have been taken away to die. Most painful was the hunger. If you have never been really hungry, you will not understand what hunger means. You can refrain from eating one, two, even three days. This is not hunger. Hunger begins at the point when your body starts consuming its own substance. Your muscles and your flesh fade away until you become only bones covered with skin. When you reach such a state you think of nothing but food, you dream of food, you talk about nothing but food. Like a mirage in the desert you see tables covered with food, but you cannot eat it. It disappears as soon as you wake up.

"I understood that my situation was hopeless, but even in such a situation one has some hope. As long as one lives and has the ability to think, there is some kind of a small light in a long dark tunnel. For me the little light in the tunnel was the New Testament that my father had given me when the Soviet soldiers came to take me away. Reading the Gospel and prayer, these were the greatest comforts for me. It was difficult to read my New Testament. I could do this only after I came back from work late in the evening. When I read and meditated on His Word, I wanted to go to His Kingdom. I was not afraid of death. As a matter of fact, I wanted to die.

"The joy of possessing the New Testament did not last long. One night as I returned to the cave, I ran to my usual place and there by the kerosene torch I opened my New Testament and began to read. I remember it was the passage from the Gospel of St. John, chapter 16 and verse 33: 'These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.' Reading these words filled my heart with joy. I understood that my misery was known to Jesus. He had foreseen this two thousand years ago. But the greatest joy was in the fact that I was not alone. He was with me!

"As I was meditating on these words of Jesus, all of a sudden the officer on duty stood in front of me. I stood paralyzed! My instinct told me that he would take my New Testament from me. I tried to hide it, but that was too late. He had seen it. He jumped on me and grabbed my little book, put the New Testament in his pocket and told me to follow him. He took me to the office where the chief commander of the camp was sitting behind the desk. The officer told him what happened and put my New Testament on his desk.

"The commander took the little book in his hands and turned page after page as if he wanted to find out what it was. Suddenly he asked: 'What language is the book in?' 'In Polish,' I said. 'Are you a Pole?' 'Yes, sir.' 'What is the book about?' 'This is the New Testament, the Word of God, sir.' 'You say this is the Word of God,' he said after a time of silence. I said, 'Yes, this is the Word of God, sir.'

"At that moment he became like a wild animal. He shouted like a mad man. I understood he wanted to intimidate and scare me. 'You fool! You idiot! You want to make a fool of me, telling me that this is the Word of God, and I will show that this is nothing!' He tore off a page of the New Testament, took some tobacco from his pocket, rolled up a cigarette, lit it and began smoking. He gave the book to the other officer, who did the same and both of them went on smoking the pages from my Bible. While doing this the commander shouted, 'You see, this is your Word of God!' and blew his stinking smoke in my face.

"A long hearing began. He wanted to know my whole biography, asking about my parents and grandparents, about my education, and most of all he wanted to know how I got the New Testament into the camp. He repeated the same questions over and over again, instructing me in Communist ideology, ridiculing all religions, and particularly Christianity. Shouting at the top of his voice, he said: 'You realize that any kind of literature is forbidden in the camp, and especially this kind of a book?!' He continued to shout like a madman. Every time I wanted to give him my reasons why this little book was so important to me, he did not allow me to speak, shouting, 'Moltchat!' ('Shut Up!') and using very strong curse words, as only the Russians could do it.

"My oppressors noticed the sudden change in me. Looking at me, one of them said, 'He is finished. Let us give him some punishment and send him back to his cave.' I expected they would send me to court but to my surprise nothing of what I expected happened. They punished me with seven extra days of hard work. It meant that for seven mornings I had to get up an hour before the regular reveille and do the dirty work like cleaning latrines, sweeping off the snow along the lanes of the camp, scrubbing and washing floors, etc. I had to do the same kind of work in the evening after the tattoo, that is, after everybody went to sleep.

"It was long after midnight when I was taken back to the dugout. I took my usual place on the sleeping board, covered myself with the mantel, but for a long time I could not sleep. Finally my nervous system quieted down and I fell asleep, but it was rather a short nap. Suddenly I felt somebody pulling down my mantel and jerking my foot. It was the overseer who said, 'It is time for you to get up!' I understood that he came to take me to execute the given punishment.

"Quietly I got up, put on my rags, and stood ready to go wherever he would take me. He gave me a shovel and a broom, took me out in front of the dugout and showed me the accumulation of freshly fallen snow which had come down during the night. The sky was clear and the moon was shining brightly. Although in the cave there was no heat, it was like a luxurious hotel in comparison to what it was outside. The temperature was about 40° below zero centigrade. It was so cold that if you expectorated, before the spit hit the ground it had already become a lump of ice.

"The overseer said, 'Look, you have to remove the snow from around the cave before reveille. Get to work and hurry up!' Saying this he hid himself back in the cave and I began to work. I shoveled the snow as fast as I could to generate maximum energy to warm myself up. When my hands got cold I beat them against my body. In this way more blood would come to my palms and fingers, and thus the cold was not so bitter.

"All of a sudden I noticed a black spot on the white snow. The spot had the shape of a little book. I looked around to see if anybody was looking. When I was sure that nobody was watching me, I bent down and picked up the little book. I could not believe my eyes. IT WAS A NEW TESTAMENT! I quickly opened it and noticed that it was in the Russian language.

"Holding the little finding in my hands, all of a sudden I was overwhelmed with unspeakable joy. I knelt down because, like Moses in the desert, I felt the place was Holy. I sensed some invisible hands around me. I did not feel cold any more. My heart and my whole body were strangely warmed. I was aware that somebody invisible was holding me up. My instinct told me that it was Jesus. Being on my knees and enjoying this unusual experience I said, 'Lord, if you ever take me away from this hell, I will become your servant forever.' At that very moment the Lord reminded me of the promise I made to my mother the day before she died.

"Two or three weeks later the situation started to change. From the beginning of April, we did not go to work in the forest any more. Between one day and the next, I became a Russian soldier. Nobody asked me if I wanted it or not. They simply made me a Soviet soldier." Even though they were given no freedom, the men were treated slightly better; The food improved. Their prison rags were replaced by uniforms. They did not go to work in the forest but practiced military exercises. Toward the end of Apri1 1945, again they were loaded into cattle cars and transported to the Far East. One day an officer announced, "Comrades! I want to inform you that today our great Soviet army has killed the Hitler beast in its own nest. Comrades! War is ended! But we have one more task to fulfill. We have to take vengeance on the Japanese Samurais."

At the beginning of July 1945, the men were subjected to intense training for war against Japan. Adam was assigned the duty of learning Morse code and operating a portable radio. There were squirmishes, Adam had several narrow escapes, and men he knew were killed, but God's promise to him held true. While Poles and Russians were together in the trenches and death was a distinct possibility every day; Adam saw the reason God had replaced his Polish New Testament with one in Russian. He was able to read to men of that nationality in their own language and they heard the gospel, most of them perhaps for the first time.

During this time Adam tells of hearing "not from the official authorities but from ordinary rumor that the Americans had launched strange bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The bombs had terrific power and they completely destroyed the two towns and killed thousands of people. It was only after some time that I learned that those strange bombs were the atomic bombs. The Russian command did not like to talk about that new American weapon." The date of the bombing was August 6, 1945. Adam's life was saved by that event. Had it not been that the war ended at that time, he is certain that he would have been considered by the Russians to be expendable, and placed in the front lines. September 3, 1945 was the date officially announced to the Russian troops as the Day of Victor over Japan. Russian soldiers were talking of going home but Adam held no such hope until one day he ran onto a Jewish colleague who had been a school mate in Adam's home town. He told Adam about his escape from extermination at the hands of the Nazis, but the important information was about the Polish-Soviet agreement concerning the repatriation of the Polish citizens from the Soviet Union. Adam immediately sent an application, which was denied. He met his friend again who said he had written directly to Stalin and persuaded Adam to try. That became a long process, but after many delays, Adam boarded the train for home on October 25, 1946.

He met his sisters and step-mother. His father had died six months before he returned home. Adam learned that three days after he was arrested, the Russians had taken his younger brother, Stefan. Stefan was located in the Pechora area, far north of Russia. The Pechora labor camps were abolished, the prisoners were set free, but they were not allowed to leave. They were given small plots of land on which they could build log cabins to live in. Stefan worked there in the forests. Julian had also been arrested and taken to Russia, but was drafted into a Polish army organized by Stalin. Julian died at the age of 65. He was a heavy smoker and died of throat cancer. In 1992, Adam received word that Stefan had died of a heart attack.

"I spoke of returning home, but as a matter of fact, I did not have a home. My home was in Ternopil (Ukrainian for Tarnopol), which after World War I became a part of the soviet Ukraine. The Poland to which I returned was not the same Poland I knew in my childhood. By the decision of American President Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Churchill, and the Soviet Communist leader Joseph Stalin, Poland became a part of the Eastern Communist Block.

"That was not the choice of the Polish people. The consequence of that decision were tragic for the nation. It did not take me long to find out that the mighty Soviet KGB kept control over all walks of life. In every minute of my life I was aware that 'Big Brother' was watching me. I kept praying for God to give me wisdom and directions for what to do in this new environment. I said, 'Lord, you have brought me back to this country to fulfill your divine mission. Please, Lord, show me the way to do this."'

Adam's first step was to go to Warsaw to meet with an American missionary to Poland, who endorsed Adam for attendance at the Methodist Theological Seminary with a grant to cover all expenses. This he did and in 1951, at an Annual Conference, he was given the status of Probational Minister, sent to serve three congregations in the north of Poland, in an area called Mazury. At that Conference, he met Lidia who became his wife on September 2, 1952. "God blessed our marriage and gave us three children: Jolanta, Christopher, and Erlina-Marzena.

''Even before I left the Seminary, many things changed for the worse. In 1949, the Communist government began the persecution of Christian churches. All foreign missionaries were ordered to leave the country. The Office for Religious Affairs, a branch of the KGB, was established. All church activities were limited and controlled by that office.

"Christian orphanages and children’s homes were taken over by the state. Children were not allowed to learn religion at school or at home. Children of Christian parents were not allowed to study at the universities or other high schools. A Christian who confessed his faith would not be able to work as a teacher, professor, director of an institution, or any other high-up position. The Communist policy was to close all churches within ten years."

At various times throughout the years, Adam had been brought before the authorities and ordered to sign a paper denouncing his faith in God and offering all kinds of opportunities in exchange. It happened again at this time. Their words to him were, "We would like to help you. We know you have made a mistake getting into the ministry of the Methodist Church, which we know is an American net of spies. But we want to give you a chance. We don't want you to destroy your life. We will give you money to study at any university you want. You may become an engineer, a medical doctor, whatever you choose, but there is one condition: you have to resign from the ministry. We will help you to become a valuable citizen of our socialist state. You have no future in the church. Soon Communism will dominate the whole world. Churches will cease to exist. You have to be realistic in your judgment of the existing situation."

Once again Adam declined, which made him even more of a target. Three days later he received a letter from the Office for Religious Affairs informing him that he was suspended of all functions as a pastor. He would not be allowed to preach anywhere in Poland, and he was given two weeks to leave the area of Mazury. ''This was a terrible blow to me. I realized I could not do what I loved so much. I had to leave all those people, my sisters and brothers in Christ. I, a shepherd, was forced to leave my flock of sheep.

"On the following day I took the first train to Warsaw and went to see the Superintendent of the Methodist Church. I showed him the letter and asked him what I should do. The Superintendent looked at me with compassion and said, "My dear brother Kuczma, there is no way that I can help you. We are all in a similar situation. Many Catholic priests and Protestant pastors have been arrested. They may come at any time and arrest me. What can I do in this situation? The only thing I can advise you is that you resign the ministry, look for a secular job, and take care of your family. The sooner you do this the better for you."

Adam declined, but with no income, the only option seemed to be to ask for help from Lidia's parents who lived in Katowice (kato-wee-tze). Even though they had only a two-room apartment and a small income, they agreed, and Adam, Lidia, and their daughter Jolanta moved in with them. "Our life in Katowice was very difficult. The church did not support us financially and I could not get a job. Every time I applied, I received the answer, 'If you resign the ministry, we will employ you."' Adam approached the Methodist pastor in Katowice, but he refused to allow him to preach when he saw the letter from the Office of Religious Affairs. "For eight months I hung between heaven and earth. Not to be idle, I taught myself English and actually became quit fluent. At least in this field I made good progress.

"One day in September 1954, the District Superintendent brought me good news that he had a church for me and I had permission to preach again. In the fall of 1954, I took over the church in Bytom. It was a small congregation and the people could not support me. I used to get a small support from the Church Office in Warsaw, but our material situation was so bad that we did not have money to buy food and actually were suffering from hunger. To make soup Lidia would go to the cheapest place, which was a horse meat shop, where people used to buy meat for their dogs. But Lidia did not even have enough money to buy horse meat. She would ask for some bones to make the soup more nourishing. We continued like that for two years."

The situation became better in 1956, the year Adam was ordained. "The new policy of political leaders towards the church was a mixture. In the Communist calculation, if a congregation was deprived of a leader, it would die. Therefore, they permitted, and even encouraged, the clergy to emigrate to the West, believing that in this way they would destroy the church. At that time many of our pastors left their churches and immigrated to America; Canada, West Germany and England. I, too, began to think of that and Lidia encouraged me to emigrate to America, which to the Poles was a vision of paradise.

In 1958, Adam's dream of coming to America was very strong. But one night before his prayer he read the story of Moses, whom God called to serve his people. Moses gave up everything to do the most difficult task God had for him, and Adam felt it was his answer. God wanted him to stay with his people, and consistent with his promise to his mother and to Jesus, he agreed.

Over the course of years, Adam was given an opportunity to study in England, to become the General Superintendent of the churches in Poland, Director of the Methodist Church College in Warsaw, President of the Polish Ecumenical Council, one of the eight Presidents of the Conference of the European Churches, which was a regional branch of the World Council of Churches. He became active in churches nationally and internationally. The attempt to condense Adam's story may have cut out the very heart of it, for since the days in the labor camp when his Bible and prayer provided his fortitude, and God's promise of protection gave him assurance, evidence of God's presence was a constant. That evidence-came in the form of miracles. "I am a man of miracles,” Adam says.

“There came a point at which the Lord told me that the time of revival had come. It was not easy. Communist persecutions and restrictions had caused much damage to the church. Membership had been reduced by more than 50% and many pastors had left to work in secular institutions or immigrate to Western countries. A problem was not only the shortage of pastors, but of their recruitment and education. Our Methodist seminary was closed by the Communists in 1953. It was not possible to re-open it after 30 years of persecutions and restrictions. But I was praying every day for guidance, and when the Lord said, ‘DO IT!’ I knew that He would give me the strength and ability to reopen the seminary. I began and succeeded.

"In September 1983, the Seminary started its regular sessions with 10 students, and it was a good beginning. But things were not easy. The most difficult problem was food for the students. One day we found we did not have anything left. It was not possible to go the store to buy the needed products. Rationing meant that we needed special tickets, and even if one had such tickets there was no guarantee the customer would get what he wanted. We had to look for some other solution. We decided to assign some home work to the students and send them for a week or so to their churches. In the meantime we hoped to get the needed products. But the Lord had a solution for us, even before we did that.

"The students were to take the train on one particular evening. Early that afternoon, as I was working in my office, the doorbell rang. When I went to answer it, I found a young bearded man standing in front of me. 'Are you Pastor Kuczma?' he asked. 'Yes, I am,' was my answer. 'What can I do for you?' He said, 'I am a tourist from Finland. I have some food which I want to give to the church. Would you accept it?' I replied, 'Of course, I will. We badly need it' He asked me to go down with him to his car. In front of the Methodist building was a big van. The stranger opened the back door. The van was full of food products! The man said, 'This is all yours.' I asked the students to unload the van and told them they did not need to go home.

"When the job was done, I quickly ran down to the street to express my gratitude and to tell the man how much we appreciated his gift. But when I came to the street the van was not there! The man was gone. He had not even given me his name or address. All I knew was that he was a young bearded man, a tourist from Finland. Slowly and heavily I walked up the stairs. I was suddenly very tired. My mind was confused with what had happened. I said, "Lord, how foolish it was of me to look into your face and not to recognize you!" I felt like those disciples walking to Emmaus who talked with the Resurrected Jesus and did not recognize him until He broke the bread. I thought to myself how many times we see Jesus, but our eyes are blind and hearts are hardened to recognize Him."

Adam has a zeal for evangelism, which in those days was curtailed by the restrictions of Communism. He realized that word of mouth would not do much. The church needed Christian literature, but even the use of a hand-operated mimeograph was not allowed. He wrote, "I had never seen a printing machine in my life and I had no idea how to begin the publishing work that was necessary. Then miracle after miracle began to happen. Our Bishop was a Swiss. He came to the Annual Conference in Warsaw. When we met, the very first thing I told him was that the Methodist Church in Poland needed printing machines to begin publishing work and that I expected he would help us get them. He immediately began to argue, first that he didn’t have money to buy such machines, and second the Polish Communist government would not allow the Methodist Church to run a printing activity."

Adam did not argue but simply said, "Bishop, tomorrow we have an appointment with the Minister of Religious Affairs. I cannot cancel this meeting. We have to go there. When we are there, all I want you to tell the Minister is that you will purchase all the necessary printing machines." His answer was, "I will go with you to see the Minister in his office, but I will never say that I will buy any of the printing machines; you hear-never! This is my final word."

On the following day they went to the Office for Religious Affairs, where they were greeted cordially, treated to a cup of coffee, and the Minister began to speak about the freedom of religion in Poland, at which point Adam said, "Mr. Minister, we have come to your Office with a very special and important request. You have spoken about freedom of press. We want to ask you to allow the Methodist Church in Poland to have its own printing press. We want to organize a printing shop in our church, and for that, as you know, we need your permission."

"He looked at me angrily. There was silence for a moment as if he were trying to collect his thoughts. He did not want to back down before the Bishop. He began to contend that the Methodists in Poland did not need a printing shop, but I stood firmly and listed all reasons why we needed a printing press of our own. When he saw that he could not beat me with arguments, he decided to beat me on the economic ground. He said, 'Superintendent Kuczma, you know that these kinds of machines are very expensive and they are not available in Poland. To my knowledge the Methodist Church in Poland is not prepared financially for such expenditure.

"In response I said, 'Mr. Minister, it is true we don't have money to buy these printing machines. That is why I brought the Bishop with me. He is going to purchase all these machines for us in Switzerland. Here I looked at the Bishop, who said, 'Yes, sir, that is what I am going to do. I will buy all these printing machines and send them to Poland.' Towards the end of the visit the Minister said, 'OK, send us your application; give us all the reasons why you need the printing press in your church, and we will consider your request.' I had that application with me and I put it on the Minister's desk. The Bishop and I triumphantly left the Office for Religious Affairs. I knew very well that there were two men who were very angry with me-the Minister and my Bishop. But I was very happy. I felt that the Holy Spirit had guided me successfully.

"Three months later I got a letter from the Office for Religious Affairs giving us permission to install our own printing press. Soon the first of the Gestetner printing machines arrived in Warsaw. I did not know or want to know where the money came from. All I knew was that the Lord was blessing my work."

On September 2, 1983, the printing shop was fully equipped and they started to print Christian literature to strengthen evangelism in Poland. However, there were other obstacles. Paper was under strict control of the Communist government. A small amount of paper had arrived when the printing machines came from Switzerland but it had soon been used. On the
day the printer went to Adam to say he was going home because there was no paper for him to do his work, he and Adam began to pray about this very serious matter.

"Three days later I got a telephone call from Vesteros in Sweden. A Christian friend of mine, Dahl Stistrupp, was calling me. He said, 'Adam, I hear you need paper for your printing shop.' I said, 'Yes, that is correct, we need paper to print Christian literature, and we cannot get it anywhere in Poland.' He replied, 'Adam, you have five tons of paper on the way to Warsaw.' At first I could not believe what he said. I thought he had made a mistake, or misspoke about the amount, or I did not understand him properly. But he repeated, 'Yes, you have five tons, that is 5,000 kilos (over 10 thousand pounds) of paper on the way to your office.'"

I said, 'Dahl, this is a lot of paper, where did you get it?' and he answered, 'Now, listen, I got some money from a Baptist pastor in Columbia, South Carolina, and the pastor told me to use the money for the mission in Poland. So I thought the best way to use the donation was to buy paper.' I said, ‘Dahl, I don’t know anybody in Columbia, South. Carolina, and I certainly
wouldn't know a Baptist pastor there!'

"In a week or so the paper arrived in Warsaw, and we could continue our work. For me that was a great miracle and the proof that there is no boundary for the Lord. We prayed in Poland, the money came from America, and the paper arrived from Sweden."

Since that time Adam has met and visited in the home of the pastor who was instrumental in his getting the paper, and has broadened his acquaintances and ministry in the United States, in Russia and in Ukraine. At 77 years of age, he is still preaching the gospel with evidence that this is what God called and spared him to do.