During a ceremony marking Constitution Day, held at the Royal Castle, President of the Republic of Poland Andrzej Duda presented the highest state decorations. Among those awarded the Order of the White Eagle was Zofia Teliga-Mertens, whom the president honored for her contributions to social and charitable work for repatriates from Kazakhstan. The prezydent.pl website presented the following profile of the honoree:
Her father, Stefan Teliga (born in Bieliny), a recipient of the Virtuti Militari Cross for bravery in the 1920 Polish-Soviet War, settled in the Borderlands [...]. In 1940, he was deported to Siberia with his family. He died of sepsis on the way to Anders’ Army.
His wife and daughter were deported to Kazakhstan, where conditions were considerably worse than in the Siberian taiga. Hunger and rampant infectious diseases decimated the deportees. They survived under such conditions for nearly five years. Zofia Teliga-Martens recalled that she wanted to become an agronomist and work in Bieliny. These dreams helped her survive. She and her mother did not return to Poland until 1946. Zofia completed agricultural studies in Wrocław.
After the Soviet army left Poland, the Teliga women received, as partial compensation for lost property […], three residential buildings in the ruined former Soviet barracks in Szczytnica near Bolesławiec, valued at 1.3 million złotys. They renovated them at their own expense. Zofia Teliga-Martens began, on her own initiative, bringing families of Polish origin from Kazakhstan, giving them homes to own. She brought 40 families, more than 200 people in total. It took her ten years and cost her entire fortune. The resulting housing estate is called Kresówka.