Alex Nowak: My Chernobyl connection

On the 34th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, Deaf actor Alex Nowak tells us about his family connection to the tragedy.

Most people have heard of Chernobyl – one of the world’s worst nuclear disasters.

Visual images of gas masks, helicopters dumping sand and falling midair into the power plant, the ghost town of Pripyat crumbling with dilapidated buildings, the huge red and white sarcophagus towering over the doomed reactor always comes into mind whenever I see or hear the word ‘Chernobyl’.

Strangely enough, Chernobyl has always intrigued me from a very early age and I wanted to learn more.

In 2009, I did A-level Geography in Sixth Form and I had to do a case study on an international pollution event – I immediately thought of Chernobyl.

It was insightful to learn how on 26^th April 1986, a faulty safety test triggered an explosion and meltdown at Chernobyl’s reactor no. 4.

This resulted in colossal amounts of toxic fumes and dust being spewed into the environment and many people succumbed to acute radiation sickness.

This was followed by a huge surge in thyroid cancer cases and many other illnesses in the area. Nearby woodland became known as the “Red Forest” due to trees dying from high levels of radiation as they turned a bright ginger colour.

A 30 kilometer Exclusion Zone has been set up around the reactor, resulting in approximately 350,000 people being relocated but millions still continue to live on contaminated land to this day.

It changed the lives of countless people and continues to do so. It sounded like it was a very gruesome time. Officials downplayed the damages of the Chernobyl disaster and the politics of misinformation continues.

Little did I know how much my own family was affected by the disaster…

In 2010, I did a 28-hour coach journey from London to Warsaw, Poland. I backpacked around the country for 5 weeks and visited my dad’s family in Leszno, western Poland.

My Grandfather Jozef was born in Poland and moved to the UK after World War II and met my legendary and inspirational Grandma Julie – the rest is history.

I hadn’t met my dad’s extended Polish family before so I was nervous and excited to meet them all for the first time.

In Leszno, I stayed with my second cousin once removed Lidia and was treated with such overwhelming hospitality. Every day I was awoken by the smell of baking and as soon as I put my hearing aids in I would suddenly hear general chitchat and children laughing.

Polish families are very different compared to British families. Polish families are much more close-knit. They see each other almost every other day, they chat constantly, they bake together and it’s a proper family unit. I felt very proud of my Polish blood. We in the UK could learn a lot from them.

Lidia took me to meet my dad’s aunties, uncles, cousins and their extended family. The delightful Grazyna, my dad’s cousin, sat me down and showed me this huge book on the extended Nowak family history. Along with a photo, everyone in the extended family had their own page full of facts and information, handwritten by Grazyna herself.

She turned the page over to Maria, my dad’s auntie, and there were two very contrasting photos of her. One is of her younger self, looking quaint and charming, the other she is much older and looking extremely sombre and dismal. Maria looked like she had two different identities; what had happened to her?

Grazyna explained to me how Maria was happily married and had a daughter and son. When the war broke out, Maria’s husband escaped the house and left the country. If found, he would have got arrested and god knows what terrible ordeals he could have faced. Maria never saw her husband ever again.

In 1944, Maria was deported to one of the many Stalin prison camps somewhere in the extreme Siberian wilderness for 10 years.

There were 1018 persons in this Stalin camp and her fingers were hammered until broken, so it was difficult for her to do daily labour activities. She was very ill and would secretly eat bird feces as it had protein. Out of the 1018 persons, only 8 survived including Maria, Grazyna explained to me.

I was in shock and despair over the intolerable oppression and enslavement Maria faced, but I wasn’t prepared to hear what was coming next.

Grazyna continued to tell me how whilst Maria was suffering under the hands of Stalin in a Russian gulag, her son, Eugeniusz, had moved to northern Ukraine. Eugeniusz (my dad’s cousin) had gone to live and work on a state farm. He was alone and didn’t have a family; he was a bachelor. The state farm was a few kilometers away from Chernobyl…

Fast-forward to 26^th April 1986 when Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant blew up after operators botched a safety test, releasing radioactive materials into the atmosphere.

For the next three years, Eugeniusz continued to work daily at the state farm and was exposed to the radioactive cloud bellowing from the nearby notorious nuclear power site. In 1989, Eugeniusz sadly succumbed from radiation contact and died alone.

I couldn’t believe what Grazyna was telling me. I had extreme goose bumps. My dad’s cousin, my first cousin once removed, had died at Chernobyl. A member of my own family was a victim of one of the world’s worst nuclear disasters. Chernobyl was now part of my roots.

In 2013, I visited the Ukraine for five days and booked a private day trip to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.

First, I met my lovely friends, Natalia and Oleksandr, and they showed me around their fascinating city of Kiev. Kiev is full of majestic architecture and glittering orthodox cathedrals – I highly recommend anyone to go and visit.

Despite having done a case study on Chernobyl 3 years earlier in Sixth Form, I decided to visit the Ukrainian National Museum of Chernobyl in Kiev to refresh my memory.

Walls were completely filled with black and white pictures of young children and workers; all of them had obviously died in the disaster.

Fake trees were planted and growing up through cots to resemble that nature has taken over. A feeling of somberness hanged over me as I spent hours taking in all the information ahead of my trip into the Zone the following day.

The next morning, I woke up early and had breakfast in the quaint restaurant of Hotel Dnipro and went to get the mini bus to the checkpoint of Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. My towering guide in camouflage, Nikolai, approached me and kindly gave me lots of printed information of the tour (I had emailed the tour operator to explain that I’m deaf).

We drove along the bumpy road into the Zone of Alienation and were given strict safety rules by Nikolai. Surrounded by dense green forest, the clouds grew darker and it drizzled for the whole trip.

After a photo-stop at the monolithic Chernobyl sign, we then went ‘sightseeing’ in Chernobyl town. The main road was scattered with dilapidated bungalows, nature was growing through the collapsed roofs and windows. We entered a kindergarten full of decaying dolls and bunk beds stripped bare.

Back on the mini bus, in the distance, I saw the infamous Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant for the first time with my own eyes. Grey and forbidding, it stood there in its full bleakness with the sarcophagus towering above. How could this single, very ugly, building affect the lives of millions and claim the lives of thousands?

We continued to drive to the power plant and got off the bus. There, 270 meters away, was the doomed reactor number 4. The numbers on my Geiger counter started to rise rapidly. It was very bewildering to be right next to the site of one of the world’s worst nuclear disasters.

We witnessed the construction of the humongous New Safe Confinement; an arch that’s designed to confine the remains of the aforementioned reactor and prevent any further release of radiation (it was completed later in 2017).

We then drove into the thick forest on an exceptionally bumpy road when suddenly derelict communist skyscrapers appeared all around us. We were in the evacuated city of Pripyat, which was once inhabited by 50,000 Chernobyl plant workers.

As we wandered around the main square and fairground, remnants of hasty abandonment could be seen everywhere. This was followed by a surprisingly nice dinner in the Chernobyl canteen before having a radiation check and leaving the Zone back into the real world.

During the whole tour, I kept thinking of Eugeniusz – What things did he see? Where was the state farm he worked at? Had he ever stood where I stood? Was he told the correct information by authorities? I left the Ukraine with a sense of solemnity.

34 years later, the long shadow of Chernobyl continues to darken lives – socially, environmentally and physically. It saddens me that Eugeniusz, my first cousin once removed, went through this alone. Did he know his mother was sent away by Stalin troops and returned to Poland? Was he ordered to stay at the state farm and work? I really hope he was treated with respect.

I had more questions than ever. My Polish family doesn’t know any more information on Eugeniusz. His sister lives somewhere in southern Belarus, maybe she has some answers for me…

That part of the former USSR will never be the same. I get the impression they want to forget about it all.

Rest in peace Eugeniusz, you will never be forgotten.

Alex Nowak is a British deaf actor who has appeared in various films, including The End.