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Your Story: The Kaleidoscope of Youth |
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My father escaped first. Shortly afterwards there was a message that he had made arrangements for my mother and I to follow. We were to meet up in Bucharest. He was waiting for us there with false passports. We crossed into Yugoslavia at night by train. At the border a customs official came into the compartment to check papers and luggage. Our belongings were in a sack. He put his hand in, rummaged and pulled out my father’s uniform jacket. I looked at the official to see if he would call the guards to take us off the train. He winked, waved the other official on down the corridor and tied the rope round the sack tightly.
We changed trains frequently. Once we were in Italy, my father explained, it would be dangerous for us because the Italians were allies of the Germans. He asked me not to speak in Polish in public places so that we did not attract attention to ourselves. I thought our clothes were odd enough to do that, but nobody bothered about us and we got to Paris.
It was not what I thought it would be like. It was grey, cold and wet. I had expected Paris to be full of cafes, bubbling with conversation and overflowing with artists and writers, served by White Russian waiters who would break off to play their balalaikas and be joined by Hungarian gypsies singing sad songs. We could not afford to go to the cafes but as we walked I observed them closely. They did not seem to be very lively places. My parents found a tiny room at the top floor of a pension and there we waited.
The French government, it seemed, could not make up its mind whether to enlist volunteers from the Polish army into the French Legion or to incorporate Polish units into the French army. Some minister or general must have made up his mind, as my father went away again promising to send for us if he could. Sometime later we joined him in Combourg. Its claim to fame was the chateau where Chateaubriand’s father had confined him. I became interested in the story and, now that I had acquired a bicycle, would cycle to explore the surrounding area.
One day a French general arrived to lecture on strategy. Hw told his listeners that the Maginot Line would stop Germany’s advance into France. With this assurance he left. Father did not believe that but thought that my mother and I would be able to stay in Combourg for some months. My parents decided that I should go to a local convent school. I protested to no avail that the school year was almost over. The nuns could hardly believe that anyone from a civilized and Christian country could be as ignorant of the French language as I was. They proceeded to remedy this defect in my education by teaching me irregular verbs. Before I could get to nouns, we left.
Words: Lady Danusia Trotman-Dickenson
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