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Teresa
Stolarczyk Marshall and her mother, Haydon Park Polish Camp, Somerset, England.
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CHILDREN OF THE DIASPORA
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Being the daughter of Poles had a profound impact on me. I suffered
culture shock growing up in my own country; the question of identify, dual identity, multiple identity, and awareness of the
possibility of war. Even in kindergarten, when a plane would fly overhead I would dive for cover. I was afraid of planes for
many, many years. I’ve also had issues around food, never wasting any and worrying that there would be enough. I’ve worked
on it but it’s still there. I go grocery shopping and I still buy two of everything. I still experience ‘soul pain.’ I was
always aware that war could happen at any time and that I could come home and find that my family might be gone. I think:
“where did I learn that?” Well, it’s clear where it came from, and it helps me work with other people. Anonymous b. 1951,
Canada
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Polscy Ch³opcy
(extract)
Did you weep for your
family for whom you would never again see?
Or the loss of their freedoms, while you were in a new land and free?
Were
your tears for Polscy Ch³opcy as they were being called DPs
Or for the suggestions that you change your Polish name and
drop the “ski”?
You remained proud to your heritage and kept your name.
This was all you had left and it bore you
no shame.
On Rememberance Day, you stood alone as you remembered those who died
Because there were no Polscy Ch³opcy
to share your memories at your side.
There was no one here that had shared your footsteps from the past.
And many
of the young never cared to ask.
They had never been to war, and they didn’t understand
What it really meant to lose
one’s land.
Today I stand alone, holding your polished medals at your grave,
And I thank you with all my heart for
being so brave.
I thank you for the Polish heritage that you passed on to me
And for raising me in a country where I
am blessed to be free.
For Polscy Ch³opcy, I will scatter red poppies in the wind, just for you
And I will do my
best to my heritage be true.
And when the trumpets roar, I too, will salute the skies
For now I finally understand the
tears in your eyes.
Written in memory of my father Kazimierz Kaczanowski
© Hania Kaczanowska, 2003
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The
Wojciechowscy, going to church,
Fairford Polish Hostel, England, 1956
I’ve tried to learn
all I could about my Polish side, and have learned a few words but I find it difficult. German comes easier because my adoptive
parents had German backgrounds; my maternal grandfather had come from Germany in the early 1900s, so he could speak to me
and translate. I feel bad about missing out on my Polish heritage. I did memorize the words of Sto Lat to sing to my cousin
on her birthday. I still feel like a displaced person, even though I consider myself an American. I am also a German and a
Pole. But, to a certain degree, I am always on the outside looking in.
Rita Miller
b. 1946, Germany
1951-present,
USA
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Liberation
(excerpt)
And then the British came,
And
put them in another camp,
Where the corpses still had not been buried,
Where the water was bad, where my mother
Got
sick, where her stool was as red
As the beets she had to dig everyday.
And my father worked hard, sawing
The wood,
getting ready for winter,
Like he did in Poland. He knew this work
And did it for her and the children,
My sister
and me. But the British
Moved them again, to another camp,
And they had to leave the wood, even though
My father
tried to carry some on his back
And it was cold in the new place, and some
Of the babies died, and my sister was very
sick,
Maybe from drinking the dirty water.
© John Guz³owski, 2005
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The
hands of Hania Kaczanowska's father,
Kazimierz Kaczanowski, and her son, Curtis, 2004
“Dziadek, did you
have a gun?”
The old man sat in his rocker with his grandson at his feet
As he told stories from his youth, many left
incomplete.
The young boy played with the medals, tokens from the war
And with childhood innocence, wanted to hear more.
”Dziadek,
were you a soldier? Dziadek, did you have a gun?”
Dziadek, Dziadek, did you ever have to kill anyone?”
The old man nodded
and let his thoughts drift back
To a time when his country was heavily under attack.
Instead of enjoying autumn leaves
and warm September nights
He was handed a gun and volunteered to fight.
Gone were his dreams of a future, love and romance.
Every
day now could be the last dance.
He stared into the face of death and searched deep within his soul
And asked God for
answers of why this senseless toll?
He had quickly become a man inside a boy
And his youth was robbed of love and joy.
He
could still hear the roar of cannons that filled the air
As naked evil spirits brought misery and despair
Broken dreams
and shattered lives kaleidoscope the earthly floor
As spirits soared amidst the smoke leaving behind the bloody war
He
tried not to relive the sadness and the pain
But to forget all this would mean his comrades died in vain.
He felt a
hand on his shoulder and heard a whisper of a long-lost friend,
“I would tell your story, if your grandson to me you would
lend.”
Looking down into the eyes of his grandson it all became very clear
As he again had to become a proud soldier
and wiped away a tear
His gnarled old hand brushed back the hair of the tiny little face
It was his duty to teach this
boy and to hide the truth would be a disgrace
“Yes, my child, your dziadek was a soldier and, yes, I had a gun
But my
war was not a game and I never shot for fun.
When you are older you will understand the job I had to do
And now I understand
what I gave up, I did for you.
I had dreams of a family, a home, remember the stories we shared
But my life was taken
away from me and yours was spared.”
“Dziadek, Dziadek, did you have a gun?
Dziadek, Dziadek, did you have to kill
anyone?
© Hania Kaczanowska 2004
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Melton
Mowbray Polish Hostel
Corpus Christi Procession, c1950
I was seven years old; we were in class, in a local Melton
Mowbray school, when the teacher told all the Polish children to stand up. She then said, “Go back to Poland; we don’t want
you here,” and then let us sit down. The refugee experience formed who I am.
Krysia Bargiel
b. 1949, England
1959-present,
USA
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