Joe Jezioranski

I was placed in a cast reaching from my shoulders to my legs. My mother stayed with me constantly. I could have all the chocolate and ice cream I wanted. The first weekend I developed a severe pain in my stomach. I insisted that the only doctor that could save me was my godfather, Dr Brodowski. He was married to my mother’s first cousin. When he came, he decided that my pain was due to overstuffing with sweets, and cut a big hole for my stomach in my body cast. The pain subsided. I remained convinced that he was the best doctor in the world.

My mother would stay with me most of the day. She cried and worried. I could not understand her sorrow. My brother explained that she used to be married before and had a daughter. In the separation proceedings the family of her husband gained the custody of her daughter, because my mother married in Switzerland during her studies and was still under 21. Subsequently her daughter died of complications developed after influenza. Furthermore the doctor who treated me told her that I likely would never walk again.

My feelings were mixed. At first I felt sorry for my mother. Then I felt sorry for myself. Then I felt curious.

I decided to try to walk. As soon as I was left alone in the summerhouse, I slipped down from the bed. Boy, was this stuff ever heavy! I crawled first. I felt OK. Then I raised myself slowly, propped up by the bed. Soon I was walking in the garden playing with my friends.

I spent most of the summer in the cast, but everybody was nice to me and organized the games in such a way that I could participate. Near the end of the summer, I spent a lot of time listening to the Olympic Games in Berlin. I became an expert on light sport.

Even when my cast came off, my mother insisted that I spend the year at home. She hired a live-in tutor, but she was not very lucky in choosing the right kind. The first one was a drug addict. The second one was a girl who did not like the arrangement of looking day-in, day-out after a rambunctious 8-year-old. The third one was my cousin (my mother’s sister married Mr Kobylecki and had three children) but it turned out that he had to spend more time on his own studies. Finally we settled on a gentleman who lived down the dusty road behind the Mennas’ house. He gave me lessons in the morning, when I usually walked to his house.

I liked going to his house. I enjoyed meeting his neighbors: an old asthmatic retiree with a bagful of stories about the old times, a couple of retired hookers who plied me with candy, a woman painter with great aspirations (she sold us a painting of our house for the outrageous sum of 20 dollars), a foreman in the chocolate factory (Czarnecki) whose wife was an ex-emigre to Germany and whose daughter was the most beautiful girl in the village.

The dusty road ran straight into the forest. I often trudged along into the forest, but it seemed to be endless. One time the boys in the village told me that somebody hung a dog on a tree in the forest. I never found the dog, but I came home tired and was closed in the attic as a penalty by my father. That’s when I discovered a lot of old interesting stuff was stored there. I used some of the old clothes to dress up for my games.

I spent a lot of time digging in the library in my father’s study. I decided to reorganize the shelves. I found that the books were in six languages: Polish, German, French, English, Latin and Russian. A lot of classical authors were in a number of languages. Shakespeare, for instance, was not only in English, but translations existed in German and Polish. Whereas some books were well read, some complete works of known authors seemed to have been not used very much. I was not surprised to find the complete works of Voltaire (300 volumes) basically unread, but I wondered who was rereading a well-stained Lessing [15] in German?

15. One of the major German poets.

I found a well-stocked section of Polish literature. I especially enjoyed reading Prus, Kraszewski and Korzeniowski [16] (Joseph Conrad’s uncle). I was not impressed with the modern Polish writers, possibly because I could not understand them.

16. All three were well-known XIXth-century writers of Polish prose.

I discovered some documents and old picture albums in my father’s desk. I was unable to identify most of the old daguerreotypes. Who knows what stories they might have contained?

As the summer came, my mother insisted that my father take a long holiday. He went this time to Montecatini [17] in Italy. We all enjoyed his letters full of descriptions of Florence and the art of the renaissance. My father had a great aptitude for languages. Wherever he went, he would learn to speak the native language. And so this time he added Italian to the languages that he could converse in.

The depression was coming to a close, at least for the district that we lived in. Some time before, a road was built linking Warsaw with Modlin. The building of the road infused a fair amount of economic wealth into the area. Now an airport was started on our side of the city.

17. A well-known Italian health resort near Florence in Tuscany.

Mlociny settlement was beginning to grow again. Many houses that had stood unoccupied for years were now bought and people were moving into them. To the east of our house, behind the cross on the hill, a couple of houses had risen. The boy who lived there was famous for his escapades with his father’s car. He was driving it around the development and was caught by the police and reprimanded – he was only twelve years old. Five houses that bordered on our property were now all occupied, one with multiple families. In the forest to the south, the leather industrialists (Weigle brothers) built two three-story mansions. They had two daughters, one of whom became my play companion. Close to us, between our house and the small woods surrounding the farm house, a house was built in which Marian Gliwa lived. He was my bosom friend.

I guess I was declared to be healthy again. My father was concerned that I was getting too lazy and good for nothing (nothing has changed, you see) and I was sent to school. I followed my brother again, and was enrolled in the Lutheran high school (gimnazjum Reya). It turned out to be a great mistake. The class students represented most of the Polish minorities. The year spent at home made me a lot more accustomed to the children of the Polish working class, whereas the children in this school represented a mixture of affluent city dwellers.

I felt out of place. I found that among the children of the German group, the Jewish group, and the Polish merchant group, there were a few who did not seem to belong and were persecuted by the others. I was especially sorry for a boy, I believe his name was George, who was the son of an officer. The others seemed to continually play practical jokes on George and beat him in a corner. I undertook to defend him. The result was an alienation from most of the kids in the class.

My problem was that my brother was the best student in his class, for a couple of years now, while my results were rather mediocre. I felt very much alone.

My father’s office was within walking distance of the school. Occasionally I would walk to his office, trying to find solace in his company. Mostly I found that he was too busy to see me. I had to rely on myself. I explored the city and found many interesting people and places. Sometimes I would ask my parents where they would be at a particular time and arrange to meet them.

I also found that I could get into my father’s office when he was not there. I found a drawer in his desk, which was locked. After some experimentation I opened it and found some juicy French books, held there in order that “the kids” would not get to them. After checking with my brother, I found that he had already discovered and read them but was not impressed. Anyhow I could not understand most of the stuff.

That year, two of my mother’s relatives died and we had to attend the funeral. I found the dead bodies lying in state almost as sobering as my first experience. Much less impressive than looking at a funeral of some dignitary.

My loneliness caused me to spend more time with our servants. I found that the young one was very lonely herself. She suggested exploring our bodies, but at that age I did not find it overly exciting. On the other hand my mother got rather upset about the business and the servant was thrown out (how unfair – might have been useful later).

I found that if I took the bus at a particular time, I was travelling with Marian, who got on the bus at Bielany. I got very friendly with him. We played immediately after coming home. His parents did not like him to stray too far away from home, so we usually played in his garden. He was my best friend. He was taller and heavier than I, but in all games I seem to be the leader. Marian was always quiet and liked remaining in the background. What attracted me to him was that he was always ready to drop anything he was doing to be with me. He made me feel very comfortable and important. I saw him for the last time when I visited Poland after the war. I cannot say why I never wrote to him.

In the winter I found that I had a sister, Alina, whom I had never met. She was a great hit. For one, she was big. Then she was engaged and her fiancé skied better than any of my friends. Finally she brought gifts for my birthday. My birthday was in January and people normally forgot to give me gifts because it was right after Christmas.

That year there were two weddings. Well, I was not invited to my sister’s wedding (shame, shame!). Zosia had her wedding in our house. I can hardly remember how she looked like. The thing I remember about her was her personality: always willing to be helpful, unassuming and gentle. Zosia was an “extension” of our household. She was my mother’s niece and everybody felt sorry for her because she was born after my aunt left her husband. I could never understand what was so regrettable about it. Anyway many people came for the wedding. In particular my grandmother, who stayed with us for a while.

At the end of the year, I was hospitalized for appendicitis, which gave me some additional status with the neighborhood kids. During my convalescence, my mother, my grandmother and I played a lot of bridge. Sometimes we even had a fourth player.

I listened to the radio a lot. A couple of years before, my father had been caught on the train from France when the Germans marched into the Ruhr district [18]. I listened to the news about the war in Spain when I marked the advances of Franco on a map of Spain. I listened to the news of the Italian army advances in Abyssinia and the news about the Anschluss [19]. Now Czechoslovakia and Munich [20]. Peace in our time. It sounded worse than war. Mixed feelings about Polish army in Cieszyn [21]. My brother was in the same class as the sons of the Polish chief of general staff. Stach Paprocki was some political bigwig. Somehow politics was getting into my life.

Summer was full of parties. Our garden so beautiful resounded with the joyful voices of so many friends and relatives. The depression was no more. People had money, cars, time... Life was so beautiful.

There was something that bothered me. I often played with the kids who were older then me. Now that I was ten years old, the girls stopped playing with me, or at least seemed to enjoy playing with my brother who was fourteen. I decided that you cannot trust girls.

When I went to school again, I asked my mother to send me to the same school that Marian went to. Still he was one year ahead of me.

I found that the school at Bielany was quite different from the prestigious Lutheran Gimnazjum. Here a single teacher taught most of the courses, which made for a more intimate relationship with the students. I felt more secure.

At the beginning of winter, my niece Barbara Zaremba was born. Despite being small, she looked surprisingly like a human being. We visited Zarembas in their nice new apartment.

For Christmas my parents decided to go to a resort in the mountains. As far as I was concerned the trip was a washout. Pompous personalities: a general, a district officer (wojewoda [22]), a sub-district officer (starosta) and some commercial bigwigs, were forever discussing the political situation. Radio was often turned on to catch Hitler’s or Chamberlain’s speeches. A storm was in the air.

When they went home, my parents decided to leave me at the resort, but at a different house. This was a children’s rest place (a “pension” they called it). I rather enjoyed the winter sports: skiing, tobogganing, etc, but was very happy to get back home after a month of staying in that place.

18. Ruhr district, administered by France after the treaty of Versailles, was the first of Hitler’s acquisitions after he became the German Chancellor. German troops marched into the district in 1936 without any opposition.

19. Anschluss was the name given by Hitler to his annexation of Austria in 1938.

20. A treaty, promoted by the conservative prime minister of Great Britain, Neville Chamberlain, ratified the German annexation of Czechoslovakia, proclaimed as the last German annexation. Chamberlain proclaimed that the agreement assured peace in our time.

21. Cieszyn – a city originally allocated to Poland by the Versailles treaty – was annexed by Czechoslovakia during the Polish-Russian war of 1920. Poland took advantage of German annexation of Sudetenland to take back Cieszyn in 1938.

22. Literally a leader of warriors, originally in feudal times was an official who led the knights from a certain district. In modern times, a district officer.

Of the stay in the resort I remember the best a whole day’s excursion to the top of one of the neighboring peaks. As one of the youngest children in the group, it took me two hours longer to get down to the bottom of the hill.

It was also the first time that I encountered a girl who was telling me that I was very smart and handsome. I did not know what to make of her. Still I found the experience pleasant if puzzling.

In the spring Danuta Nowak broke her leg. I felt so sorry for her I used to go and read to her. This was very satisfying until the day that she asked me to kiss her. I could not decide to go and see her again.

The school had a very relaxed atmosphere. I was making many friends, but I still liked Marian best.

All year long my brother was involved with the boy scouts. He was always very good at concentrating on achieving excellence in the desired field. After achieving success in getting a number of badges, his sleeve looked like the chest of one of Napoleon’s marshals. A further effort in the development of his expertise resulted in becoming an Eagle Scout. In line with this achievement he was going to spend the summer in a Boy Scout camp.

As the summer approached, two events foreshadowed the approaching war. In the spring a bingo was played in one of Weigle’s mansions. Edward, one of the leather industry scions, married a German lady. As we were gathering for the game, Mrs Edward Weigle listened to the German radio, which described the alleged atrocities perpetrated on poor German settlers in Poland. Few people took notice of such propaganda, which was generally assumed to be untrue. This view was based on observation of treatment received in the local area (at least a third of my brother’s high school class was made up of German-descent city merchants). Mrs Weigle, however, was listening with tears in her eyes and made everybody very sympathetic to her sorrow. We quickly forgot about the incident, when my father won the major prize for the evening: a giant fruit basket. The basket must have lasted us a couple of months. It was the first time I tasted many tropical fruits: pineapples, kiwi fruit, mangoes and many others.

The other event was my mother’s name day. As usual, all our friends gathered for the occasion. Although there were many guests, some of them were dressed in uniforms and the absence of others was explained by emergency reserve training. The discussion also turned to the German ultimatum, financing of arms, and the French and British guarantee of the Polish borders.

While my brother readied himself for the Boy Scout camp and fantasized about the international Boy Scout jamboree, which was going to be held the following year, I became jealous and made my mother promise me a trip to various family haunts during that summer. My father was to spend his leave in southern Poland on the Roumanian border. So during this final summer before the war, each of us went his own way.

We traveled with my mother first to the Beskid Mountains [23], where my brother was sleeping under a tent in the wilderness. I had an impression that he was not enjoying it as much as advertised. Still, one can stand a lot when one is fifteen. On the day we arrived he was the designated cook and kettle washer. He told us he could see us for only a minute as he might be “occupied” for most of the evening.

23. Beskid mountains are a part of the Carpathians. They form a major part of the boundary between Poland and Czechoslovakia.

From there we went by slow trains, winding around the Polish mountains, to Zakopane in the Polish Tatra mountains [24], where both my grandmother and my aunt lived. This was my second trip there, and this time I could climb mountains better than my mother. This was a source of wonder and satisfaction to me and the source of shortness of breath for my mother. My grandmother owned two beautiful, large houses in town and all the rooms were rented out. She claimed she was too busy to wander and should be excused on the basis of her old age. My aunt was earning her living by giving lessons to sundry high school pupils. So she claimed that her sickness and a series of contracted lessons, did not permit her to chase mountain goats. Although I felt elated at my new-found freedom, I soon became lonely and bored.

24. A short range of mountains on the border between Poland and Czechoslovakia. Characterized by tall peaks and deep mountain lakes, has a number of well-known resorts.

Now we travelled north to my mother’s family’s place. I always heard a lot about it; my mother spent a large portion of her childhood on her grandfather’s farm, while her parents appeared to be somewhat at odds. My feeling about the farm was somewhat like the one of early settlers in Texas. Everything was so big and so primitive.

The trip involved going by train to a tiny country station followed by a three-hour trip in a horse-driven carriage. I would have been bored to death if it had not been for my mother describing the features of the countryside. Even then I found it very tedious.

My mother recounted numerous stories of her childhood. Her grandfather was apparently not only a very skillful farmer but also a rather shrewd businessman. The farm to which we were going was originally obtained as a dowry in his second marriage, but it was heavily loaded by debt and mainly consisted of unusable marshes. In time he paid the debt and increased its size, while also increasing the amount of land that was either arable or a valuable forest stand. At the time we visited, it consisted of over 4000 acres with only 40% unusable land. It was now owned by my grand-uncle. At one time my great grandfather hoped that my mother would marry the new owner, but she found him a great bore, and so did I. Although rich, he was impossibly tight. It appeared that almost every year on the farm was a bad year, if one listened to him.

When we finally came to the house, we found old Sztembart grumbling that we forced him to use a pair of his horses to bring us over, while they were needed for the harvest. My mother asked how many pairs did he have? It turned out he had 38 pairs and luckily none were sick that day. Still, each pair was needed. So she asked him, why he did not buy more? Apparently that would require increasing the size of the stable. And why no tractors? That would require spare parts, etc.

Old Sztembart had two sons. Both of them were studying agriculture. The older one left home as soon as he got a job, and never spoke to the old man again. The old guy was rather happy about it, as he did not have to give him any money.

The younger one was smarter. He suggested to the old man that he put a series of ponds on the wet part of the farm. The old guy agreed to give him a part of the useless marsh, but refused to give him money. So the ponds were built through a bank loan, which the young guy got without any difficulty, considering the old man’s age (he was nearly seventy). Now, the sale of fish populating the ponds was bringing more money than the farm. The old guy continually claimed that the young one cheated him. But like father, like son; the young one would not give him a penny, claiming that the loan needed to be paid in full.

The one we really felt sorry for was the old man’s daughter, Louise. She lacked nothing but interest in life.

Things one did not lack at the farm were food and space. In front of the house there was a big lawn and flowers and in the back there was a huge garden. A lot of produce from the garden was sent to the village to those who worked in the fields. Most of it appeared on the table.

The house was spacious. The central part was occupied by a big hall, behind which you saw a dining room, which was the lightest part of the rather gloomy, dark old house. On the left of the hall there was a study, and on the right a large family room with a real mish-mash of old furniture. At night the house was lit by kerosene lamps, which appeared almost anywhere; some were hanging from the ceiling, others stood decorating various tables, consoles and cupboards. Generally the house looked lighter at night than during the day.

Most of the bedrooms were situated in the right wing of the house, while the left wing held the kitchen and servant quarters plus various utility rooms.

Through the back doors of the house, one moved into the back lawn and then into the bushes. Well, really into a veritable forest. Inside this forest there was a pond large enough to have a couple of boats tied in to its shore.

At one time, somebody brought a lot of decorative flowers and planted them around and in the pond, but now all vegetation grew helter-skelter in different parts of this wild garden. It was a great place to play in.

No matter how early I got up in the morning, all the people had gone to work in the fields. They were not back until the evening. So I wandered exploring the farm further and further. In front of the house, beyond the gate, the wide road split, producing a secondary country road. That road led to the outbuildings.

I found the carriage house with an interesting set of vehicles. There were at least three narrow seats on wheels. You could sit on them like on a horse or sideways. I found that these were used to carry people to work. High wagons with an empty space behind the front seat were apparently used to carry cargo. There was a number of carriages with a high seat for the driver and sometimes one, sometimes two seats facing one another. There was a hansom cab. Finally there was a big enclosed vehicle with a very wide window in front and spacious seats inside, there were also high seats for the driver and a couple of high seats in the back. I found numerous storage spaces inside and discovered that the main seat could be folded out, in hide-a-bed fashion. I played in different carriages for a while.

Beyond the carriage house a series of barns were either full of stored grain or empty. Apparently farm animals were in the fields. Puffing noises directed me to an area where threshing was in progress. Wagons full of wheat or whatever were arriving, and stuff was packed at one end into storage sheds, while at the other side, people were pulling the stuff back down and feeding it into a machine with a voracious appetite for the grain. Further along the way, a pair of horses was walking in a circle, driving another machine, which cut the straw into little pieces.

Leaving the area, I walked towards the village, where dirty kids were playing in the mud. I could see no grown-ups. Some houses seemed pretty nice, others looked pretty dilapidated. Having described the scenes to my mother later, I caused a minor disturbance, as she complained to her uncle that little money seemed to be spent on accommodation improvement in his village. Apparently all those houses were owned by the farm and were rented out to the people living in them.

Next day was set aside for the fish harvest. I found that there were five ponds; the highest one holding fresh water, the lowest one being emptied to permit gathering of the fish into a waiting vehicle brought by the buyers of the carp harvest. Those in between held fish of different ages and sizes. It was amazing how many fish there were in the lowest pond. One felt sorry for the multitude of fish going to the market. I wondered who would eat all the fish. I hate carp!

Where the ponds were, the country looked bleak and desolate. My mother claimed that when she was a child nobody could walk there; it was a treacherous marsh. For miles around one could see only flat wet land. Flowers gave relief to the emptiness of the view. Far away in the distance one could see clumps of birches and poplars. The trip, at first interesting, became tedious when I realized that we had to wait until the transaction was completed. Under my mother’s guidance, I explored the marsh, jumping from one soggy rise to another. This provided only minor relief from boredom. We had to wait until all the fish were stowed away in barrels and the fishmonger paid.

Next day Louise came from Warsaw announcing her engagement to some officer, a sure sign the war was coming. When the old man found out that the officer was penniless, he had a fit. Anyway Louise was going swimming every day almost at dawn and I tagged along.

The river (Narew) was about a mile and a half away along an old dirt road. One had to either row a boat across the river or go downstream past the river bend. I loved the second place, because one could watch a herd of cattle being controlled by a shepherd dog.

There were many dogs on the farm. The hunting dogs generally slept lazily during the day – I wondered how they could ever raise themselves to hunt. The house dogs were hanging around people (mostly me) during the meals. My mother continually admonished me not to feed them during the meal but the poor things had such mournful eyes. I used to sneak a bit of meat to them now and again. Occasionally this would cause a big fight for the scrap, and the dogs would be shut away in the room next to the kitchen. Their protests could be heard throughout the house.

One particular dog, a water retriever, would always tag along when we went swimming (or at least when Louise was swimming – I waded). The dog would disappear as soon as we left the farm, but he would reappear when our boat was half way across the river. He would then catch up to us before we reached the other shore and insist on getting into the boat and making us all wet. I was glad that the dog was with us, as Louise was daydreaming when she was not swimming. The only way I could make her talk was to ask her questions about her fiancé. Couldn’t do it when my mother was with us, as she considered it impolite.

Despite many trips, I never learned to swim. I could float some, but was too chicken to go for the real stuff.

Soon the visit was over. We had to go home for my brother’s birthday (Aug 15). It was a gala affair. All his friends:

• Haftke, the bright Jewish boy who always competed with my brother for the top of the class honors,
• Poznanski, who claimed that we were Jewish as he was,
• Schiele, the only son of the largest Polish brewer,
• Schaffner, a stiff son of a German merchant,
• Oleszko, a friendly kid always in Boy Scout uniform,

and all our neighbors – Bystrams, Nowaks, Romanowskis, Weigles, Piaseckis, even my friend Marian. At night there was dancing (I hated it – all the girls were too tall). Parlor games – some were quite tolerable, but I don’t remember them any more. It was nice to be home again. In two weeks school was going to start. We had to use the time to re-acquaint ourselves with the kids of the neighborhood, run around the countryside, go to the movies...

Warsaw was strange, frantic, busy. There were announcements of practice air raid alarms, gas masks for sale, army maneuvers. My father was still in the southern Polish resort Truskawiec. He was coming home soon. He called to tell us that he could not get tickets for the train until the next week.

The radio beamed its news. More illegal border crossings by German patrols. British special envoy to go to Moscow. Sunday Aug 27th, my father called again. Trains now delayed more than eight hours. Polish trains pride themselves on never being late. We went to Mass at Bielany. School only days away now. Saw some of my classmates at mass. Everybody had a great vacation.

Monday Aug 28th. More news: German foreign minister flew to Moscow. Special bulletin: USSR and Germany signed a pact of non-aggression. Why would they do that? Suggestions to build air raid shelters follow. Mother went to meet the train from the south, but came home exhausted and irritated. The train was full and ten hours late. My father was not on it. Went to play tennis with Nowaks. Mr Nowak had not been home over the weekend.

Tuesday Aug 29th. Mother asked us to help her bring home a 100 lb bag of flour and 40 lbs of salted pork.

Took us hours to get it. So many people in the little stores at Mlociny; I have never seen so many people. My mother tried to call the railway station in Warsaw, but could not get through. She was agitated and wanted to go to meet my father. I asked to go along. When we finally got to the station (suburban buses were late – imagine that!), the train was going to be late sixteen hours. We went to see some friends, but everybody was so busy, we went to the movies. We saw Snow White, it was great.

Still waiting at the station. Trains all packed with people hanging outside. Near midnight now, the train finally came. We almost missed my father but he found us. Outside the station big crowds watching some announcements displayed on the round announcement posts. While we waited for the taxi, we heard paper boys shouting the headline: Mobilization of Polish reserves. My mother said, “Thank God you got home before this was announced.” This was the morning of Aug 30th.

I woke up late. Nobody home. I played with Marian all day. We dug a couple of holes in his garden, made it look like a car. Mr Gliwa was leaving for service in the army as a veterinary surgeon. I took Marian home for dinner. Mother had some friends over, they were all talking a mile a minute. We stayed out of their sight. When I went to sleep they were still talking.

Aug 31st. Only a few days left before school. Everybody busy. We went for a hike in the woods and did not come back until dark; nobody noticed. Even the servants were congregating at the store and discussing the political situation.

I decided to get up early and run to see Marian. My brother was asleep after the first meeting of the Boy Scouts for the new school year. We went digging in the garden, changing our car into a plane. Put in boxes for the radios, drew controls on the wet sand. Overhead, planes were buzzing in tens and hundreds. We looked up.

“Must be another practice air raid,” Marian said.

Guns were sounding now and the sky was full of small black spots.

“Look at the small ones chasing the big ones,” I said.

We heard rumbling noises of multiple explosions. Then a plane in flames was falling down. We looked at one another and ran into his home. The radio was on and a man was shouting in foreign language. Marian’s mother was standing in the middle of the room holding Anna, their servant, in her arms, Anna was crying.

“Germany attacked Poland this morning,” Mrs Gliwa said.

I ran home.