This is my blog about my adventure in Eastern Europe Poland to be precise during the late 60s to present and how it has changed. It is an insight through my eyes of just how things were during the communist period my observations if you like.
My father was born in Poland in 1921. He was born in Bydgoscz and lived on a farm in a village called Gluponie. It was more of hamlet with just a few other farms around down a dirt track.
He left Poland when he was 19 to make his way to England. He travelled through Romania and Bulgaria via Algeria joined the Foreign Legion which he left after a while and then made his way up through Spain to land in Plymouth.On arriving in England he signed up to the Air Force, back in Poland he had trained at the Polish Air Force training school in Deblin. This early training served him well. My parents met during the war. My mother also in the Air Force was a sargeant in the Air Force and both my parents were stationed in Lincolnshire. After the war he became a commercial pilot and flew with many companies travelling the world. I think it is from him that I get my sense of adventure. He was presented with the Virtuti Militari in recognition of his bravery and achievements. After my parents married my father did not want to go back to Poland not straight away. Britain was emerging and prospering. It was not until 1964 did he say to my mother I would like to go back for a holiday not to permenantly stay. This is how it started a regular pilgrimage every four years or there abouts. We would go for three weeks or more. My sister and I embarking on this adventure to a country that no one talked about and when asked at school "Where are you going for your holiday"???
Poland
I would reply
Why they would ask
I would then explain the reason. Back then only people like ourselves who had a connection would adventure behind the Iron Curtain. Only the brave and curious would embark on such a trip. The planning the organising. This different it wasn't like any other holiday. It meant visas, writing letters 8 months in advance to let relatives know we were coming from a country that they only dreamed about to visit. Usually after Christmas my mother would say to dad Do you want to go to Poland this year. It was like a military operation planning, organising, getting the car ready for the mammoth journey a 2 thousand miles there and back not including travelling with in the country 3 thousand all in all. The countdown would begin booking the ferry, applying for visas,letters to various relatives were dispatched nforming them of our impending arrival money was exchanged when we arrived by undercover methods. The porters in the hotels were the right people to contact. This procedure was ritualistic.The days would would be marked off until departure. I would pack and repack because I knew that we would come home laden with goods that all three had bought. Anything and everythig from jewellery, net curtaining, food mixer. It was like something out of the generation game. Being a Europhile I would listen avidly to the radio and taped a programme on the BBC called Pop over Europe. We would also watch intently the BBC news when Tim Sebastian reported from Poland. Waving goodbye to our neighbours, friends and family was always emotional on different levels because once we left Engand our adventure to the East would begin and once we were behind the iron curtain that would be it no western tv, no newspapers apart from the odd International Herald Tribune. br /> Out journey across Europe to get to Poland would take usually 2 days, however, one time we drove or rather my father did in a day off the boat at the Hook of Holland and right through to Poznan arriving at midnight when everything was closed. W factored in the lengthy wait we would have at the West German/East German border control. I knew we were getting closer when the giant lookout towers loomed ahead in front of us. We would prepare ourselves for the steely glances from the East German guards heavily armed and suspicious of these westerners coming into their country. we always had transit visas which allowed us just to travel straight through no stopping, I didn't fancy ending up in a prison cell courtesy of the Stasi. We would join the queue waiting, waiting, hour after hour making sure we had prepped our exit for a smooth escape. I would remind my mother to hide all the magazines, keep quiet and don't say a word. On one occasion crossing through Czechoslovakia this didn't work and the magazine She was confiscated... I remember saying I told you so....lesson learnt. My father always drove a big car a Ford. A big car was what we needed to transport all the booty for the relatives. In the boot of the car where the spare wheel was would be our secret compartment. First there were the suitcases, then the cover and the boards, then the spare wheel and in and around this would be tea, sugar, razorblades, gifts, gold and any other things we wanted to bring you name it we had it. The fear as we stopped at the Kontrol Punkte as the guards scrutinised out passports and visas scanning the passport through an electronic scanner looking at us and looking at us again. The fear was everything in order...the sheer relief when told alles in ordnung. After that it was drive like a bat out of hell on their version of an autobahn no smooth roads for them. No stopping for petrol at an Inter Tank although we may have on one of our previous visits. Everything had the prefix Inter, petrol Inter Tank the state airline Interflug as everything was state run.
The Border checkpoint Helmstedt–Marienborn (German: Grenzübergang Helmstedt-Marienborn), named Grenzübergangsstelle Marienborn (GÜSt) (border crossing Marienborn) by the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was the largest and most important border crossing on the Inner German border during the division of Germany. Due to its geographical location, allowing for the shortest land route between West Germany and West Berlin, most transit traffic to and from West Berlin used the Helmstedt-Marienborn crossing. Most travel routes from West Germany to East Germany and Poland also used this crossing. The border crossing existed from 1945 to 1990 and was situated near the East German village of Marienborn at the edge of the Lappwald. The crossing interrupted the Bundesautobahn 2 between the junctions Helmstedt-Ost and Ostingersleben.
I remember in 1968 we were in Poland and the tanks had rolled into Prague...worried that we would not be able to leave and that conflict would escalate to Poland we found it tense, despite these problems we were able to carry on with our holiday. These were difficult times as unrest in Eastern Europe was growing.The 70s in Poland were interesting partcularly in the cities.In Warsaw we would often stay in the Grand Hotel or Europejski. I remember one time the only accomodation we could find was in the Hotel Warszawa a grey imposing building reminicant of an imposing government building. We were shown to our rooms.I remember the key chain well a clanking great square piece of metal attached to a clanking great key. The door had a padded exterior and if I remember was in brown.
26/01/14
I think it is fitting to pause and reflect today as it is Holocaust Memorial Day on which is such an important time. In all the times I have been going to Poland we never once visited Auschwitz, my father and mother did not want to, my father for too many memories of the war would be dredged up and he was keen to forget so we never went. In 2009 I went to Krakow, Poland with my friend Caroline and her work colleague. Caroline and I decided to visit Auschwitz or more commonly known by Poles as Oswiecim. I felt that now was the right time to do this as we were adult enough and mature enough to understand the full impact of what had exactly happened here. We booked a tour and travelled with other people in a mini tour bus to the location. Our converation during the journey was up beat. There were two young women from Canada, a couple from Sweden and a an American man. we laughed and enjoyed the journey blocking out where we were going and trying not to visualize the horrors that had befallen so many. When we arrived in the searing heat as the weather was kind to us 40C the mood changed and everyone stopped talking and laughing as we moved through those famous gates with the infamous sign above with those immortal words Arbeit macht frei!!!!! Work will set you free...moving through the rooms and seeing evidence of peoples possessions, shoes, false teeth, suit cases and saw the suffering and pain that people had gone through, the out pouring of emotion from people was plain to see. One cannot imagine what these people had gone through. After we left neither of us spoke to one another or anybody else even on the journey back. We were quiet relecting our thoughts of the unimaginable. We arrived back in town and found the nearest bar. Alcohol helped drown the sorrows and move out of the heat that was bearing down on us. I will never forget that experience. It is one that ordinarily I would promote for obvious reasons but if you go to Krakow you must visit Auschwitz and see for yourself. This must never happen again but of course lives are being taken every day in other conflicts. I say Carpe Diem!!!!
