Our Life Changing Anniversary

It was evening.  The children were fed, bathed and playing together by me as I sat on my bed sorting paperwork.

My Tato came in.  He never really comes into my room.  My house is always open to him because that is just how Polish children are, their house is always open to their parents.

I looked at him, knowing he was going to say something important.

"Gęś*, do you know what Eleven ten eleven is?" with a smile that I know very well.  A smile that means "Guess, maybe you know, this is something very special to me."

I raked my mind.  It is noone's birthday as far as I can remember.  It isn't our anniversary coming to Amerika. 

"I don't know, Tato.  I know it's the day before Veteran's Day and the day before Poland's Independence Day and before eleven eleven eleven."

"On November 10, 2011, it will be 30 years ago we left Poland."

My Tato rarely talks about Poland and our departure.  I have begged him for years to share with me but I have been lucky to get slivers.

I paused and bit the bullet.  I asked questions.  Cautiously, because I know he might shut down his wall that he keeps to protect himself.  I can understand that feeling, even though my feelings are from a different perspective and most likely not as strong and full of memories as his and my Mamas.

"Tato, how did we leave?"

"You were just a little thing (stress on little).  You was not even 1 1/2 year old.  I drove us in a car to Austria."

I knew this much.  I wanted more.

"But how?  Did we sneak over in the night (like on those old spy movies)?  How did we get through the border?"

"No, we said we were going on vacation."  More gentle prying and I hear, "We each got passports to go separately when we apply to go to Austria for vacation.  You Dziadek went with us to take car back.  We just did not return."

We left on different pretenses than what we told the government.  In my mind, I think now about people who overstay their visas and wonder if they were in the same situation and if it is so wrong what they did.  And that people who judge them without ever having traveled anywhere have no idea, no clue.

My Tato continued to tell me how little I was and that we lived in Warth. 

I asked him if he regretted it.  Because I am ashamed to think (but would never tell him) that in some ways, I do.  He told me that in some ways he regrets it but in many ways no.  I knew I hit a nerve.  This was hard to him to talk about.

I cannot imagine being in a situation where no matter how hard you work, there is no food in the stores to feed your baby, there is no future that you can see for your child.  Having to hug your parents goodbye, cross yourself and sneak away to another country.  And hope beyond hope that you don't get sent back home, that you and your family are given a chance to try to make a life for yourselves in another country far far away with a different language, culture, government, values, food with no family to be your support there.

I cannot imagine how my parents found the strength to leave their Poland.

30 years ago today, my parents made the biggest decision of their lives and mine.

They hugged their friends and family, said goodbye, not knowing if they would see them again.  My parents wrapped me in a green blanket and my mother sat with me in the backseat of a maluszek that had no heat on a cold November day.  My Dziadek sat in the passengar seat.  And my Tato drove.

For our future.  To our future.

This weekend, besides celebrating Veterans Day and Poland's Independence Day, I will be showing my children photos from my family, calling my Babcia, and telling my children our story.

I wonder what will be, to my children, the biggest decision in their lives that my husband and I will make.  Will it be, as I see it something as small and trivial, as moving to Illinois from Maryland?  Or will it be something just as big?

Na razie...



*  Gęś (pronounced Gensh and meaning "goose" in Polish, my father's nickname for me)

Related Posts:  Writing Me:  Where I'm From
The Other Side of The Immigrant Question

Wordless Wednesday: World Refugee Day & My Home in Austria

June 20th was the 10th Annual International World Refugee Day.

I have been wanting to share this photo for a couple of weeks now after I found it.  I thought this week was perfect.

When I was digging through old photos, postcards from my family in Poland when I was young, slides of Wroclaw, and other mementos they had sent us to remember where we had come from, I found this photo and held my breathe. 

Staring at it, I had found something I had been searching for years. 

Where had I stayed as a Citizen of the World, a refugee fleeing the Soviet crackdowns against Poland and her people as they rose in Solidarity against oppression.  Fleeing tanks crouched on the borders, ready to come in and do who-knows-what.

I ran to my husband and showed him.  "Look!  Look!  This is where I stayed in Austria when we fled Poland and while I was waiting to come to the US (in my mind, where maybe I was meant to meet you).  He glanced at it for a second, smiled briefly and said "That's cool."  That's cool.  That was it?  Like I had shown him just another book or something else equally unimportant.

"You will never understand." I say, walking away, choking back tears and words filled with anger at his lack of interest.  Lack of understanding. 

I know he wasn't trying to be unkind, that he just didn't grasp the full idea of what I was talking about.  That he never would.  He was born here in the USA, where his family for who knows how many generations had their freedoms and rights just handed to them with no worries of them being ripped away. 

I show my daughters.  They glance at it, my older daughter asks a couple of simple questions, as though this was just another cool looking town to live in, then they walk away.

I'm left holding a picture that means nothing to anyone other than myself. 

To everyone around me, it's just a postcard.  A photo of some far off place.  But it's something much much bigger to me.

It is where I lived as a political refugee, 2 years old, having left the country I was born in, having left with my parents away from my family, away from my birth language, not knowing where I was going to live for the rest of my life. 

In limbo.  Living on kindness and a prayer.  Eating Potato Soup.

My mother's belly growing with the baby brother who would be my closest friend forever. 

And growing stronger because of all of it...

Nice to Meet You

I think it's about time a face was put to my writing....

I am 2 years old sitting on the stairs of the hotel we had been living in for a few months at this point. 

I am currently a refugee fleeing Communism.  Leaving behind friends and family to go into the wide world with my parents only. 

I am living in Austria in a small village.  We are waiting on possibly moving to either Australia or the USA.  Waiting to hear whether all the legal paperwork is approved.  And praying.

This smile is always on my face to this day...


Related Posts:

Wordless Wednesday:  A Toy Train


Writing Me:  Where I'm From

Potato Soup or Zupa Ziemnianczana

Potato Soup is so simple that it's one of the first soups I ever learned how to make.  It's also extremely frugal.

Potato Soup also has played a large role in Polish culture, just as it has in other cultures.  It has been eaten by peasants for centuries.  Because it can be made with a vegetarian broth, it is a popular dish during Lent and other meatless days.

Even in movies such as The Pianist, Potato Soup is mentioned.  It is a soup that has kept people going during lean times.

On talking about living under Communism and why my family left, my Babcia once lamented that "You could stand in long lines behind people to buy your allowed food at the store.  Then, when it was finally your turn to buy, you would see that the shelves in the store were all empty except for one rotten bag of potatoes.  You couldn't even make Potato Soup."

Yesterday while my father joined us for dinner and we ate this dish, my father asked me if I remembered the man with the really big spoons.  I looked at him with surprise.  The flavor of Potato Soup always brings back a faint memory of a man smiling at me while I tried to eat Potato Soup with very large spoons.  The sort of spoons that for my age felt like they were as big as my face. 

I never knew what this memory is of. 

My father explained to me that when we were in Austria as refugees, the man would bring us Potato Soup with very large spoons.  Spoons which were too big even for my father to use.  Spoons like the ones used in The Pianist when the Szpilman family sits around eating what was probably Potato Soup.

Potato Soup is my memory of waiting and being given random acts of kindness from strangers. 

Waiting to be given a direction where we could go. 

Just like Lent is filled with waiting and being given a random act of kindness.


Ingredients:

1 piece of Smoked Polish Bacon with Ribs*
1 Onion, peeled and quartered
2 Carrots, washed, peeled and cut into 3 large pieces
handful of Curly Parsley, chopped
20 Peppercorns, whole in spice ball
10 Potatoes, washed, peeled, and cut into cubes
Salt to taste
Cream or Sour Cream, if you like
Chopped Chives or Curly Parsley to Garnish



In a large pot, place the Bacon, Onion, Carrots, Curly Parsley and Peppercorns and add water.  Bring to Boil and cook on medium heat for 1/2 hour. 

Remove from the liquid the Bacon, Onion, Carrots. 

Add Potatoes

Bring to a boil and cook on medium heat until the potatoes are soft.

Season with Salt.

Serve in bowl, garnish with Sour Cream and Chives or Curly Parsley, if you like.  On the side, you can serve the Meat.

Smacznego!

* I made this soup with meat to enjoy of Wednesday since we do not eat meat during Holy Three-Day Period.  To make vegetarian, just remove meat from list of ingredients.