大象传媒

My father was born in the east of Poland in a village 40km from Wilno in 1924. His childhood was one of undeniable poverty. He lived in a two roomed house with his family of nine. The barn for animals occupied the ground floor of the building and the living quarters were upstairs. My grandfather farmed during the summer and was the village tailor during the winter. Mattresses were made of straw, clothes were washed in the river and trips into the city were rare. However my father鈥檚 tales of his early years do not focus on hardship but on the beauty of the landscape, his fondness for the animals he kept and the fun of being one of seven siblings.

As for many people in Poland, the war changed his life for ever. When the Russians invaded the east in 1939/40, my father鈥檚 family were told to pack their things and were taken to the railway station. They were loaded into cattle trucks and the slow journey east began. My father talks of weeks of travelling with the doors firmly shut. He remembers that in some places food was thrown through the grids in the floor but mainly the trains moved through the landscape with no contact with the outside. The ultimate destination was the labour camps of Novosibirsk. My father鈥檚 family was put to work on the land. Their reward for hours of back breaking work was rations of bread. My father was so malnourished during this time, he lost all his teeth.

In 1941 my father heard that the Russians had given permission for the exiled Poles to form a free army. Once again he began a long and hard journey with the Anders Army across unknown territory, this time to Tashkent. At one point he remembers being offered cheap cologne to drink as a guard against the bitter cold and gratefully accepting. When he finally reached his destination in Tashkent he lied about his age so there could be no chance of being turned away.

From Tashkent his journey took him onwards to Teheran and Kirkuk. New
clothing was issued and good food was in abundance. The intention was to
transform the malnourished army of boys and men into a fighting force.
The next leg of the journey was by ship to Pietermaritzburg in South
Africa where he volunteered to join the paratroopers. Nazi propaganda
was rife. My father tells that people were surprised to see the ship
arrive in the port as it been reported sunk and claimed as a Nazi victory.
From Durban in South Africa my father was taken by ship to a
training camp in Scotland. Here the intensive training to become a
paratrooper began. This was continued at Ringway Airport, Manchester.
My father progressed from jumping from a platform in a barn to jumping
from a balloon and finally to jumping from a plane. The training was not
without danger. He speaks of a friend whose neck was broken in a horrific
accident. There were also two planes that collided with the loss of Polish
lives during this time.

Throughout the training my father believed he would be sent to provide support during the planned uprising in Warsaw. However this was not to be. He was to see active service as part of the ill fated Operation Market Garden in the Netherlands. In mid September 1944 the Polish paratroopers prepared themselves for battle. Terrible fog meant that their entry into the campaign was delayed by several days. General Sosabowski, the brigade commander predicted failure and was removed from his position, although he did jump with the other men. My father speaks of terrible tension and frantic messages given to the American pilots in the hope that eventually they would be able to tell the families left behind what had happened to the Polish soldiers, should these young paratroopers not survive. The tension was too much for some. My father recalls a comrade throwing himself from the plane before they reached the landing site. The training meant that there was no room for hesitation when the jump began. Each paratrooper pushed the man in front out of the plane. My father鈥檚 destination was Driel on the River Rhine. His first memory of Holland was of being in an orchard and never being so thirsty in his entire life. Despite being terrified, he disobeyed orders not to touch potentially contaminated food and grabbed an apple from a tree to quench this thirst!

The Polish who were on the south side of the river were there to give support to the British on the north side. However the Polish had no means to cross the river. My father speaks of digging himself into a foxhole near the church and waiting for boats to arrive. For several days this waiting game continued. When equipment did arrive my father describes going down to the waters edge in the darkness and rain and the fruitless attempts to cross the river. The operation had been a failure. My father鈥檚 brigade returned to England. General Sosabowski was reinstated as the brigade commander.

My father was demobbed in Lincolnshire and unwilling to go back to a Soviet controlled Poland, he began yet another new chapter of his life in Nottingham. Amazingly his prayers had been answered and his six siblings and parents had also survived the war. He was finally reunited with his family in 1954 when he made his first emotional trip back to Poland.

When my father speaks of his wartime experiences his tales have a 鈥渂oys own鈥� quality. Just as his stories of his village have a rosy glow; his wartime recollections often stress the positive. Although the thoughts of the hardships his parents suffered quickly bring tears to his eyes, he often displays a surprisingly cheerful attitude to his own experiences. He speaks of the amazing sites he saw as he travelled the world. (it鈥檚 hard to believe in 1939 he had barely left the small village where he was born), He describes his wonderment at the piles of oranges in Persia, the noise the hyenas made as he guarded the camp in South Africa and his fond memories of leave in Manchester! Above all he speaks of the comradeship and friendship he experienced. It is only rarely that my father mentions the darker sides of war. In 2004 I attended the commemorations for the 60th anniversary of the Battle of Arnhem with him. As we wandered down the rows of Polish graves in the cemetery, my father pointed at the headstones and talked about the ways in which his comrades had been killed.

鈥淭hat lad was blown up in a foxhole near the church; that was one of our commanders who was killed as he tried to escape over the wall鈥︹�︹��

Interspersed with these grim details were happier tales of good times they had shared during training. The stories continued, past graves of boys barely in their twenties.

鈥淭hey never had children, they never had grandchildren鈥�.

The reason for my dad鈥檚 sometimes surprisingly positive look on his own life became apparent. In his eyes he is one of the lucky ones.

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