A SALISBURY woman has been honoured by the president of Poland for surviving one of the lesser-reported atrocities of the Second World War.

Stasia Stockley, of Crane Bridge Road, was just eight months old when, in February 1940, the Soviet Union's Red Army occupied Poland and started brutally deporting civilians to Stalin's labour camps in Siberia for the crime' of being landowners.

Along with her mother, Franciszka Oskroba, eight siblings and her elderly grandparents, Mrs Stockley was taken from their farmhouse in eastern Poland and shipped to the USSR's harsh gulags in a crowded cattle truck.

Mrs Stockley's father had died shortly before the war, and her eldest brother drowned at the camp when attempting to save a young boy from a fast-flowing river.

But thanks to Mrs Oskroba's incredible bravery and determination, she managed to escape the camp with eight of her children and make the harrowing mammoth journey to Britain.

Despite having been badly injured in a forestry accident, she fled the gulag on a hand-drawn sleigh in the freezing conditions of northern Russia, before travelling through several Soviet republics, Persia and India.

Along the way Mrs Oskroba suffered more heartache with the loss of a daughter, who was left behind when her mother was wrongly informed by a hospital she had died from typhoid.

By the time they reached a collection point for refugees, her two youngest babies, including Mrs Stockley, had died' because of the extreme cold.

They only survived when their mother stripped them and rolled them in the snow for heat, ignoring the protests of onlookers who thought she was desecrating their bodies.

Mrs Oskroba's intention was to return to Poland, but as the war ended it became clear the Soviet Union's domination of eastern Europe would make that impossible and she reluctantly came to Britain.

More than 65 years after the mass deportations, and subsequent escapes, current Polish president Lech Kaczynski is keen to recognise the efforts of those who suffered at the hands of the Red Army.

And last month, through his London-based consul general, commemorative medals were handed out to all the remaining survivors.

"I only wish my mother had been here to receive her medal," said Mrs Stockley, who has lived in Salisbury for nearly ten years.

"She, and all the other Polish mothers who brought their young families through Siberia, deserve recognition more than any of us.

"We would not have survived but for my mother. She was very strong and protective - probably because she had grown up through one of the most turbulent times of Polish history.

"She was an amazing and courageous woman who lost her husband, father, mother eldest son and a daughter - and still refused to give up.

"Stalin deported about a million and a half Poles to Siberia and many died - and yet, unlike other similar atrocities, very little has been written about it."

Determined to right this, Mrs Stockley, along with husband David, has researched the deportations, and he has written a novel, The Marzipan Kingdom, based on the family's experiences.

"It was after we got married that she started telling me about it - I couldn't believe what she was coming out with," said Mr Stockley, who is looking for a publisher for his book.

"Her mother used to go over it again and again with her - it's a hell of a story.

"I wrote it as a novel, and the things I've added are more believable than the things that actually took place."