I am Australian. Of Polish Descent.

Part II: I am AMERICAN, of POLISH DESCENT!

(Continued, Part I)

When I first arrived in Germany and was temporarily held in the stalag for Polish prisoners-of-war, we were informed by interpreters that we were not be permitted any correspondence with our own country. If anyone disobeyed, the letter would be confiscated, and if the person writes again, he would be caught and prosecuted.  Naturally, I thought it wise not to say anything to the German farmer about writing to my family.  But one day in 1943, he asked me if I had any family in Poland and I said yes of course, I did. He asked me why I don’t write to them and I told him about the warning I received two years earlier. His response to me was “you write the letter and your home address on an envelope, and I will write my name as the sender and personally post it for you”. So I did.

About a month later I received a letter from my father from Starachowice.  He informed me about my family situation.

He told me that a short time after I was taken away, my aunty Helena (who had raised me from the age of 4) had become so traumatised about my removal and unknown predicament, had become mentally ill and taken away from the family home to a hospital.  She died there. I do not know the circumstances surrounding her death, possibly she was a victim of Aktion T4. To this very day, I still don’t know what really happened to her.

Looking back over past events that had occurred I can understand how she became so stressed.

I recall an incident in early 1941 when the Germans wanted to start the manufacture of anti-aircraft guns in the munitions factory in Starachowice.  There were a lot of parts lying about in the factory but no-one knew how to assemble the anti-aircraft guns.  The Germans decided to issue a manifesto asking if anyone knew how to assemble this particular type of gun, and if co-operation was provided, the person would be generously rewarded.

A Polish colonel volunteered to do so and it didn‘t take long for the Polish Government-in-exile (in London) to hear about it.  A communicade was issued to A.K. (who were in the process of organising themselves) that if the Colonel continued his collaboration with the Nazis, he was to be executed as a traitor.
The Colonel showed the Nazis his warning letter from the Polish Government-in-exile and they assured him that he was fully protected and absolutely no harm would come to him. At this point I have to mention that when the German’s first occupied Starachowice they posted a manifesto with a warning stating that if any German is killed, they will select six hostages from the town and execute them.

About four days later, the Colonel left a security checkpoint at the factory accompanied by two SS, and as they walked past a small forested area nearby, two shots rang out. One of the SS and the Colonel had been shot dead.  Immediately, the Germans rounded up twenty people as hostages, six of them were to be selected and  executed. Amongst those twenty was my father, Henryk.

That happened about four o’clock in the afternoon and Helena was terrified that he would be shot. Time dragged on and then about eight o’clock that night the front door opened and there stood Henryk - he looked completely exhausted but he was still alive. Helena had a look of enormous relief on her face as he said “They didn’t select me”.

Jan (my half-brother) had become a prisoner-of-war after being captured by the Germans while serving in the Polish Army.  He had been ‘assigned’ as an interpreter because to his knowledge of the German language.

Waleria (my half-sister) had died while serving with A.K. during the Warsaw Uprising. She was a medical intern prior to the war. During the Uprising, she contracted tuberculosis and was administered an injection that killed her.  The injection had become contaminated due to poor hygiene conditions.

Wiktoria (my other half-sister) was still alive and living in Starachowice.

I did receive a couple more letters from my father during the war but communication ceased at the beginning of 1945.

According to leaflets dropped by the allies, they were sweeping through France very rapidly and the last leaflet informed us that it won’t take long for the allies to reach Munster.  They were urging the German army to surrender and if they did, they would be treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention.

Spitfires were sweeping low over the countryside day and night. They usually flew in pairs and seemed to appear from no-where.  They were obviously on reconnaissance missions, seeking out the enemy.

I recall an occasion when the German farmer and I came out onto the quadrangle and we were discussing which bomb crater we were going to fill in. We used a large shovel drawn by one of the horses to do the job.  All of a sudden, a Messerschmit appeared in the sky above us, and out of no-where, two Spitfires. The dogfight was on! As we were standing there watching the event unfold, a bullet from one of the aircraft landed right between my legs.  We took off and went for cover.  We don’t know what happened after that - unfortunately, we missed out on all the excitement.

Two days later we started hearing the sound of heavy guns in the distance, early in the morning, then a break at lunchtime, and again it started about two o’clock in the afternoon. This continued for three days.  On the fourth night it was quiet and peaceful with no sound of gunfire or aircraft in the sky.

The following morning, I walked out to the quadrangle and looked over at the aerodrome nearby and noticed some strange-looking people walking around the bomb craters. I didn’t have a clue who they were.  As I stood there wondering who the hell they were and what I was going to do next, from the side of the hay shed, two soldiers appeared.  I could see from their uniforms that they were American soldiers.  One was dressed as a regular soldier but the other one looked more like an American gunfighter from a old Western. He wore two sharp-shooters on his hips and carried a rifle on his shoulder.  He looked ready for action.

The first soldier approached me cautiously and said (in German) “Are you German?” and I responded that I was Polish.  He then asked me (in excellent Polish) “Are there any German soldiers on the farm?”. I told him they left two days ago but I had to assure him that this was definitely the case. He asked me if I worked for the farmer and how he had treated me.  I told him that the farmer had treated me well.  I then asked him if he was Polish and he proudly proclaimed “I am AMERICAN, of POLISH DESCENT!”.

As we were talking, two fattened geese appeared.  It was four days before Easter Sunday and the geese were intended for Easter celebrations.

The ‘sharp-shooter’ spotted them and all of a sudden, he swung his rifle around and aimed it at one of the geese.  The goose copped a bullet and rolled over a couple of times.  The farmer quickly came out of his house waving his hands in the air and yelling in German “Oh my God, my Easter goose!”.  The ’sharp shooter’ promptly swung his rifle around and pointing it at the farmer said “you want one too”.  At this point, the farmer made a hasty exit.

The soldier I had spoken to, gestured toward his offsider and said “I better take him away before he made a nuisance of himself”.

At this moment, I realised that the war was over for us and a new chapter in my life had just begun.

Part III: The COMMOS STRIKE

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