Poland 1969
It was summer 1969 and we were moving to another city. It was going to be our third home. Away from my real one. Because if someone asked me, I would have told them my home is where I started — at granny’s farmhouse, near Wroclaw. We were moving even further away, because of dad’s work. Or, I should say, because of people, who hated him for being a prison officer. When I think of it, I hated him doing that job. We were all prisoners of this nasty profession, so to speak.
The fact, that it paid well and enjoyed high appreciation from the Party, made it even worse. There was less and less choice in our life. Moving from one town to another was the extent of the freedom we had.
The night before my brother’s tenth birthday I was thinking about a finka knife I was going to gift him. I tried to imagine his reaction when he sees the knife. He was a scout and talked about having his own knife every time he came back from the gathering. I was so pleased to be the one to make his dream come true. Mum and I found the finka knife in a small shop operated by the local Fishing Association. It was my idea to go there. Mum had to show her Party Membership Card and they made a note of us buying the knife. Everything was back then very official. The knife was in my backpack, ready for tomorrow’s surprise — birthday picnic by the river.
That night, I remember faint sound of the radio coming from the kitchen and this had always a soothing effect on me. Finally, I drifted to sleep.
My mother’s loud voice woke me up in the middle of the night. I jumped out of bed and followed the voice to the corridor, where she was talking on the phone: “I see, let me know if you hear anything, comrade”.
“What’s happening” — I asked when she put down the receiver — “Where is dad?” Mum looked at me, still processing what she heard during the phone call. “I don’t know where he is. They said he left work at the usual time, 11pm. I fell asleep early and woke up just now realizing he’s still not back” — she explained, her voice trembling. “Oh no, something happened to him! We need to call militia, call the militia now!” That’s when Marek — my brother — emerged from his bedroom and now the three of us stood helpless in the corridor, our pyjamas suddenly inappropriate, not fitting with the gravity of the situation. I hugged my mum and felt the comfort of her smell and a soft texture of her nightgown. She embraced me and kissed the top of my head.
“I know, we will, we’ll go the militia, and we’ll go looking for him. Get dressed quickly, just make sure you are warm”. We went out to the night and drove to different places — the militia, the hospital, uncle’s house — but we didn’t find him. The silence on the way back home was heavy with worry and exhaustion.
The hospital called early next morning. A couple of production workers found him unconscious on the street when they were walking for their day shift in a textile factory. Head injury, broken ribs, bruised all over. Lucky to be alive although too sore to see it that way.
We were in the hospital, waiting to see him. Mum was smoking almost constantly and sucking on her mint candies. Me and Marek sat opposite each other, mostly silent. It crossed my mind that it was his birthday, but I couldn’t bring myself to mention it. The finka knife will have to wait for its moment.
It was a former prisoner who did this to dad, exercising his freedom, so to speak. He was behind the bars two weeks later, for stealing a car and drink driving. When back in prison, he was bragging about what he did to my dad and that’s how he got a longer sentence.
Luckily, dad’s boss supported the transfer to another town. After a summer holiday spent on helping mum and dad with the move, we headed to Kamienna Gora. I liked the town, but dad’s work became more complicated. The local prison had a wing with political prisoners. What was their crime? My parents didn’t question the Party line at that time, but I could sense, that the political wing doesn’t sit well with them. For me, it wasn’t so clear anymore, who are the baddies, and who is on the right side of the history. I was twelve years old and loved history classes. My new teacher Ms Borecka was the one who cultivated doubt and ambiguity in us. She couldn’t openly criticise the Party or share what she thought of imprisoning people for their political views. Instead, she was posing a lot of questions and didn’t expect answers. She weaved them into the lectures as if they were just a decoration to the main point, a rhetorical figure. But these questions stayed with me when I came back home, watching the news or listening to my parents talking. Her lessons gave me the compass, that helped navigate the waters of the revolution less than a decade later. I knew so clearly where to stand when the strikes broke out in our factory in 1977. But that’s for another story. The one about my disobedience, which in 1969 was just starting to sprout, without my full awarness.
