I am desperately trying to catch up with uploading photos from Warsaw and only a third way there

so enjoy

Thanks to the generosity of Tomek Szczerbicki (another email group friend) we located the grave of Jan Ryszard Janicki, the second pilot of “B for Barbara”, at Powazki Cemetery in Warszawa. Janicki was the only member of the crew who returned to Poland in 1946.

Powazki Cemetery is a virtual time capsule of Poland’s history and culture.  Not only are Poland’s notable identities, politicians, writers, actors buried here but the headstones display a large cross section of Poland’s demographic diversity over the decades, reaching back to the early 19^th century.  Most inscriptions had a denotation of what best described the earthly achievements of the departed, where a patriot, an academic or highly decorated in the military.  Powazki are seen as vital to the history of Poland’s capital that in the period around All Soul’s Day, Poland’s acting fraternity conduct an annual campaign to seek money for its maintenance.

After a good forty minute slow walk along the uneven footpaths in between lonely gravestones of individuals, elaborate family mausoleums, fancy human size statues of angels and Christ figures, we reached the sector where we were told by cemetery authorities that Janicki’s grave was situated.

Tomek started scurrying between the gravestones, his eyes peeled for the name of the second pilot.  I remained near the main laneway guarding the flowers and traditional candles we bought for the grave.  After a while, Tomek identified a flat concrete slab with a fading weather worn inscription of “Cpt. Jan Ryszard Janicki, Pilot 300 squadron 1912 – 1991”.  The humble grave stone did not stand out  amongst the more elaborate neighbouring marble graves and could not be easily seen.  Next to his name there were some dusty plastic flowers and candle holder.  This was a sign that there must be either some family members or friends who had visited the grave in the previous months.  The inscription also indicated that Janicki’s war experiences were known to his family and were considered to be significant.

We placed the tub of white flowers and several candles near Janicki’s name and bent our heads in thought and prayer.

Tomek then volunteered to place a laminated note on the grave for the visiting family member to inform them that the other descendants of “B for Barbara” would like to make contact with them.  I am so hopeful that this will be successful as Janicki’s post war story must be as interesting as his story of evasion from capture in Belgium in 1941.  We have heard so many tragic stories of airmen who returned to Poland after the war and were either shot or imprisoned by the Soviet regime.  On the other hand we have so much information that we could tell the Janicki family about their father and grandfather.  How proud they would be to know that there is a memorial in Oud Turnhout with the name of their family member.

A couple of days afterwards, Piotr Hodyra (also from the airforce email group) informed me that he researched the name of Rutkowski (the family name of Aunt Wilhelmina’s husband Adam who was killed in the the first days of the Warsaw Uprising) with the Wola  cemetery authorities and located three persons with that family name.  Two of the names we disregarded as the ages and military units were not consistent with the details of the person we were seeking.  The remaining Rutkowski had no first name or dates inscribed and was in a grave with a couple of other persons.  Piotr took photos of the grave and I have sent a letter to the Polish Red Cross to try and confirm the details.

For people living in countries such as Australia, the UK or the United States, it would be difficult to comprehend the mass loss of families after genocidal massacres.   During one of my walks along the streets of Warsaw, I couldn’t help but notice metal plaques every few buildings stating that at this place 34 or 56 or 22 people were brutally butchered by Nazis.  In the major cemeteries there are mass graves of 65 or 120 nameless persons who never were recognized. 

In other families, people disappeared into the depths of the Soviet Union, never to be seen again.

The worst places of anonymous death are the killing factories of Treblinka, Auschwitz and Majdanek, where ashes are the only remnants of living human beings.

When one totals the numbers which perished as a result of the Nazi and Soviet killing industries, both in the camps and also in the cities, towns and villages, one can only imagine the impact of this slaughter on the average surviving people.  For six years, death was imprinted on the consciousness of people, either as witnesses or indirect victims.  Many of us in the second and third generations have inherited not only the loss but also the terror and horror of this period.

1 August has become a key date for contemporary Warsaw.  It is the date on which Poles commemorate the 1944 Warsaw Uprising.  At “W hour” – (5 pm) the city stands still to the sirens alerting the city’s residents to the fact that at this hour in 1944 on this date,  the cream of Poland’s youth challenged the totalitarian regime which imprisoned Poland for nearly five years.

This year, throughout Warsaw, there were many ceremonies at historical points.  Flowers and candles were placed on street corners, at memorials, parks and other places associated with the Uprising. Polish red and white flags together with the red and yellow colours of Warsaw are displayed throughout the city.

The tragedy of the Warsaw Uprising is the fact that the world sat passively watching it happen.  What good were Poland’s western allies where they could not (or possibly would not) pressure Stalin in letting western planes with supplies to the Insurgents land in Polish territory under Soviet control.  What sort of ally sits on one bank of the river while on the other bank hundreds of thousands of civilians are being slaughtered and one of the great capitals of middle Europe is being leveled to the ground.  Warsaw and her residents was an inconvenient barrier to the political machinations of Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill.  The further tragedy is that 254 Allied airmen perished trying to bring aid to the Insurgents in conditions where one could equate to Russian roulette.  The flight from Brindisi in Italy to Warsaw and return drained them of all their fuel and put their lives at risk.

Whenever I explain to people of non Polish background, that each family in Poland suffered death and displacement, I am aware that they cannot comprehend the magnitude and scope of the trauma on each of the families.  With each of the families, there is a story, there is a loss of person or place.

The centre point of the commemorations is the Warsaw Uprising Museum, with its focus to attract the younger generations of the city.  The previous Friday it even had a heavy metal concert on its premises, attempting to draw those whose grandparents directly remembered the war.  This sort of music would not actually appeal to the veterans of the war, but the management of the museum is banking its future on the historical consciousness of the youth.  They are hoping that today’s youth will feel some affinity with the youth of sixty four years ago – with those who were prepared to place their lives on the line for some higher and greater common values, in a time where extremity was part of day to day living.

The strategy appears to be successful.  During the early evening, I accompanied Piotr Hodyra (a member of my Polish airforce email group) to the commemorations at the Insurgents Cemetery in the Warsaw suburb of Wola.  Wola was the first suburb that the Germans regained for the insurgents and where tens of thousands of civilians were massacred by the SS in the initial stages of the Uprising.

For me this area especially had significance as somewhere in this area my mother survived the Uprising together with her Aunt Wilhelmina and cousin Irmina.  Somewhere in this cemetery was buried Wilhelmina’s husband, Adam Rutkowski, who perished after having secured the safety of his family in a basement.  Each year Aunt Wilhelmina visited his grave in Warsaw but never revealed its location to her grandchildren.  One of my ambitions is to locate the grave of this brave man.  Piotr and Tomek (my friends from the airforce email group) have promised me to assist me in this task.

So armed with a bouquet of white chrysanthemums and Piotr with some candles we joined the crowds heading to the main memorial.  For Piotr it was also a place of significance as his great aunt and her daughter, both victims of a German massacre in Mokotow, were buried here. 

There were Polish boy and girl scouts mingling in the crowds offering bottled water to the elderly.  Tall strapping young soldiers stood at attention with rifles in their hands.  Official guests including the President of the City of Warsaw, Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz, were lined up in front of the growing crowd.  There were numerous commemorations throughout the City on the day, but this one had specific significance for the locals. 

After the ecumenical prayers conducted by the military chaplain as well as the Head Rabbi of Poland, Michael Shuddrich, the military contingent pointed their rifles above their heads and let off a military salute.

The official guests as well as political, veteran, scout, resident and military delegations placed wreathes at the base of the memorial.  The ceremony was extremely moving and tears flowed down my cheek.  I was conscious that somewhere in the park/cemetery Uncle Adam was buried and was waiting to be found.

As we were leaving after the ceremony, there was an eerie atmosphere between the trees and the gravestones.  There were candles flickering in the twilight, while the shadows of the departing people were fleeting between the bushes, trees and concrete head stones.

The one thing that disappointed me was that this ceremony became politicized by some supporters of a political party, who applauded their political grouping or their representatives when they were announced but did not do the same for representatives of the opposing political groupings.   The Warsaw Uprising has been appropriated by a certain mainstream right wing party, which has presented itself as the only embodiment of patriotism.  This of course appeals to some in the older generation. 

The Director of the Warsaw Uprising Museum is a sitting member of the Seym (parliament) and the Museum was initiated by the current Polish president when he was the President of the City of Warsaw.

The politicization of these commemorations was reinforced by a meeting that I had today while wandering near the column of King Zygmunt.  To my delight, I saw two youths dressed as insurgents.  I immediately requested a photograph with these costumed young men and voiced my pleasure in seeing young people maintaining the memory.  The response was “Wait until we get we rid of the POwiecs, then we will restore patriotism”.  This reinforced that the commemorations of the Uprising had become a political weapon.  This disappointed me as the Insurgents fought for a democratic and free Poland and the views I heard were contrary to the ideals espoused by my mentors in Polish scouting who were insurgents themselves.

My first memories of Bielsko Biala was that of beautiful Secessionist buildings, cobble stoned streets and snow capped mountains on the distant horizon.  The city had been part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire prior to World War I, and had inherited many architectural features of that era. 

My eldest first paternal cousin, Basia (who has sinced passed away) brought me to this southern Polish city to see the grave of my maternal grandfather who was buried here eight months before my birth.  It was Basia who took on the role of guardian of my grandfather’s grave once my Babcia (grandmother) migrated to join her only daughter in Australia in 1962.

After the war, my mother and her parents moved from Brzesc nad Bugiem (which became part of the Soviet Union) to Krakow, a city where they spent a decade before World War II.  From Krakow they moved to Bielsko Biala, where my grandfather (Dziadek) Wlodzimierz Dabrowski continued working as a bookkeeper for the State run distillery (now Polmos). 

After a short period of rest at my cousin Rita’s home on the outskirts of Krakow, I joined my Canadian friends in a rental car heading for Bielsko Biala.  Zbyszek Kuflik’s parents came from small hamlets in the environs of Bielsko Biala and it was in this area that Zbyszek and his mother found sanctuary during the war years.  Zbyszek was on a voyage to rediscover his childhood, while I was on an expedition in the footsteps of my mother’s family.

On arriving in Bielsko Biala I met up with Lucyna Grabowska, an internet bridge friend.  It was a serendipitous meeting with Lucynka (my namesake) in an online bridgeroom which lead to an wonderful situation by which my grandfather’s grave was saved from destruction.  With the passing of Basia, my cousin, my knowledge of the exact location of my grandfather’s grave disappeared. 

 For at least the first ten years from his death in 1960, my grandparents’ friends and my parental cousin Basia visited Dziadek’s grave and lit the traditional candles and places posies of flowers.  With time they also joined the ranks of the dearly departed, and I the only descendant of Wlodzimierz Dabrowski did not have firm information of the whereabouts of his last resting place.

 Thanks to the chance meeting with Lucyna in BBO (a cyber bridge club) that Dziadek’s grave was no longer abandoned.  Whenever Lucynka visits the graves of her own parents she visits Dziadek.  Through also her intervention we managed to prevent the nomination of Dziadek’s grave as being abandoned by the cemetery authorities.  My Babcia had paid for forty years of cemetery fees, the period had run out in 2000.  Cemeteries recyle abandoned gravesites and thus two weeks after Lucynka having paid the arrears , neighbouring abandoned gravesites had new occupants – this would have been the fate of Dziadek’s last resting place.  So I am now able to visit the flat grave with the black marble crucifix on the cement plaque.

 We arrived at the cemetery gates and coincidentally met Lucyna’s brother and sister-in-law.  Lucyna’s brother recently renewed the engraving on my Dziadek’s grave.  After forty eight years of exposure to wind and weather, the lettering could barely be read and Mr Grabowski, out of the kindness of his heart, meticulously repainted the gold lettering.

 With Lucynka, we went to the flat grave stone, lit candles and placed purple flowers .  I promised that I would maintain ongoing contact – I was the only living descendant and it was my duty to maintain this holy place.

 We then headed off to the parish office, which was administered by a nun in a traditional penguinlike pre-Vatican II habit.  I informed her that as the deceased’s granddaughter I wished to pay ten years of cemetery fees.  With the exact date of the deceased’s passing, she pulled out of the heavy oak cupboard’s thick bound tomes of burials from 1960.  The administrative process seemed to be like something out of previous centuries.  Computerisation has not yet caught up with the Biala Roman Catholic Parish of Divine Providence.

 Lucynka and I headed off across the cobbled roadway to the Catholic Church.  I mentioned in passing to Lucynka that fifty years ago my parents would have been making tracks to this office to arrange their marriage.  It was in this church that my parents had been married in 1958, and here in 1960 that my Dziadek’s funeral had been held.  Along these cobble stones my grandmother would have walked from Rychlinski street where there home was situated three blocks away.

 Exiting the church, we noticed that a funeral was about to take place.  Then as with Divine intervention, the church bells began to chime.  These two moments seemed to be coincidental given the two Lucynkas had been talking about another funeral which had taken place forty eight years prior.

 The city is a picturesque location with many art nouveau mansions which are gradually being restored to their former glory.  The central railway station built in 1888 gives a glimpse to the other magnificent buildings which unfortunately had been destroyed during the war.

 I could finally appreciate my mother’s connection with this town.  In Melbourne, when our local Polish children’s dance group was being formed, it was her idea that it be named “Beskidy”.  Bielsko Biala is a vital part of this mountainous region bordering Slovakia.

photos

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lucyna_98/sets/72157606397859500/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lucyna_98/sets/72157606370796928/

Our last full day in Poland’s capital parted at midday meeting another member of our email group, Tomek and his five year old son Wiktor, and heading off to the Warsaw Uprising Museum, one of the city’s newest and most modern museums.

After having walked the three hundred or so metres to the museum, we noticed the tower with the identifiable Polska Walczaca (Fighting Poland) symbol.  At the entrance there were crowds of people milling about.  We soon found out that as it was Sunday, it was free entry into the museum and inside every display was surrounded by crowds.

This museum finally brings to the fore a historical event about which there was deadening silence for decades in Poland and in the West.  Some western politicians confused this uprising with the Warsaw ghetto uprising.  The veterans, who during the war were teenagers and youth, for years remained silent about their experiences.  Some persons were put into jail by the post war authorities while some of their comrades in arms were put to death.  The museum provides context to the absolute destruction of Warsaw and the massacre and expelling of its population.

One of the more noticeable groups was a group of young soldiers who had come to the museum on an expedition.  Probably it was part of their training, so as to become aware of the sacrifices of previous generations of youth and children for the sake of their "ojczyzna" (fatherland).  If these young men had been alive in 1944 and participating in the Warsaw Uprising, a large number of them would have probably perished.  My great aunt's husband, Adam, secured the safety of his wife, daughter and niece and went out to battle --- never to return again.  Each year on All Soul's Day, Great Aunt Wila, travelled from Olsztyn to Warszawa to a grave somewhere in the suburb of Wola to pay due reverence to his memory.  However she never told her grandchildren the location of this grave and I am trying to find its location through the Red Cross.

When I looked at the photos of the teenagers who actively participated in battle against the Germans, I recall my Polish scout leaders who were crucial in the building of my Polish consciousness through the Polish scouting movement in exile.  Their perception of Polishness was developed by daily confrontation with death and putting their ideals on the line.  Now in hindsight I am ashamed  of how dismissed their views and sense of patriotism as merely flag waving.  The same applies when I looked at the names of the dead airmen on the Polish Airmen's memorial in Warsaw.

The exhibitions also provided an insight into the trauma and chaos of the civilians' existence, including that of my mother would was there at the tender age of eighteen.  I could appreciate the hoarding which became part of her behaviour during her final years of life, when dementia imprisoned her cognitive abilities.  She never spoke of those years, only a comment here or there.  I worked out from these loose comments that she together with her aunt and cousin, escaped a cattle truck taking them to who knows where into the Kampinos wilderness where they survived under the protection of the underground units until the end of the war.  I have no way of confirming these stories  but this is where detective work starts. 

Whereas Tata read every book under the sun and watched every film and documentary on the war to analyse the war, Mama avoided the topic completely.  She did not reveal any of her experiences, even to close family friends.  Only when I provided a sketch of her wartime experiences in my eulogy at her funeral, did my godmother finally find out what Mama had lived through.  Throughout her life there was a deafening silence about her, the lives of her parents and her brother in that chaotic period.

 Entering this former industrial site (now the museum) was like entering the depths of Warszawa’s underground, one’s eyes adjusting to the dark.  On one wall there was a series of small screens with testimonies of witnesses, on another wall copies of war time posters and announcements.  The museum’s visitors were guided through this dark rabbit warren by calendar leaflets marking what happened on each day of the Uprising.

In one display are we saw a war time motorbike, with crowds of little boys begging their mother’s to let them clamber upon it.  The nearest doorway lead to a large exhibition hall where a full sized Liberator airplane hung suspended over the people’s heads.  This was symbolic of the airmen who risked and lost their lives trying to deliver assistance to the insurgents.

 We spent a good three hours exploring the two levels, seeing glass cases with machine guns and various types of weapons, copies of letters.  Every so often there were large and smaller screens showing news reels of the time.

Being a group of eight people, we lost each other within the complex but managed to regroup at the front entrance.  However, I was tempted to venture into the bookstore where there was a multitude of volumes on various aspects of the war.  Jean even spied a book on the Polish air force in West, in which Zbyszek found a photograph of his godfather.

 It was wonderful to see that Polish museums had advanced from staid and boring institutions, with stone faced attendants, to modern multimedia education centres. 

The following day, we split into into our subgroups and divided our activities into various priorities. The Canadians headed off on a tourist tour to all the key places, I went off to discover the joys of shopping in Warsaw’s newer shopping mall, Arkadia. 18 months ago I discovered Blue City Shopping Mall and was astonished by this modern shopping mecca. This time my mouth dropped when I saw Arkadia as this upmarket temple to consumerism could compete with any such complex in the west, with fashionable shops to fulfill the most demanding shopocholic. The Scottish contingent also headed off to do some shopping and settled in the Wedel icecream parlor. I have been however told by locals that Arkadia has been outdone by the newest shopping mall called “Zlote Tarasy” (the Golden Terraces).

That evening, on the recommendation of our well informed concierge, we headed off on a 400 metre walk to the “Inn under the Red Hog”, a communist themed restaurant on Zelazna Street. The girl at the entrance, was dressed like a communist commissionaire and we were seated at plain wooden tables and chairs, where we were introduced to an amazing menu by waitresses and waiter dressed as young communist members with red ties and sashes.

The menu was divided into two sections, one for Party Officials and the Bourgeoisie, while the second cheaper dishes were for the Proletariat. It took over half an hour to read the entertaining and hilarious dish descriptions, such as pierogi made from flour gained through speculation by the bookkeeper using ration cards, names of dishes included Mao’s chicken or Fidel’s “Cigars”. On each page there was an entertaining advertisement from the heydays of the communist past. The restaurant owner being a true bourgeoisie capitalist was selling these menus at 20 zlotys a pop.

On the wall there was a painting of a banquet with the communist great and glorious leaders feasting at the expense of the plebian masses. Red communist banners were placed in strategic places in the restaurant alongside with other popular icons of the PRL’s great and glorious past.

In front of the restaurant, stood another communist icon, the Russian Volga, a limousine utilized by the Soviet apparatchiks.

The one thing that came to mind was the service staff would all be too young to remember the days of ration cards and food queues, or fully comprehend the nuisances of the symbols adorning this establishment.

Our arrival in Warszawa was late at night – we arrived at a lonely isolated Warszawa Wschodnia in Eastern Warsaw. The trip was comfortable in the first class Intercity where we received coffee and wafer gratis, wide soft seats and a spacious semi empty wagon. My second cousin’s husband, Leszek a muscular tall fellow was waiting at the platform and jumped into action helping Margaret and her chariot alight from the train. Then the suitcases began to pile onto the lonely platform.

There was no lift at this station and Henryk, Zbyszek and Leszek carried the heavy luggage down the stairs into the dark car park. We followed heaving the lighter bags and me hobbling through the dirty subway.

The prebooked taxi was waiting for us and we all piled into the vehicles and headed off to Zoliborz to Hotel Amicus (a pilgrims hotel and budget lodgings). After some confusion in finding the entrance to the hotel, we buzzed the door and were welcome a half sleepy concierge – after all it was midnight. She glanced at the wheelchair and tired travelers with luggage and in response to my question, informed me that there was no lift while the rooms were on the second floor with many many many stairs. We were stunned as I was informed in my preliminary queries that indeed there was a lift and easy access for the disabled.

So what does one do at midnight, tired and exhausted in the middle of a foreign city? We had no other option but to stay at Amicus for the night and to find better accommodation for the remainder of the stay. I was to move to my friend Irena’s apartment the following day while it was the remainder of the group who needed appropriate accommodation.

Leszek together with Zbyszek and Henryk hauled the luggage to the second floor rooms. Leszek volunteered to carry Margaret up to her room, this offer she refused vehemently and step by step edged herself up to the second floor. The concierge stood helplessly, providing no alternatives, at the front door. She didn’t know how I would access the internet to find alternatives, so Leszek volunteered to surf the web when he returned home and SMS me alternatives in line with our specifications.

Everyone, frustrated and worn out after the six hour train trip, collapsed in their beds. True to his word, within an hour Leszek messaged me a hotel booking at the Ibis hotel and the following morning I was able to inform the others that they would be moving to a luxury hotel within the next couple of hours. With this event, I was thoroughly convinced about the advantages of having a Polish mobile handy so as to be contactable to family and friends. After breakfast I moved to the apartment in Stary Zoliborz while the rest of the group caught two taxis to the Ibis closer to the centre of the city.

Later that afternoon we were to meet a retired Colonel at the memorial to lost Polish airmen at Pole Mokotowskie (which had been prior to the war a air base and now converted into a public park). Having concrete instruction how to get there from the Ibis concierge, we set off in two taxi and continued our adventure with Polish taxi drivers. The drivers, ignoring our specifications, took us to another memorial in another part of the park about a kilometer from our target location. Thanks to a passing stranger in the park, who happened to be employed in the air industry, we reset our bearings and caught the hovering taxis and set off the remaining distance to our memorial. It is amazing that despite the memorial being large and highly visible from one of the main roadways and being opened over five years ago, taxi drivers are unaware of its location and it isn’t marked on tourist maps.

We approached the large modernistic memorial and I was approached by a male dressed informally in a T-shirt and shorts. On the T-shirt in large letters was written “University of Marylands”. Thinking that this was one of my email group members, I was astounded to discover that this was another member, who was a rather silent member, called Mieszko, a second generation Polish American who had migrated back to Poland and now lived and worked in the homeland.

So with due reverence we started to explore this massive marble memorial, funded by the Polish Air force Foundation in London and designed by a son of a Polish airman. On the large gray marble sheets were inscribed nearly 2,000 names of Polish airmen who had perished during World War II at its various stages. Mieszko located and indicated to us the name of his 22 year old navigator uncle who crashed in France and was buried in Marseilles. Above the marble walls there was a white winged metal structure. Again I was astounded that there was limited knowledge amongst the locals Warsawians about this beautiful structure.

To my astonishment and delight, another person arrived at the memorial – this time my friend from Melbourne, Jola, who spent most of the time living in Warsaw. As we were initially supposed to go to the Airman’s club and the Colonel made a non-appearance, we had to decide on an alternative for dinner. We decided on going to the rebuilt old quarter to meet at the base of Ziggy, the column of King Zygmunt Vasa who brought the capital of Poland from Krakow to Warszawa. We piled into Jola and Mieszko’s cars and headed off to the tourist oriented part of the city, where we identified a suitable restaurant, which was a restaurant trap but which provided excellent traditional Polish cuisine.

Over dinner and serviced by a young waiter who had a post-graduate degree in charm and salesmanships, we chatted and discovered more about each other. Mieszko was an interesting person, as here was another bilingual and bicultural person, who not only maintained his original name but didn’t succumb to the pressures of anglising his name, and yet further married a Polish girl and made his home in his parents homeland. For me another face to another name in our email group.

Outside the elegantly furnished restaurant, leather seats and wooden lined walls, we could see the lit up royal castle which had been thorough leveled by the Germans during the war and was only rebuilt, from prewar photos and drawings, in 1974.

We had been told that we needed to validate our Polish Eurail pass the moment we arrived in Poland.  So we promptly reported to the cashier window to complete this formality.  To our amazement, the lady at window had never seen such a ticket and had no idea what to do with it.  Grumbling under our noses we edged our way to the entrance and spied the Polish conductor from the train.  Surely he must know what need to be done.  After having heard about the limitations of the lady we had spoken with, he told us to board the train to Wroclaw the following day and report to the conductor who would be familiar with the Eurail pass.  He then pulled out his mobile phone and summoned a taxi for us. 

The taxi driver took two trips to take us to the only decent hotel in the town, Hotel Willa Park.  The building had initially been a school then hospital under the Germans, then a hospital under the Russians and then stood empty and ruin for many years until the current owners, pumped in lots of money to return it to a civilized state.  Standing in the middle of 5 hectare grounds, filled with old oaks and other trees, the hotel now had been restored to something reminiscent of its 1912 art deco original state.  Barely a kilometer from the centre of town it was the only establishment which could adequately service tourists.

One of the taxi drivers bitterly complained about the total lack of infrastructure in the town and the generall run down character of Zagan.  There were so many historical and architecturally significant features which could be promoted but somehow the local authorities did not have the ability to identify and apply for appropriate EU funds for these purposes.

After delivering our tired selves and the luggage to our comfortable airy rooms, we decided to have light lunch in the downstairs restaurant.  Virtually everyone ordered placki kartoflane (potato pancakes) with mushroom sauce.  Despite protesting at the generous portion, not a crumb or drop of sauce remained on all six plates.  After traveling three hours and hauling the luggage up the archaic Zagan railway station, we were ravenous.

In the meantime, I rang the Director or the Museum (Jacek Jakubiak) to report of our arrival and to plan out our visit to the former location of Luft Stalag III.

Within fifteen minutes of my call, the Director, an energetic man roughly the same age as me, arrived at the hotel and began giving us an overview of what there was to see and what we would like to explore.

Luft Stalag III is historically tied to two famous escape attempts, that of the Wooden Horse and the Great Escape, the later being the more well known.  Many people have seen the film of the same name and recall scenes of Steven Macqueen and his motorbike.  This film is historically inaccurate and no American were involved in the Great Escape as they were in another compound.  Of the seventy or more escapers and those who were recaptured, fifty were executed and cremated, supposed at the expressed orders of Hitler.

The escapers got out through three tunnels, “Tom”, “Dick” and “Harry”.  This happened at least two years after our fathers had departed the camp, when it was converted into an officer only camp.  Our fathers had arrived there shortly after the establishment of Luft Stalag III in March 1942 and departed to Stalag I in Barth 15 months later.  The Great Escape happened in 1944.

The Director took us to the location of where “Harry” once was.  This long tunnel between the barracks and freedom, is distinctly marked and there are are concrete tablets with the names of the escapers marked.  We looked that this memorial with great reverence and admired to heroism of these brave men.

The ground was uneven but even Margaret, in her wheelchair insisted on going as far as she physically could.

The area where the camp once stood has return to its forested state, with only concrete foundations left of what had once been the hospital and the “cooler”.  The camp was once roughly 5 square kilometers holding about 10,000 men.  At one time there were more men in the camp than population in the township.

The compound where our fathers had been held in Barracks 39 was a further 2 kilometres down a country bumpy track.  Jacek, Jean and Zbyszek needed to hike over some hills and through long grassed fields to see the scant remains of this area of the former camp.  All that could be seen were some foundations of the toilets, some fallen chimneys.  The woods have now reclaimed the land.

We were then driven to the railway siding and the platform about a kilometer from the camp, where the POWs were brought in cattle trucks.  Here I felt a greater sense of time and presence of the past.  Near the platform there were railway buildings which had definitely witnessed the war era, and a large granary which had once dominated the landscape during the war and continued doing the same in the present.

Across the railway yard we could see the platform at which we had arrived a couple of hours prior.  The ghosts were definitely in our midst at that moment.

The final point of our visit was the cemetery and the mausoleum in built by the POWs themselves commemorating their massacred comrades.  There is a small memorial with the date of the start of the war and no end date, and a larger memorial with the individual names of the murdered airmen.  When the men were cremated, the urns with their ashes were returned to the camp and the urns were interred in this mausoleum until a later date after the war when they were transferred to a military cemetery in Poznan.

The Director informed us that over 12,000 visitors come to the camp each year, largely British but also from other parts of the world.  Amongst the murdered airmen, there was an Australian, a New Zealander, a Belgian, Dutch, Poles, South Africans,  Norwegians, French, but the overwhelming majority were British.  A handful managed to escape to neutral countries, which was no mean feat as Switzerland is over 600 kilometres away and the Baltic sea about 300 kilometres.  Another handful were recaptured and returned back to the camp.

I thanked the heavens that my father did not have the inclination to try to escape.

Return to the hotel, we were quite overwhelmed.  We had just been to the place where our fathers had been incarcerated, where Jean’s father celebrated his 22nd birthday, where they spent a significant part of the war …. And yet virtually nothing remained except some chucks of concrete, a few bricks and a country track.

In the case of the murder 50 airmen, the realization remained of the wasted lives and the barbarity of a regime that refused to play according to the “civilized” rules of war as designed in the Geneva conventions.

War is ugly – and the beastility of war removes the civilized façade of men who initiate and often wage it.  Some are involved as a matter of duty and necessity, but some thrive in its chaos and absolute brutality.

We had initially planned to all go to the Museum the following day, but Zbyszek, Joan and I had to catch the 1 pm train to Wroclaw and ran out of time.  Margaret, Jean and Henryk, whose cousin from Wroclaw was to arrive at a later and drive them, instead caught the taxi and headed off to join Jacek Jakubiak.

While at the museum, they saw a working model of one of the tunnels, documents and papers related to the POW camp – as well as setting up an interview with some local journalists.  There appears to be a definite interest in our story.

For the Australian and Canadian compotents of the contingents, the two hour train trip to Wroclaw was extremely comfortable.  Our confrontation with the lady at the Zagan railway station this time was more profitable.  This lady also had never seen a Eurail pass but after step by step instruction all systems were go.  We boarded the train and poured out our woes to the conductor who wasn’t surprised at all about the lack of knowledge of the rail staff at Zagan.  He noted that in larger stations where there was PKP Intercity representative we would have had problems.

This was confirmed in Wroclaw where we booked the next stage of our trip.  The young customer service lady was efficient, well informed and confirmed our booking without question.

Whereas the landscape closer to Zagan reflected the poverty of the area the closer we got to Wroclaw the farm houses began to look more affluent and the farmland more prosperous.  Zbyszek and Joan barely had a few winks of sleep before the train entered the outskirts of Wroclaw.  The fields and woods were replaced with tall apartment blocks, workshops, small factories and industrialized areas.

The Glowny Dworzec (Main Railway Station) was a step back to the 21^st century.  At every platform there was a lift leading to the main concourse.  In the main course, there were information window (multilingual) for international travelers, computer screens with tourism information, there was MacDonalds, KFC, several newspaper kiosk, large public toilets, bakery shops with fresh Polish donuts.

At Zagan the lone kiosk was empty, the door to the restaurant was boarded up, the luggage holding office ceased function many years ago.  The station was a ghost of its previous self.

Wroclaw was reflective of its vibrant nature, promoting itself as a meeting place of cultures and peoples. 

Unfortunately after having warned the Kufliks of the pitfalls of catching taxis in public places, we fell victim to the tradition con artistry of Polish taxis drivers who target unsuspecting foreigners, exhausted after long journeys and charging three times the usual fare.  So the fare to Europeum Hotel (a couple of kilometers from the station) was charged at thirty zlotys instead of what should have been only ten.  But we were tired and just wanting to check in.

True to the notion of Wroclaw being a meeting of place, a arrange to meet Wojtek, a young man who runs a website about the history of the Polish air force and with whom I have had email contact for nearly four years.  It was like meeting a long lost friend, despite not having met each other.

Wojtek, despite having no family ties with the air force, has an amazing passion for all thngs connected with this military arm.  By simply glancing at a prewar photograph he had identify the uniform as well as individual elements.  So after the Kufliks and I set off for the old town, Wojtek and I agreed to meet at a given spot.

Wojtek, being fluent in English, became a major point of interest for the Kufliks who love talking to people and discovering them and their backgrounds.  So over a sumptuous Polish meal of pierogi and wild board in the restaurant “Under the Golden Elk”, Wojtek was open to a series of questions by Zbyszek, who wanted to discover what makes young Polish people tick.  And so a few hours, on a balmy Polish evening in the shadow of beautifully restored renaissance style buildings, there was a mutual exchange of culture, opinions and histories between Poland and Canada.  At a certain moment a gipsy capella orchestra serenaded us and gipsy children begged for a few loose coins.  There were hoards of people promenading along the square, with German frequently being heard.

The conclusion:  Wroclaw is a true modern international city and a positive and prosperous future.

We departed Berlin by train from the ultra modern Hauptbahnhoff.  This multistoried construction had four levels of platforms with trains departing for all corners of Europe.  The services and shopping sector in this glassy construction covered all conceivable needs of the passengers.

Our only gripe was that there was a single lift leading to our platform which was inconvenient given that we had four trolleys of luggage, a person in a wheelchair and five other persons.  This necessitated for us to divide and coordinate our selves to ensure that we boarded in a timely fashion the train from Hamburg heading off to Krakow.  Somewhat panicked we piled in all the suitcases, leveraged Margaret and then ourselves into the first class carriage.  For the pincely sum of 30 Euros we would travel from Berlin 160 km to Zagan, which was once Germany (Sagan) and now part of Poland.  We departed at 9.35 am and expected to arrive around 1 pm.

Armed with a map, we peered at the route that we were taking and trying to work out where the border actually lay.  Long gone are the days when border guards burst into each compartment demanding passports.  The DB (Deutschebahn) informed us that the Polish conductor would be taking over at the station of Forst and we deducted that this was the German Polish border.  There was no indication, other then that, that we had crossed over into Poland.  When we were nearing Poland, we could see that many German houses were flying German flags, and then suddenly could identify Polish signage on shops and vehicles.  Three young muscular Polish males (with straz graniczna on their black tshirts) merely walk along the train corridor.  Noone asked for passport or asked questions regarding goods being brought into Poland.  The crossing was entirely seamless and painless, to the astonishment of some in our party.

With each kilometer the character of the landscape became more Polish, with more Polish signage and firms visible.  The houses seemed more run down and the farmland not cultivated.  But the most characteristic element of the landscape were the woods that we passed, Linden trees, silver birches, fir trees. 

All the little townships and their respective railways stations were shabby, in a sad state of disrepair.  The houses along the railway sidings were in a similar state and I was hoping that Joan would not get the impression that this was characteristic of all of Poland.

As our train approached Zagan (once known as Sagan), I was aware that our fathers would have been in cattle trucks on these same rail tracks.  This feeling was heightened as we stepped onto the platform.  Zagan railways station, which was the largest in the province and originally built in 1912, was stuck in a time warp, and to a certain degree we were entering this time warp.

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John Cleese in the series “Fawlty Towers” made known the phrase “Don’t mention the war” when referring to Germans.  All the stereotypical images of German super-efficiency came to mind with my two day contact with Germans in Berlin.

We flew Easy-Jet from Brussels to Berlin en route to Western Poland.  Despite having a reputation of being inflexible in customer service (as do many of the cheapie airlines) we found that we had a very comfortable hour and a half flight, having arrived at Brussels airport with plenty of time to spare.  The only disadvantage with Easy Jet was that the departure lounge was A72 – the very last lounge in the terminal, necessitating a 40 minute brisk walk for healthy passenger along wide modern terminal building.  Individuals, such aas myself, who hobble even one hundred metres took full advantage of the little motorized buggies zipping up and down the terminal delivering incapacitated individuals on time to their flights.  Our 88 year old fellow traveler, Margaret, was zipped around in her wheelchair by her daughter Jean.  Having landed in Schoenfeld Airport in Berlin,  two efficient customer service officers, named Chris and Heinz, took over the care of Margaret and myself.  Again Easy Jet, avoiding her airport fees, disembarked passengers directly to the tarmac.  For Margaret and myself, they provided a little van with a movable platform so assist wheelchair bounded or mobility restricted passengers.  The van sped to the terminal and we enter the door closest to immigration and customs and were given special treatment, while the remainder of our party had to trundle the long corridors and up several flights of stairs.

Heinz and Chris then escorted us to the luggage retrieval area where we reunited with Zbyszek, Joan, Jean and Henryk, and then directed our whole party to the taxi rank after having discovered noone was meeting us.  They rapidly assessed our situation and with great efficiency located a Mercedes people mover.   We piled in the 120 kilograms of luggage and shoved the wheelchair between our legs.  While driving through the Berlin suburbs, the Turkish taxi driver in a mixture of broken English and German started pointing out significant points of interest, such as Checkpoint Charlie, the theatre, where the wall once stood and so on. 

Our hotel, the Best Western Mitte, stood in the area which once had constituted East Berlin.  A very modern establishment with extremely reasonable prices, it was a matter of a couple of kilometers from the Hauptbahnhoff, the main railway station, from where our train to Zagan was to depart two days later.  It was convenient, comfortable and affordable.  For me most importantly it had a decent shower, and the best one on the trip thus far.

The reception was manned by very efficient looking young Germans, all bilingual, efficient, information, however lacking an insight into Australian or Canadian warped sense of humour.  Both Zbyszek and I tried to crack the efficient and rock hard exterior by some jokes or play on word, but to no effect.

I was sorely tempted to apologise for the fact that our fathers had actually bombed Berlin on 23 March 1941.  But I resisted, keeping John Cleese’s mantra “Don’t mention the war” in mind.  You never know how any person’s family may have experienced that period and how they would react.  Blunt I may be but totally insensitive I am not.

The traces of war still can be found in Berlin.  Next to the hotel there is a large grayish stone building which we discovered had been a bunker designed by Albert Speer, and now housed an art collection.  Some parts of Berlin were quite dilapidated, remains of both the war and the former DDR.

The notion that Germans do not have a sense of humour was eliminated on our last night when we dined in German cuisine restaurant.  The waiter was a charming man, named Micheal, who enjoyed the brisk banter in the group and was astounded when Henryk started speaking to him in fluent German and pulled out of his band a pocket Polish-German dictionary to clarify some terms on the German only menu.

Our day and a half in Berlin, gave some an opportunity to explore parts of the city while for others to recover at the half way mark of our pilgrimage.

Our farewell to Turnhout was full of tears and emotion.  The two Berts and Jhonny together with their wives and Bert’s daughter, Laan arrived precisely at 10.15 am.  In front of the Hotel Terminus, it was hugs, kisses, introductions to persons we had not yet met.  Bert #1 (the former police commissioner) gave each of us a CD with photographs of the previous days.  He even produced a cover with our fathers image for the CD case.  This was our farewell committee.  Suddenly there was Herman on the mobile phone making sure that everything was running smoothly.  This was characteristic for the precision of the entire visit.

The previous day, Jean and I went out to seek the remainder of our party for dinner and found Henryk and the Kufliks sitting in the city square with Marie Josee and her husband.  After Marie Josee presented each of us a small gift of Belgian lace, we came to the conclusion that she deliberately sought us out with her warm hearted hospitality. 

This complete generosity and friendliness of the Belgian people drew us more to them.  Each of them was multilingual, Flemish, Dutch, French, English and even German. If they were lacking in vocabulary in one language, they filled the hole with another language. 

Everyone was open to a chat and prepared to explain the history of the local community – especially the difference and rivalry between Turnhout and Old Turnhout.  Herman even drew graphs on the back of paper table mats, so that we would get an insight into the local area.  Being members of a historical society, they were all versed in local legends and information.

This was highlighted in our discussion with the hotel owner, Peggy stated that she was not a local.  We thought that she was from Brussels or elsewhere.  But no, Peggy stressed that she was from OLD (Oud) Turnhout, barely 1.5 km from where we stood.  Oud Turnhout is another reality from Turnhout itself.  The residents of OUD Turnhout are proud of their "otherness".  Pegg, this young blonde woman, in her early thirties, who had been running this hotel for a few years, just recently sold it and was aiming at running a B&B near Malaga in southern Spain.  Each of the persons with whom we spoke had travelled extensively but were extremely proud of their own particularity.

This easy going (anything goes) attitude amongst Belgians could be seen, to my amazement and delight), in the presence of pooches inside restaurants and cafes.  This would be paradise for my Lulu.  The Hotel Terminus was governed by the white Maltese Terrier Julio who lounged indulgently in the bar area supervising the 20 or so staff of the establishment.  His human, Peggy, is utterly devoted to this prince of pooches and keeps doggy treats in the bar for the any other canine which may join their humans at her establishment for a dark Belgian beer or a café late.

When finally we were ready to depart, our entire entourage ended up with not only a pile of suitcases but also had gifts from our newly acquired friends.  They planned our visit to the final minute.  They had established a precise timetable of the trains we were to take to Brussels International airport.  We had two change overs, at Antwerp and Brussels itself and we knew exactly which train to catch and assistance was arranged at each station for Margaret’s wheel chair.

At Turnhout railway station, we again hugged and kissed Bert #1, Bert #2, Caroline, Laan, Jhonny and his wife Chris.  We again had an open invitation to return, especially for the 150^th anniversary of Old Turnhout’s separation from Turnhout.  The pile of luggage was placed into the train, dominating the entire compartment, and suddenly we discovered that Jhonny and his wife were accompanying us on the train to Antwerp to ensure that we managed with the luggage, Margaret’s wheelchair and that we find the right connecting train to Brussels.  Such helpfulness and hospitality I had only seen by some families in Poland and this merely confirmed that we were perceived in the same light by these wonderful Belgians.

With such strong links and hospitality, we have promised that we shall definitely return to Oud Turnhout.

photos

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these are from the memorial dedications and taken by Hubert one of the organising commitee

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We had gone to bed after dinner and a long session of assessment and discussion.  Not only were we physically tired but completely emotionally drained.  Basically we were stunned.  It was so much more than we had expected.

The following morning, 11 July, Herman had instructed us to be ready at 9.30 am for the cars to take us to the cultural centre for the opening of the exhibition.  He called it a “little” exhibition and Chris Kuflik had viewed it the previous afternoon.  Chris had departed at 8 am by train for Brussels Airport, from where he was returning to Canada.  Chris kept his mouth zipped in line with his promise to Herman.  Not a word was said about what he had seen.

Hubert and Bert (todays chauffeurs) sped through the narrows streets of Turnhout to Oud Turnhout and we approached this 16^th century mansion which had been converted to the town cultural centre. 

On the other side of the road, the ever present Marie Josee was waving and gesticulating to the neighbouring building, saying that this was were she had once gone to school.  We were then escorted into the cultural centre into the exhibition area and I was stunned to see a large image of my father’s POW mug shot on the wall along side my favorite portrait of him in his airmen’s uniform.  On the walls were copies of photographs of B for Barbara and its individual crew members.  In glass display cases were copies of personal documents that some time over the last year we had forwarded to Herman, including letters to the POW camps, log book entries, family photographs.  There were maps, models of the Wellington and Lancaster planes.  Our father’s lives were encapsulated in a booklet which included their biographies, photographs and the background to the Polish squadrons. 

There was even a biography of the German fighter pilot, Wolfgang Thimmig, who had shot down B for Barbara.  Jhonny pointed out the display to me saying “Look, there is the bastard who shot down your father.”  My reply was “He was only doing his job”.

We also received copies of the A3 posters which could be found throughout the town publicizing the exhibition.  Our father’s faces, superimposed on an image of B for Barbara, defiantly peered out at us.

The ladies of the historical committee brought out canapés, wines and soft drinks, while Marleen representing the town council gave a speech and presented each one of us with a Blue and White painted Delft stoneware plate decorated with scenes from Oud Turnhout.  Then the head of the Tourism board gave each of us several postcards which they would send for us for free.

We were then ushered to a small room adjoining the exhibition room where there was a screen and they ran a series of propaganda news reels showing the Polish squadrons in 1941 and a half hour film reenacting the flight of a bomber air crew.  It seemed so real and provided an insight into how possibly our fathers could have reacted that fateful night.

After hugs and kisses from all of our newly acquired Belgian friends, including Marie Josee and her family, we headed off back to the hotel, having been informed that some members of the organizing committee would be joining us in the afternoon.

So in this atmospheric Belgian tavern, our group sat along with our hosts savouring the dark local brew.  Hubert arrived along with his wife Caroliine along with  Jhonny, Herman and Jan.  Of course we could not express enough our gratitude for such two magnificent days.

Jhonny went out and purchased multiple copies of the two major news papers and we found articles written about the memorial ceremonies of the previous days together with group photographs of us and the committee surrounding the B for Barbara memorial.  Herman diligently sat at the table and translated the articles into English.

Even more drained that the previous day, we rested only to come out for dinner and to listen to band playing in the city square.  We all came to the conclusion that we had developed a closeness and a bond with Belgium and especially the people of Oud Turnhout.