大象传媒

I don鈥檛 know how unusual my father鈥檚 story is about World War 2 because he fought for both sides during the conflict, so let me start at the beginning鈥�.

Eugene Janik was born in Poland to Polish immigrants living in Mechlenberg, Northern Germany. He was one of four children - being the only child to be born in Poland because his Mother was visiting her relatives in Lodz to spend her last days of confinement and hoping that her child would be born there. The beginning of this story is significant because of the consequential events.

My father was educated in a German school but spoke Polish at home. When the war broke out in Europe, together with his parents, he had to wear a letter 鈥楶鈥� on his clothes to identify his nationality. He wore this under his lapel so it could not be seen but also would not contravene the state law.

Once, a gang of Hitler Youth stopped my father. They grabbed him by his lapels and demanded to know why he wasn鈥檛 in the Hitler Youth like them. My father had to think quickly on his feet and tell a white lie by saying he was one of the 鈥榃orking Youth鈥�. After a convincing story they left him alone. Of course he had the letter 鈥淧鈥� under his lapel and if any of them would have seen it they probably would have beaten him and left him for dead just for a bit of sport. My father told me that these groups would be really belligerent and aggressive, often going round looking for trouble and excuses to find victims to beat up.

As the war progressed, and the German troops were getting desperate for cannon fodder, my Father, and a lot like him, were conscripted to fight in the war. He was about twenty at the time. Being brought up on a farm, he was quite introverted and said he was very homesick wondering if he would ever see his home again.

Eventually he ended up fighting for the German Army on the front lines in France on the anti-aircraft guns. He often used to go foraging for food for his platoon when their rations had all but gone. Somehow he always managed to come back with something. After one particular tragic event, when half of his platoon were killed in a air raid, my father had to pick up all the body parts, load them onto a cart and help to bury them. For all these services he was awarded the Iron Cross Third Class (which he subsequently destroyed, together with the certificate , when he applied for naturalisation in England in 1971). Up until this time I knew nothing of this and his conscription into the German Army.) There were many times my Father was enticed by the resistance to cross over to the allies during this time, but he knew it would only put his family at risk so he dared not and people understood this. After a lot more tragic and fascinating stories, he was eventually captured by the French Moroccans.

He said, when they first arrived at the camp, they were lined up in front of the Moroccan soldiers who held them as prisoners. One soldier walked up and down the lines collecting rings and sliding them down a long stick. If a ring would not come off, the wearer would have their finger cut off!

During a short internment, the Allies came to the camp looking for people like my father who were in this unusual predicament. There were some Germans, however, who would pretend to be who they obviously weren鈥檛. The allies would ask pertinent questions and speak in a particular native tongue which would then reveal who they were. So my father was pulled out of the camp and joined the Polish army where, ironically, he went on to fight for the Allies against the German Army and survive the Battle of Monte Casino.

He never did return to his home because the communists had seized that part of Germany and he was afraid that if he returned he would have been shot for the events which led him to fight for the German Army. The story of Yalta and the massacre of Poles by the Russians compounded his fear.

At the end of the war he was demobbed in England and worked in a Manchester cotton factory where he met my mother and settled down to have a family.

If my Father were still alive he would have been eighty one years old, but he died just after his birthday at sixty nine in 1991. He used to tell us all kinds of fascinating stories about the war. Although my Father didn鈥檛 tell anyone else, outside the immediate family, about fighting for the German Army, I feel that people should know about the absurdity of war and that soldiers did end up fighting for both sides during the course of the war.

I am very proud of my father, he was an extraordinary and very special man.

From a loving daughter.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.