THE SARMATIAN REVIEW Vol. XXII, No. 3 September 2002 American Polish Writers

Suzanne Strempek Shea. Photo by Nancy Palmieri. 890 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW September 2002 of Soviet deportations of Poles to the The Sarmatian Review (ISSN 1059-5872) is From the Editor Gulag. One learns from it that in western a triannual publication of the Polish Institute of Houston. This issue is dedicated to the English- Ukraine, many people who provided em- The journal deals with Polish, Central, and Eastern Euro- pean affairs, and their implications for the United States. language writers of Polish origin. Our ployment to others were deported, even We specialize in the translation of documents. lead review is of the most recent book those who hired housekeepers (thus al- Subscription price is $15.00 per year for individuals, $21.00 by Suzanne Strempek Shea in which leviating unemployment in the country- for institutions and libraries ($21.00 for individuals, $27.00 she plunges into the turbulent waters side). To procure the lists of people who for libraries overseas, air mail). The views expressed by authors of articles do not necessarily represent those of the of cancer survivors’ stories. Our re- had housekeepers must have involved Editors or of the Polish Institute. Articles are subject to edit- viewer, Professor Bogna Lorence-Kot, enormous work: one notes that the Sovi- ing. Unsolicited manuscripts and other materials are not wrote about Strempek Shea’s Lily of ets attached much weight to eliminating returned unless accompanied by a self-addressed and the Valley in the January 2000 issue those who were enterprising enough to stamped envelope. Please submit your contribution elec- tronically and send a printout by air mail. Letters to of SR. We are happy to report that create jobs. Their determination to de- the Editor can be e-mailed to , with Strempek Shea survived famously her stroy Polish presence in Belarus and an accompanying printout (including return address) bout with cancer, and we are waiting Ukraine (for it was mostly the Polish edu- sent by air mail. Articles, letters, and subscription checks for further books by her to appear. cated classes that employed housekeep- should be mailed to In this issue, we also review a book ers in those areas) appears similar to the The Sarmatian Review, P. O. Box 79119, Houston, Texas 77279-9119. by Anthony Bukoski, the author who determination of the Chinese and Cam- The Sarmatian Review retains the copyright for all materi- combines in his work a sense of soli- bodian Communist leaders to eliminate als included in print and online issues. Copies for personal darity with the Polish community in all traces of civilization and start from or educational use are permitted by section 107 and 108 of the United States with an uncanny zero, no matter how gigantic the suffer- the U.S. Copyright Law. Permission to redistribute, repub- lish, or use SR materials in advertising or promotion must sense of humor. We laughed through ing and death caused by such plans and be submitted in writing to the Editor. many of his stories, not only those in actions. A pragmatic American might Editor: Ewa M. Thompson (Rice University). Polonaise, but also those we read else- conclude that such proceedings would Editorial Advisory Committee: Janusz A. Ihnatowicz (Uni- where, notably in Chronicles (we gave be sure to derail the area’s economy and versity of Saint Thomas), Marek Kimmel (Rice Univer- sity), Alex Kurczaba (University of Illinois), Marcus D. a short review to one such story in the cause suffering to tens of thousands of Leuchter (Holocaust Museum Houston),Witold J. April 2002 issue of SR). Interestingly, people. He/she would be right. In the pro- Lukaszewski (Sam Houston State University), Michael J. it is those Polish American writers who cess, three- and five-year old children Mikos (University of Wisconsin), Jan Rybicki (Kraków manage to inject a sense of humor into were separated from parents and allowed Pedagogical University), James R. Thompson (Rice Uni- versity), Piotr Wilczek (University of Silesia-Katowice). their stories and novels that gain an to roam the streets to survive (Józio Web Pages: Lisa Spiro (Rice University). appreciable recognition by the general Chubowski). It appears that not only the Web Address: . American public. Strempek Shea and top party officials who gave orders for Sarmatian Council: Boguslaw Godlewski (Diag- Bukowski are among those writers. deportations but also the entire hierarchy nostic Clinic of Houston), Iga J. Henderson, Danuta Z. Hutchins (Buena Vista University), Jo- Also in this issue, Professor John J. of petty NKVD workers who executed seph A. Jachimczyk (J .A. Jachimczyk Forensic Bukowczyk concludes his series of such orders were guilty of criminal con- Center of Harris County, Texas), Leonard M. reviews of the Rev. Wacław Kruszka’s duct. Krazynski (Honorary Polish Consul in Houston), History of the Poles in America to In that connection, absent a Gulag Mu- Aleksandra Ziółkowska-Boehm. 12345678901234567 1908. It is to be hoped that this book 12345678901234567 seum anywhere in the world, we would In this issue: will find its way to local libraries and like to recommend a virtual museum on THE SARMATIAN REVIEW INDEX...... 891 that it will be checked out from time the Web. Nikolai Gutman’s paintings, Bogna Lorence-Kot, Songs from a Lead- to time by those who complain about displayed by the Jamestown Foundation, Lined Room (review)...... 893 the scarcity of books on Polish topics are the second best thing to such a mu- Sally Boss, Polonaise: Stories (review).894 in public libraries. seum: http://russia.jamestown.org/ John J. Bukowczyk, A History of the Poles Sarmatian Review has established a getman/gulag_collection.htm. in America to 1908, Part Four (review)..895 Literary Prize of one thousand dollars Professor Jolanta W. Best’s article con- BOOKS...... 896 Jolanta Wróbel Best, Life Against Death: The that will be awarded to an American tains a profound observation that often Writings of Ida Fink and Tadeusz Borowski.899 Polish writer in 2003. The jury will escapes the Holocaust scholars: that in Cyprian Kamil Norwid, Solitude: A Sonnet, consist of Members of the Board of order to survive in Nazi-occupied Europe, translated by Alex Kurczaba...... 901 the Polish Institute of Houston. The one had to love life, even if one was of- OUR TAKE: Krasiƒski’s Undivine Comedy Prize will be awarded to a writer rec- fered mere scraps of it. Tadeusz Borowski savaged at the National Theater...... 902 ognized for his/her exceptional lost his desire to live, whereas Ida Fink Zofia PtaÊnik, Death by a Thousand Cuts: A Pol- achievement in finding in local ethnic did not. He could not cope with his ish Woman’s Diary of Deportation, Forced La- cultures the universal values that many memories and committed suicide; she bor and Death in Kazakhstan, April 13, 1940– of us profess. The announcement about became a published author. There is a May 26, 1941, translated and edited by Leszek Karpiƒski et al. (third installment)...... 902 the winner will appear in the January lesson here for those who can learn LETTERS...... 913 2003 issue of SR. from history. ∆

123456789012345678901 ANNOUNCEMENTS AND NOTES.....915 The third installment of Zofia 123456789012345678901 123456789012345678901 ABOUT THE AUTHORS...... 915 PtaÊnik’s Diary elucidates the pattern September 2002 SARMATIAN REVIEW 891 The Sarmatian Review Index Alleged exchange Percentage of Polish debt to the United States annulled in the early 1990s: 50 percent, or several billion dollars. Alleged reason for the annulment: the rescuing of six US spies from Iraq after Baghdad invaded neighboring Kuwait in 1990. Source: Polish Intelligence Service (UOP), as reported by Agence France-Presse, 11 May 2002. Demography Percentage of peasants among world population at the beginning of the twentieth century: 90 percent. Percentage of peasants at the beginning of the twenty-first century: 50 percent. Source: Ryszard KapuÊciƒski, “Wojna czy dialog?” Rzeczpospolita, 2 March 2002. Russian statistics Estimated number of Russians traveling abroad in 2000: 18 million. Source: Organizers of Moscow International Travel and Tourism Exhibition, as reported by Eric Engelman, Associated Press (Moscow), 28 March 2002. Estimated number of Russians who traveled abroad in 2001: 3.5 million. Reasons for the alleged 80 percent drop in Russian tourism: not given. Source: AFP (Moscow), 25 March 2002. Number of Catholics in the Diocese of Irkutsk according to Russian official statistics: 50,000. Source: AFP, 20 April 2002. Number of Catholics in the Diocese of Irkutsk according to the Diocese’s bishop: 1 million. Source: Bishop of the Diocese of Irkutsk Jerzy Mazur (he was refused re-entry visa to Russia in April 2002), AFP (Warsaw), 20 April 2002. Percentage of Russians who planned to celebrate Orthodox Easter in 2002: 80 percent. Source: The title of AFP article (Moscow) (Clarinet # 86852) reporting a ROMIR opinion poll, 1 May 2002. Form of the celebration: preparing and eating traditional Easter cakes and painting Easter eggs. Percentage of Russians who planned to attend a church service during the Easter season in 2002: 21.5 percent. Source: Same AFP article (Clarinet # 86852), 1 May 2002. Religion Percentage of Muslims in the Russian Federation: 15.3 percent, or 22 million. Source: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Internet News, 29 November 2001. Drugs Number of drug addicts in Russia in 2001: 3 million. Value of drugs consumed by them: 1 billion dollars per year. Source: Russian Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov, as reported by AFP (Petersburg), 25 October 2001. Telephones Number of mobile telephone users in Poland in 2001: 9.6 million (an increase of 42.3 percent since the previous year), or 24.9 percent of the country’s population. Number of fixed-line phones in Poland in 2001: 12 million (an increase of under four percent). Source: National Statistic Bureau, as reported by AFP (Warsaw), 1 February 2002. Pornography Number of brothels in Moscow where sex with children is on offer: 22. Legal age of consent in Russia: 14. Maximum prison term for an adult who has sexual relations with a minor aged less than 14 years: four years. Maximum prison term for producers and disseminators of pornography, child or adult: two years. Source: AFP (Moscow), 4 February 2002. Budgets Poland’s budget in 2002: $44 billion. Source: Economic Bulletin, No. 8(502), 25 February 2002. Israel’s budget in 2002: $46 billion. Israel’s GDP growth in 2001: -0.5 percent. Source: Wall Street Journal, 7 February 2002. The Vatican’s budget in 2002: $200 million. Source: Melinda Henneberger, “Vatican’s Influence is in Vision, not Details,” New York Times, 22 April 2002. 892 SARMATIAN REVIEW September 2002 AIDS in Eastern Europe Number of HIV-positive cases registered in Russia in 2001: over 100,000, or nearly twice the number in 2000. Cities most infected: Moscow (30,000 HIV infections), Sverdlovsk in the Urals, Samara on the Volga, Irkutsk in Siberia and Saint Petersburg (each with over 10,000 carriers). Source: Head of Russian anti-AIDS committee Vadim Pokrovsky, as reported by AFP, 14 February 2002. Estimated number of Russians who are HIV positive (includes those unregistered): between 600,000 and 800,000. Source: UNAIDS, the UN Program on HIV and AIDS, as reported by AFP, 11 April 2002. Number of people in Ukraine registered as HIV positive: 42,000. Estimated number of people in Ukraine who are HIV positive: 280,000. Number of people in Ukraine who died of AIDS: 2,500 adults and 80 children. Source: Interfax Agency, as reported by AFP (Kiev), 15 March 2002. Movies Number of people who saw Lord of the Rings on the opening night in Poland in February 2002: 518,901 (a record number). Corresponding figures for the runners-up: Pan Tadeusz (424,895 first-night viewers) and Harry Potter (355,955 viewers). Source: Donosy, 19 February 2002. National debt Russian foreign debt in 2001: 138.1 billion dollars. Poland’s foreign debt in 2001: 24 billion dollars (a drop of 18.1 percent by comparison to 2000). Poland’s domestic debt in 2001: 44.05 billion dollars (an increase of 26.7 percent by comparison to 2000). Combined foreign and domestic debt as percentage of the Polish GDP: 39.3 percent. Source: AFP (Warsaw), 22 March 2002. Holocaust Estimated number of Holocaust memorials and museums in the United States: between 150 and 250. Source: Rachel Zoll, “Holocaust memorials: What’s their place in Jewish life?” Houston Chronicle, 23 March 2002. Roma, or Gypsies Number of Roma in Slovakia in 2002: 500,000, or 9.2 percent of the population of 5.4 million (the highest in the region). Estimated number of Roma worldwide: 14 million, of whom 12 million live in Europe. Source: AFP (Bratislava), 2 May 2002. Pollution The most heavily-polluted city in Europe: Moscow. Average shortening of lifespan per inhabitant of Moscow due to pollution: four years. Source: Valery Antifeyev of the Moscow City Hall, as reported by AFP, 10 April 2002. Living above one’s means Amount of money Poles spent in 2001 while vacationing in Austria: 200 million dollars. Source: World Bank estimate, as reported in Rzeczpospolita Magazine, 12 April 2002. Agriculture in Poland Number of hectares (1 hectare=ca. 2 acres) being rented from the Polish state by foreigners at the end of 2001: 180,000. Source: Stanisław Waszak, “Europeans farming in Poland fear country’s entry into EU,” AFP, 28 April 2002. Lech Walesa’s finances Walesa’s income in 2001: $600,000 (Zł 2.5 million) before taxes, which makes him the best paid Polish politician. Size of his pension as a former president of Poland: $15,000 per year. Source: Donosy, 14 May 2002. Daily press readership Percentage of adult Poles and Americans who read a newspaper on a daily basis: 10 percent and 50 percent. Sources: Rzeczpospolita, 12 April 2002; M. Q. Sullivan in Veritas: A Quarterly Journal of Public Policy in Texas (Vol. 3, no. 2, March 2002), 5. Colonialism Number of copies of Short History of the All-Soviet Communist Party (Bolsheviks) published by Poland’s mass publisher, KsiàÏka i Wiedza, in 1949: one million. Source: Rzeczpospolita, May 2002. Love of animals Number of lambs slaughtered each year at a Soviet fur farm near Astrakhan, the Russian Republic: 19,000. Source: AFP, 10 May 2002. September 2002 SARMATIAN REVIEW 893 for her funny, speculative, philosophical, or simply Songs from a Lead-Lined Room: descriptive, narrative. Striking above all is the Notes-High and Low-From My originality of her perceptions; likening the face of a student nurse to that of a good-looking religious Journey Through Breast Cancer statue, or wondering about apparel appropriate to and Radiation a friend’s divorce proceedings. Amazing to say, this is a story without sex, By Suzanne Strempek Shea. Boston: Beacon Press, violence, or angst! And amazing to say, it is totally 2002. 208 pages. Hardcover. $23.00 ($16.10 on absorbing! This is true of Suzanne Stempek Shea’s Amazon.com). previous works, which occur in a small conventional town, among unglamorous people, living the quotidian. It may well be that it is the Bogna Lorence-Lot steady population, of succeeding generations who do not need to explain themselves or appear in the media to know they exist that allows Suzanne the In Songs From a Lead-Lined Room, Suzanne luxury of wanting to be alone rather than seeking Strempek Shea tells the story (presumably hers) a support group. She has that if she wants it, of a woman with breast cancer. We first meet her without having to introduce and explain herself. following surgery; accompany her through Her community knows her. radiation; and are left by her when she has It takes talent to tell a simple story with such completed treatment. In-between, we get to know winning originality. So dear reader, do yourself a her, her world, family, friends, and thoughts favor, read this narrative, and the others, but through a cornucopia of emotions, observations, prepare yourself for a fantasy of living in such a reminiscences, attitudes, and commentaries, town, with such a neighbor! ∆ directed at both the world she has known, and the new one—of medicine and fellow patients. Despite her vulnerability, she fends off help from family and friends. Nor does she choose to immerse herself in a hobby, think positively, or follow any Suzanne Strempek Shea is a prolific writer. other stale aphorism offered by popular culture. Barely have we managed to commission a Finding herself in a new dimension, she favors review of Songs from a Lead-Lined Room those who understand her desire not to be which came out in June 2002, a novel titled categorized and ministered to; she prefers to be Around Again came out in July 2002. In left alone. As example, we hear about a friend who this novel, a fortyish Robyn Panek revisits does not expect anything ‘normal’ from her; buys her dying uncle’s farm and the unfinished her a doormat reading “Go Away;” leaves it in the business of her youth. Not as light-toned doorway, and scurries away. as her previous novels, Around Again Her previous relationship with nature remains shows Strempek Shea as an evolving talent the one constant in a changed reality. She feels full of surprises. privileged to have access to its bounty repaying it, at the least, by picking up litter on her walks, and Suzanne Strempek Shea, Around Again taking it home. As for the rest, the unstoppable (NY: Dimensions, 2002). 352 pages. Paper. dialogue of this intelligent mind, combined with a $23.95 (16.27 on Amazon.com). reporter’s acuity, working in a time of stress, is the text offered to the reader. This is not a self-absorbed story; the illness does not take over her life. In the midst of a personal drama, there is constant space 894 SARMATIAN REVIEW September 2002 Rozowska, his niece.” Behind the intentionally funny Polonaise: Stories exterior of Bukoski’s magical realism lies the drama of many Casimir Tureks (a character in Geraldine Glodek’s Nine Bells at a Breaker, ). His stories ask, what Methodist University Press, 1999. 181 pages. happened to all those dreams, histories, traditions? Where Hardcover. $19.95. are the monuments to Polish life in the Great Lakes region? There is a sense of defiance and despair in these stories, Sally Boss just as there is in Geraldine Glodek’s work. There is toughness that challenges the rumors of speedy demise Bukoski has been compared to Faulkner: indeed, in some of Polish small-town life (there isn’t in Glodek). Both ways Yoknapatawpha county is similar to Bukoski’s writers make their heroes perform low-prestige work: their Superior. It is there that the action of most of his tales heroes are janitors, waitresses and lathe operators. Is the takes place, and he teaches at the University of Wisconsin defiance related to the realization that Americans of Polish Superior extension. Bukoski stands out as one who depicts background are presented in mainstream media, if at all, most fully the miseries and triumphs, daily drudgery and only as dischargers of such duties? As for despair, it is dreams of Polish Americans in the Great Lakes region. not related to personal vanity. On the subconscious level, The Polonias of Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan and there is in Bukoski a sense of great loss, of being far away Minnesota can find themselves in Bukoski’s books: in from that heroic reality of Polish identity exemplified by the Dabrowski family’s remembrances of two of Henryk Sienkiewicz’s mythical heroes, by the Warsaw America’s wars, in poor Mr. Truzynski’s impotent Uprising’s self-sacrificing youth, by the pathos of Juliusz attachment to his no-exit job, in Casimir Stasiak’s Słowacki’s poetry. A sense of loss is also generated by an schlemiel-like life, in Hedda Borski’s miserable secrets awareness of the failure of many Polish Americans to get and most of all, in Private Tomaszewski’s nightmares which their story told. But there also is a great love there, and so many Polish youth in this country know in one form or great persistence: Bukoski is clearly fond of his characters. another, and which account for the low rate of participation of And for good reasons. In spite of its imperfections, said youth in Polish American organizations. Bukoski’s Superior overflows with the “milk of human Another American Polonia, that of Massachusetts, seems to kindness” which has dried up in areas where the big be well integrated into American society, but at the cost of power battles have been fought. losing much of what constitutes the essence of Polishness While Suzanne Strempek Shea’s Polishness is that of a polka (have I committed a cardinal sin by speaking of the ‘essence’ party: cheerful, easy, a good fit to the “Tuesday Morning” of cultural identity?). It took a Strempek Shea to discover realities of the lower and middle middle class America, Polish identity in those self-satisfied Massachusetts Americans Bukoski’s has altogether different overtones. He likewise whose remote ancestors came from Poland (remember Ed writes about the lower middle class ‘Polacks,’ but he imbues Muskie, who was about as Polish as he was Navaho?). The his stories with the amazingly accurate echoes of Old Country, third Polonia, that of Texas and of the Southwest, originated with tidbits of the Polish language and the Ogiƒski Polonaise. in Silesia, and is something else again: tough and intensely As long as this Polonaise matters, the link between the old Polish, it is massively given to genealogical research. Then peasant Polonia and the new post-Solidarity Polonia is there is the Florida Polonia consisting mostly of retirees, not a preserved. few of them of recent vintage (first-generation Polish I would characterize Bukoski’s style as magical realism. Americans, usually of the intelligentsia class). Thanks to This technique seems particularly well suited to the telling of Bukoski and Strempek Shea., two of these Polonias have been ethnic tales. Gabriel Garcia Marquez created it in The Hundred depicted in literature. The four Polonias live their own separate Years of Solitude, and English-language writers who depict lives, displaying scant interest in public relations, political local cultures have used it abundantly. What is magical action and what is usually termed ‘the big picture.’ realism? A critic described it as a style that weaves elements Paraphrasing Bukoski, one can say that only cemeteries of the fantastic into the story with a deadpan sense of realism. connect the “children of strangers” in the Great Lakes The fantastic can be dreams, stream-of-consciousness, internal area to the great story of Poland. Mr. Polaski in Bukoski’s monologue, or elements of history. In Bukoski’s case, the “A Concert of Minor Pieces” whispers “a prayer to Poland dreamweaver is the narrator or the characters or both. and one to the priest, who’d been dead twenty years, and In this and other volumes of stories, Bukowski has to the nuns, who were all gone, and to Stanisława created a space where Polish Americans can breathe. ∆ September 2002 SARMATIAN REVIEW 895 appearance of volume four of Kruszka’s History marks A History of the Poles in the culmination of this scholarly undertaking and a milestone in Polish American Studies. The first volume America to 1908 (1993) provided a conceptual and historical background Part Four: Poles in the Central and Western for the project and reviewed the institutional history of States the Polish immigrants (covering such topics as the immigrant Church, the educational system, organizational life, and the press). The second volume (1994) focused By Wacław Kruszka. Edited with an introduction by on Poles in Illinois, with much of the work centered around James S. Pula, with assistance from M. B. Biskupski, internecine strife in Chicago’s contentious Polish parishes. Stanley Cuba, et al. Translated by Krystyna The third volume continued Kruszka’s monumental effort Jankowski. 1901–1904; revised and enlarged edition, to chronicle the history of Polish American Roman 1905–1908. Washington, DC: The Catholic Catholic parishes, treating Polish enclaves in Michigan, University of America Press, 2001. Hardcover. viii+ Indiana, Ohio, the Middle Atlantic states, Massachusetts, 296 pp. Index. $59.95. Connecticut, and Rhode Island, but also noting the small Polish presence in the balance of New England, eastern John J. Bukowczyk Canada, the Southern states, Texas, Arkansas, and Cuba. The fourth volume, covering Minnesota (and western Canada), the Dakotas, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, The Reverend Wacław Kruszka (1868–1937) stands as a and the Far West, completes Kruszka’s geographical singular figure in the history of Polish America. During survey. Of special interest to Polish Americanist scholars, an era of religious schism involving lay trusteeism, Polish almost half of the volume is devoted to Wisconsin Polonia, nationalism, immigrant leadership, and personality an important locus in the history of Polonia and the ethnic conflict, Kruszka, in his role as a committed clerical community that sheltered Kruszka’s own home parish in activist managed successfully to combine obedience to Ripon (see Anthony J. Kuzniewski, Faith and Fatherland: the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy with a principled The Polish Church War in Wisconsin, 1896–1918, Notre defense of cultural pluralism in an ecclesiastical context: Dame, IN., and London: University of Notre Dame Press, Polish representation in the episcopate. Contemporary 1980; and Victor Greene, The Rise of Polish and advocates of bilingualism and multiculturalism would do Lithuanian Consciousness in America, 1860–1910, well to include Kruszka’s classic 1901 essay, “Polyglot Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1975. The Bishops for Polyglot Dioceses,” in the United States history book also contains the work’s cumulative index. canon as an example of an early expression of a tolerant and As in previous volumes, Kruszka once again mingles inclusive cosmopolitanism (the essay appeared in the New antiquarian minutiae with significant historical detail and York Freeman’s Journal on July 29, 1901). trenchant observation. Among the former, readers will Kruszka, a priest-activist, was also a historian, and in encounter a quirky, ascetic Polish hermit and self-styled that capacity authored one of the first—and still unitarian in Flintville, Wisconsin (44); a Milwaukee priest impressive—histories of Polish America, Historya Polska who died a month after completing construction on a new w Ameryce (A History of the Poles in America to 1908). church and requested that the first brick used to build it be Of considerable scholarly merit, this multi-volume work placed in his casket (73); and a Minneapolis Pole who also served as a political salvo in the ‘church wars’ of the excelled in Lake Minnetonka’s ‘industry,’ frog-catching period, testifying to the maturation of Polish Roman (116). In a similar vein, it also might surprise readers to Catholicism in the United States and thus advancing the discover that a group of Polish Baptists established a argument that the Poles had earned a voice in church affairs colony in Pound, Wisconsin (48); thirteen Poles settled in (see my reviews of vols. 1–3 in Sarmatian Review, 15:1, Alaska during the Klondike gold rush; some fifty Poles, January 1995, 298–9; 15:1, April 1996, 396–7; and 20:1, mostly Galicians, performed grueling plantation labor in January 2000, 681–2). The book has served as one of the Hawaii; and several of the hundred Polish volunteers who bedrocks on which subsequent generations of Polish- served in the American army in the Philippines stayed on American history have been erected. there (207). In 1993, scholars were treated to the first installment of Of more significance, the volume provides some an ambitious translation project that for the first time insight into the workings of Polish religious affairs in promised to bring Kruszka’s Historya, reorganized into Wisconsin which form a backdrop for Kruszka’s efforts four volumes, to English-speaking readers. The recent 896 SARMATIAN REVIEW September 2002 to broaden Polish representation in the Catholic Church behind that of the winner nations. The Prayer Book is not hierarchy. Kruszka excoriates Polish saloonkeepers as even owned by Poles: it was discovered in an Italian collection. “propagators of immorality and unrest,”(11) schismatics Michałowska’s book is scholarly and meticulous. as “evil, recalcitrant, and stubborn,”(10) Germans as However, it suffers from structural problems that have arrogant; and Satan as tireless. The author also presents plagued Polish scholarship ever since the Soviets glimpses of several of the protagonists in the era’s Polonian prevented Polish scholars from developing normally. The affairs, including Rev. Joseph Dàbrowski, Archbishop book lacks the transparency which contemporary Sebastian Messmer, and Omaha schismatic, Rev. Stefan biographies written in Western countries routinely possess. Kamiƒski. Michałowska’s book seems to have been written for a Throughout, Kruszka regards the building of Polish specific university course; its organization and ordering Roman Catholic churches as creating the strongest of items resembles Silvae rerum rather than the style of bulwark against deculturation and germanization. The modern books. This severely limits the book’s readability building of new churches was one of Kruszka’s central and thus its potential impact and outreach. Still, it is an goals. However, the volume offers no elaboration of important work. Princess Gertrud’s Prayer Book is an Kruszka’s political activities. impressive example of the self-perception of Polish The publication of A History of the Poles in America to women in the eleventh century. 1908 represents dedication, support, and labor on the part Czarna legenda Polski: Obraz Polski i Polaków w of a large number of institutions and individuals, chief Prusach 1772–1815 (The black legend of Poland: the among which are the project’s principal editors and the image of Poland and Poles in Prussia between 1772– translator. While the volumes may be priced beyond the 1815), by Dariusz Łukasiewicz. Poznaƒ: Wydawnictwo means or inclinations of the average reader, they should Poznaƒskiego Towarzystwa Przyjaciół Nauk, 1995. Vol. become part of the holdings of every research university 51 of the history and social sciences series. 183 pages. library and would be a useful addition to the libraries of Illustrations, tables and indices of persons, localities, and specialists, genealogists, and collectors. In the completion topics. ISSN 0079-4651. ISBN 83-7063-148-7. Paper. In of this project, the editors have brought to fruition a work Polish with English and German summaries. of major scholarly significance. Among other things, the The stated aim of this scholarly study is to trace back Kruszka volume amply documents the fact that, by the the negative stereotypes of Poles entrenched in German late nineteenth century, Polish immigrants had spread to historiography and popular culture ever since Prussia and the remotest corners of the United States, winning them Russia engineered the partitions of Poland in the eighteenth an uncontested place among the “We” who built century. The treatise begins with a survey of authors and America. ∆ readers of the Prussian statistical publications in the period under review. We learn that the credibility of Beamtentumsliteratur (studies written by petty officials BOOKS BOOKS and in Prussia) was often marred by corruption and dishonesty of said officials, as well as by their lack of proficiency in Periodicals Received Polish. The data they collected were also marred by Ego Gertruda: studium historycznoliterackie (I, Gertrud: incompetence, ignorance and a classically hostile attitude a historical and literary study), by Teresa Michałowska. toward the Other—in this case, toward the Poles. The Warsaw: PWN (http://www.pwn.com.pl), 2001. writers’ generalizing helped to distort the picture: Appendices, index, reproductions of illuminated mss. in whenever they did not like something, they were likely to color. Summaries in French, German, and Italian. 292 say “as is always the case in Poland;” but when they pages. Hardcover. In Polish. encountered a city they liked (Poznaƒ), they commented This biography posits that Princess Gertrud Piast’s that “the city was built according to German standards.” Prayer Book was the first original work of Polish literature. German officials routinely compared Polish peasant Gertrud (+1108) was the daughter of the Polish King farmers to the wild inhabitants of “Kamchatka and the Mieszko II (+1034). Her Prayer Book was recently West Indies,” or to “Roman slaves and American Indians.” discovered; that such discoveries are still being made Such scholars and travelers as Johann Georg Forster speaks volumes of the damages to cultural development compared Poles to “cattle in human form” (in Sämtliche in Poland brought about by colonialism. Poland’s Schriften). A certain Lichtenberg (said to be Forster’s neighbors appropriated Polish territory and made sure that friend) wrote that Poland was inhabited by “landowning Poland’s economic and cultural development lagged despots, dirty Jews and plica” [Weichselzopf, or kołtun]. September 2002 SARMATIAN REVIEW 897 The expression “German cockroaches” must have entered psychological mistreatment of individuals by their the English language owing to the similarly brutal superiors, parents, or peers leading to an individual’s loss descriptions of German immigrants to America by those of self-esteem and a violation of his or her personal identity. who came earlier from the British Isles. In particular, the techniques of ‘freezing out’ a person Among the specific complaints of these official record slated for destruction by the management of a company keepers were the prevalence of Catholicism among Poles are described in detail; they include isolating an individual (it was considered scandalous), low level of education, (he/she eats his lunches alone), denial of access to consumerism and vanity of the Polish landowners, poverty information (he/she is not privy to the management’s plans and servitude of the Polish peasantry, and the greed of about which other coworkers are consulted), irony and Polish Jews who were seen as Poland’s “third estate” and sarcasm (this is practiced by colleagues rather than by whose numerosity in Poland (by comparison to Prussia) supervisors), and other manifestations of hatred and irritated the German officials. Łukasiewicz’s conclusions rejection. Such treatment may lead to a breakdown or even are that the Prussian officials created a taxonomy within suicide of the victim, and it often makes the victim leave the which persons of Polish nationality were perceived as job which is what the management wanted in the first place. inferior and in need of Prussian tutelage. Emotional abuse is also used by parents with regard to Czarna legenda is a valuable study, and it is well children. It employs similar strategies: a refusal to documented. Unfortunately, its scholarly methodology is communicate (the parents maintain a studious silence so archaic. Łukasiewicz seems to be unaware of the advances that the child becomes disoriented and tries to attract in methodology made by postcolonial scholarship. The attention by behaving outrageously), sarcasm, and situation Łukasiewicz describes is typically colonial, and isolation. It is often used in such professions as education his evaluations and conclusions would have been greatly where achievement cannot be measured quantitatively and enriched if he compared the treatment of Poles in the where personal likes and dislikes often decide who is Prussian partition to the treatment of Irish by the English, kept on the job and rewarded and who is forced to resign or indeed to ‘orientalization’ of colonized peoples in other or is punished It is seldom used in professions related to parts of the world. It is typical of the colonizers to present the production of material goods where quality and the colonized as primitive, dirty, unintelligent, uneducated, efficiency can be quantitatively measured. and in need of the colonizers’ leadership. The process of The author is a psychiatrist by profession. She maintains reinforcing these stereotypes has been well analyzed in that such abuse is similar in culpability to sexual the works of Edward Said and his followers. A lack of molestation of children and adults. Yet it is practiced familiarity with postcolonial perspectives detracts from unpunished in many places of work and in some homes. the attractiveness of Łukasiewicz’s work. Not The author’s goal is to identify the phenomenon and to make infrequently, the author gets lost in details where analysis people aware of it, so that counter-measures can be taken and and interpretation are called for. He has collected a great psychological destruction of an individual does not occur. deal of facts, but his ability to interpret events and texts is It is significant that the book was published by the modest. Łukasiewicz’s book is worth buying and reading foremost Catholic publisher in Poland, W drodze, run by as a primary source, yet it is also an instance of the the Dominican Fathers. In the course of reading it becomes ossification of Polish scholarly methodologies during the obvious that this kind of molestation is a grave sin, an Soviet occupation of Poland (1945–1989). institutional sin as it were in most cases (although Molestowanie moralne. Perwersyjna przemoc w Ïyciu committed by individuals, as all sin is in Catholic doctrine), codziennym (French original, Le harcélement moral: La and in the case of parents, a personal sin. There is much material violence perverse au quotidien. English translation, here for moral philosophers and for the ubiquitous ‘ethicists’ Stalking the Soul: Emotional Abuse and the Erosion of at various American institutions who have displayed a curious Identity, translated by Helen Marx with an Afterword by blindness to the problems presented by Dr. Hirigoyen. Thomas Moore, published by Helen Marx Books, 2000), Jan Kochanowski of Czarnolas/Jan Kochanowski z by Marie-France Hirigoyen. Translated by Jolanta Czarnolasu, by Tadeusz Ulewicz. English text translated Cackowska-Demirian. Poznaƒ: W drodze by Teresa Baluk-Ulewiczowa. Kraków: Nakładem Kasy (www.wdrodze.pl), 2002. 207 pages. Bibliography, notes. im. Józefa Mianowskiego, 2002. 64 + 77 pages, numerous Paper. Zł 29.00. In Polish. illustrations and reproductions. Paper. Fully bi-lingual This pioneering book defines and articulates the (English and Polish). phenomenon that received scant attention from scholars, A bibliophile’s item: this handsomely published little let alone from social reformers: a certain kind of volume contains an essay on Poland’s greatest 898 SARMATIAN REVIEW September 2002 Renaissance poet, plus photographs of items related to responsibility are not the same thing” and states that Poles Kochanowski. did not do enough to shield the Jews. With regard to the Pallas Silesia: Półrocznik III/1–2 (4–5). Edited by Communist apparatus of repression, Gross posits that Dariusz Rott. Katowice: Pallas Silesia Fund Plac Sejmu “highlighting an inordinately high number of Jewish-born Âlàskiego, 1 (Pokój 407), 40-032 Katowice, Poland), 1999. members therein does not lend itself to a simple 187 pages. Paper. In Polish, Czech, and Latin, with interpretation. Communists of Jewish extraction . . .worked occasional Latin and English summaries. in the security apparatus qua communists and not qua A bi-yearly scholarly periodical on ancient, medieval Jews.” Gross seems to argue that participation in the Stalinist and Renaissance literature. More generally, a periodical security apparatus and in the Soviet apparatus of repression supporting the view that present-day Western culture annulled the participant’s background and ethnic identification. originated in the Mediterranean basin rather than in the Northern European Enlightenment. But apart from this Other Books Received: orientation, Pallas Silesia affords the pleasure of Literatura jako trop rzeczywistoÊci, by Ryszard Nycz. immersion in ancient times, the times that did not know Kraków: Universitas, 2001. 277 pages. Index of names. the discoveries of Nietzsche and of other ‘philosophers English summary. Paper. In Polish. of suspicion.’ Human nature is here discussed sub specie A truly original study of Polish literature from Norwid aeternitatis as it were. The issue under review contains a to Milosz. A review to follow. charming essay on the teaching of Latin; among the books Syberia w Ïyciu i pami∏ci Gieysztorów—zesłaƒców reviewed are studies of Dante and Socrates, of time and space poststyczniowych: Wilno—Sybir—Wiatka—Warszawa in Polish seventeenth-century sermons, and of philosophical (Siberia in the reminiscences of the Gieysztor family— writings on the misery and dignity of humankind. victims of Russian revanchism after the January Punkt oparcia (point of reference), by Piotr Lisiecki. Warsaw: Insurrection: Vilnius, Siberia, Viatka, Warsaw), by Biblioteka Frondy, 2001. 352 pages. Paper. In Polish. Wiktoria Âliwowska. Warsaw: DiG Publishers (email: An original voice in the debate about contemporary [email protected]; www.dig.com.pl), 2000. philosophy. The author takes on Franz Rozenzweig, Bibliography and geographical index. 400 pages. Emmanuel Levinas, Marian Zdziechowski, and Hans Uhr Hardcover. In Polish. von Balthasar (and his Polish equivalent, Father Wacław Published in only 700 copies, this massive and detailed Hryniewicz, OMI). work contains a number of short biographies of Polish Revolution from Abroad: The Soviet Conquest of nobles, or former nobles, uprooted from their livelihoods Poland’s Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia, by in Poland and exiled to Siberia where they toiled for the Jan T. Gross. 2d expanded edition, with a new preface greatness of the Russian empire. The number of tragedies by the author. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, that befell these people defies imagination, and the 2002. xxiv + 396 pages. Paper. tragedies concern not only them personally but also their The book gives a valuable overview of the Soviet wives and children. Alas, the book shares in the invasion of Poland in September 1939 and it presents, in methodological problems described in the reviews of a pioneering way, some details of the subsequent terror, Łukasiewicz’s and Michałowska’s books (see pp.896–7). deportations, and expropriations of persons of Polish War in the Shadow of Auschwitz: Memoirs of a Polish nationality from the territory of western Belarus and Resistance Fighter and Survivor of the Death Camps, by western Ukraine (as well as from such ethnically Polish John Wiernicki. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, territories as the voivodships of Lublin, Rzeszów and 2001). 273 pages. Harcover. $20.97 on Amazon.com. Białystok). These topics remain virtually untouched by A Gentile survivor’s memoir. He started as a draftee in American Slavic scholarship: suffice it to say that the first the Polish Army, was arrested and sent to the Auschwitz edition of Gross’s book, likewise published by Princeton death camp, and eventually escaped. He is now an University Press, did not receive a review in Slavic Review architect in Washington, DC. which publishes scores of reviews each year. Yearbook of Polish Foreign Policy: 2001, edited by The original edition had 334 pages. Virtually all the Barbara Wizimirska. Warsaw: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, additions are contained in a supplementary chapter titled 2001. Includes a list of Polish diplomatic personnel in “Historiographical Supplement: A Tangled Web” having various countries of the world. 403 pages. Paper. to do with Polish-Jewish relations. Gross seems to agree Essays on the current aspects of Polish international with Jan Błoƒski’s famous essay“The Poor Poles Look at relations. It is unclear however why an essay on the the Ghetto” which posits that “participation and shared international activities of the Stefan Batory Foundation September 2002 SARMATIAN REVIEW 899 (funded mostly by George Soros) found its way into a her with false identity papers and a job remain unknown; book that is supposed to summarize activities originating it appears that they have not been recognized or rewarded. in the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Polish The story of Ida Fink’s survival is concealed in her heart.(1) Sejm. Worthy as the Foundation is, it has no business in a She emigrated to Israel in 1957, together with her husband book of this kind. The separation of NGOs from the and daughter. She now lives in Holon near Tel Aviv, and government is one of the basic rules of democratic society. is still writing. She writes mostly in Polish, but her writings Only a very lax editorial supervision would allow for such have appeared in Hebrew, English, Dutch, French and a faux pas to occur. German translations. She received the Anne Frank Prize Postscriptum, nos. 39–40 ((Fall-Winter 2001). Edited by for Literature in 1985, and the Yad Vashem Prize in 1995. Romuald Cudak and Jolanta Tambor. Katowice: Fink is the author of A Scrap of Time and Other Stories University of Silesia Press. 152 pages. In Polish. (1987), of the novels The Journey (1992) and Traces The current issue is devoted to Polish studies in the (1997), of several radio plays broadcast in Israel and German-speaking countries and it contains articles by elsewhere, and of other works. persons teaching Polish subjects at German-language A Scrap of Time depicts the life of Jews in Poland during universities. A worthy sequel to an earlier issue dedicated and after the Second World War. The Journey deals with to Polish in English-speaking countries. the peregrination of two Polish Jewish sisters who sought Churches in Poland, a series published by Wydawnictwo to escape the Nazi terror. Her other works likewise belong Ornament MS in Warsaw. #14 of the series: Church of the to Holocaust literature. The novels often use a first-person Holy Cross in Warsaw. Text by Mieczysław Szczepaƒski, narrative to highlight the enormity of destruction that photographs by Artur Mroczek. 2002. 16 pages. occurred during the Second World War in Central and This high quality publication contains the history of Eastern Europe. the famous church on Krakowskie PrzedmieÊcie in While the fate of European Jewry was determined by Warsaw. It also includes architectural description and first- the Nazis who invaded Poland in September 1939 and rate color photographs. A worthy series that begins to occupied half of the country (the other half was invaded publicize the churches of Poland among whom there are by the Soviets and occupied by them until 1941 when the countless architectural and artistic gems. Soviet-German war broke out), the tragedy of Jewish Archiwum emigracji: Studia, szkice, dokumenty, no. 4 (2001), extermination occurred on Polish soil. This fact will matter edited by Janusz Kryszak and Mirosław Supruniuk. Toruƒ: forever to the Polish population. On January 20, 1942, at University of Toruƒ Press, 2001. 324 pages. Paper. a conference at Wannsee near Berlin, top Nazi officials, A periodical publication dedicated to academic research including Adolf Eichmann, proposed and accepted “the on Polish émigré artists and writers, especially those who final solution to the Jewish question.” It was decided that collaborated with the Paris monthly Kultura. Jews would be evacuated from all parts of occupied Europe to camps in the ‘East’ (read: Poland) where they would be exterminated. Life Against Death: The Writings of Fink’s writings take on the subtleties of moral behavior in critical situations. E.g., those persons who were either Ida Fink and Tadeusz Borowski pressed or compelled to go to Germany to do ‘voluntary’ labor for the Reich: can they be judged by Jolanta W. Best standards that prevail in peacetime societies? Fink tells individual stories in an understated way. She seems to One can’t say how life is, how chance or fate deals with people, avoid mere words. She uses images, symbols, and except by telling a tale. metaphors (especially those deriving from nature) to Hannah Arendt highlight the facts: “The Garden That Floated Away,” “A Spring Morning,” “A Scrap of Time.” Her heroes Like Primo Levi and Paul Celan, Ida Fink excels in are possessed of two types of recollection: the transforming individual wartime experiences into horizontal one which registers the conventional literature. Born in Poland in 1921, she was a music student everyday events, and the vertical one which reaches who lived in a ghetto in German-occupied Poland until deeply into the subconscious and into the obscure layers 1942, when she escaped. She survived the war among of the psyche. The second is triggered off by some sign Polish farm laborers, herself masquerading as one. The or event, like Marcel Proust’s madeleine: “Look for a names of the heroes who risked their lives daily to provide 900 SARMATIAN REVIEW September 2002 trace, says one of the characters, the first clue often in 1942. The author writes about the end of the human leads to a second, the second to the third, and so on.”(2) race. At that time, the sky is seen as “a [concentration The people in Fink’s stories make an effort to camp] factory ceiling.” Later, the author speaks of “the reconstruct the past. They measure time not in months whole camp, like the whole world.”(5) and years, but as internal time. This ‘time within’ is In Borowski’s writings, there are no vital signs of placed under the layers of months and years, and it is life and no antithesis to death. He does not ‘enjoy the called experience. It is not “just one scrap of time.”(3) day’ before disaster. He did enjoy life in his early The ‘time within’ measures much more than a writings, however, before his experience of Nazi camps. remembrance of the roundups and actions during the In contrast, Fink seems to assert that an ability to love war: “We had different measures of time, always with plays an important role in life, even at moments when that mark of difference.”(4) Fink asserts that after the dehumanization and death are imminent. For Fink, as war survivors wanted to talk about that ‘time within,’ for Dostoevsky, even short moments suffice to savor but they did not know how. Individuals were afraid to the beauty of life. She appears to say that it matters to confront their experiences and were terrified to find the utmost how a person lives, and not how long he/ the interior time touched by forgetfulness. Eventually, she lives. For Borowski, an appropriate comparison they returned to that ‘time within’ and began to produce would rather be Jean-Paul Sartre’s play No Exit. Even that flood of memoirs and writings about the Holocaust in love lyrics written for his fiancée, Maria Rundo, in that now exists in print. 1944, Borowski shies away from embracing a trust in It is important to emphasize that the cruel realism of life. Fink’s writings exists side by side with hope and Let us look at a letter written to Maria in 1942, before spiritual persistence. Such characters as Zygmunt, his encounter with the world constructed by the Nazis: Eugenia and the cheerful Zofia in “Traces,” or ElÏbieta and Katarzyna in “The Journey,” desire to live and to I think of how very mature you were; what devotion you retain their dream of love, joy and happiness while brought to our love. I think about these things and smile surrounded by the barbaric anarchy of foreign condescendingly. I smile and I think that one human being occupation. must always be discovering another through love. And that An urge to survive in every sense is prominent in is the most important thing on earth, and the most lasting. Fink’s prose. It distinguishes her works from those of some other postwar writers about the Holocaust, e.g., This attitude of softness and affection is absent in the from the writings of Tadeusz Borowski, the author of Stone World (Warsaw, 1948). The events recorded here This Way to the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen, who are a testimony of a witness who is bent on telling the committed suicide in 1951. Borowski, a Gentile, was whole truth about human degradation in Nazi of the same age and he went through similar concentration camps. Such an attitude cannot but bring experiences, but his desire to survive was much less despair in the end. A refusal to see any glimmers of pronounced. hope leads to suicide. In contrast, a desire for life in Borowski wrote about the extermination camps using Fink’s narratives is a clear alternative to death. The a matter-of-fact tone and a first person narrative. He reality of dying is contrasted with a deep, tender, self- explored human depravity and degradation rather than identifying need for love and happiness. Feelings are the morsels of hope and life in concentration camps. defined in a universal way. The author of “A Scrap of In that regard, he was like Varlaam Shalamov who Time” perceives love as a complexity stretched out likewise described the Soviet extermination camps with between the powers of Eros and Thanatos. The detached objectivity and without any signs of hope characters in Traces and The Journey recognize their (upon his release after two decades of camps, Shalamov individuality in a fusion of affection for each other and went mad). In a similar manner, Borowski’s stories in the fear of death. Eugenia fulfills her life in a late shock the reader by their brutal factuality. They describe love found when the ghetto is liquidated. Adela is able human beings who were forced to choose between to learn about happiness in a village decimated by physical and spiritual survival (“Farewell to Maria” or executions performed by the Germans. She discovers “The Stone World,” both written in 1948). Indeed, “this incomprehensible and cruel possibility” of being Borowski’s vision of the world is that of a concentration felicitous in the face of death. In “The End,” a story in camp, as demonstrated in his volume of poetry titled Traces, Piotr and his girlfriend are surrounded by the Wherever on Earth published clandestinely in Warsaw circumstances of life in a big city under foreign military occupation. They come to know so-called ‘actions,’ September 2002 SARMATIAN REVIEW 901 ‘roundups,’ killings and annihilation. They are aware 6. This and other poetical letters to Maria are part of a story of grave dangers at every step, but they try to insulate titled “Auschwitz, Our Home,” in This Way for the Gas, and cherish the moments of their personal relationship: pp. 131, 133–4. “It is an important night, Love, because it’s our night.” “Piotr, think about it—three months of happiness.” The shortness of time is striking in Fink’s stories. Solitude: A Sonnet The yearning to exist fully in these scraps of time is Cyprian Kamil Norwid (1821–1883) set against the anticipation of death. People try to love and live quickly, suddenly, tenderly because soon it Still – but a spider sways her web now and then might be too late. “Please understand, says one girl, Or a puff pets the poplar next to the window I’m just so sad that I’ll never know, that I’ll die without Ah! How light ‘tis to breathe, for the soul to dream ever knowing love!” The Jewish characters of Fink’s stories identify and how sweet recognize themselves as primarily consisting of their Here neither chatter nor laughs hedge my thoughts. dreams, hopes, and possibilities, rather than their physical bodies. They abound in self-esteem in Like the slave who crushes weighty chains with force conditions that generally destroy self-esteem. Fink’s And in his heart feels a life once put out anew heroes retain their inner world even under the threat of So I, freed for a moment from obtrusive tortures death. Death may happen suddenly and come as a Feel and grasp the spell and grace of silence. surprise, as in the case of a character names Tsaritsa. It can be visualized by the footprints remaining in the For when the heart joins us not in rounds of revelry snow, the footprints of people who were killed. When motley thoughts must reside side by side However, in Fink’s stories life is intimately related to When soul fails soul to grasp, comprehend death. Fink enlists all human, especially Jewish, tragedies to make her point. The thesis advanced by her stories can be formulated in the following way: the ‘Tis vain to suck drink’s nectar to the lees meaning of life is not compromised in the face of death All is torturous – laughs, song, feast and annihilation. Life has value in its qualitative, not Life and delight visit me when my thought is free. quantitative, aspect. This affirmation is absent in Translated by Alex Kurczaba Tadeusz Borowski’s camp stories. ∆ SamotnoÊç NOTES Cisza – niekiedy tylko pajàk siatkà wzruszy 1. Biographical information derives from the Lub przed oknem topole wietrzyk pomuskuje autobiographies in the following editions of Fink’s works: Och! Jak lekko oddychaç, słodko marzyç duszy A Scrap of Time and Other Stories (NY: Pantheon Books, Tu mi gwar, tu mi uÊmiech myÊli nie kr∏puje. 1987); Traces: Stories (NY: Metropolitan Books, 1997); Traces: Stories (NY: Henry Holt, 1998); The Journey (NY: Farrar Straus, 1992); Skrawek czasu (London: Aneks, 1987). Jak niewolnik, co ci∏Ïkie siłà wi∏zy skruszy Additional information was obtained online from the I zgasle Ïycie w sercu na nowo poczuje following websites: Tak ja, na chwile zwolnion z natr∏tnych katuszy, http://[email protected] Wdzi∏k i urok milczenia czuj∏ i pojmuj∏. http://www.lyrikwelt.de/autorem/fink/htm http://www.amazon.com/exc/obidos/tg./stores/detail Bo gdy w kole biesiady serce nas nie łàczy http://www.kcrw.com/jewish/frames/on Gdy róÏnorodne myÊli mieszkaç z sobà muszà, 2. Ida Fink, Traces, translated from the Polish by Philip Gdy dusza duszy pojàç, zrozumieç nie zdolna – Boehm and Francine Prose (NY: Metropolitan Books, 1997), 159. 3. Ida Fink, A Scrap of Time and Other Stories, translated PróÏno nektar napojów hojnie si∏ wysàczy; from the Polish by Madeline Levine and Francine Prose Âmiechy, piosnka, biesiada – wszystko jest katuszà; (NY: Pantheon Books, 1987), 3. U mnie rozkosz i Ïycie, gdy moja myÊl wolna. 4. Ibid., 3. 5. Tadeusz Borowski, This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Cyprian Kamil Norwid, Pisma wszystkie, vol. 1, edited by Juliusz Gentlemen, selected and translated by Barbara Vedder (NY: W. Gomulicki (Warsaw: Paƒstwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1971). Penguin Books, 1976), 142. 902 SARMATIAN REVIEW September 2002 to sound ridiculous, and passages in Count Henry’s Our Take monologue referring to the aristocracy’s feudal obligations Krasiƒski’s Undivine Comedy savaged were cut out. Pankracy’s monologue was also rewritten, at the National Theater and words of contempt directed at Polish language and national solidarity were added to it. This falsification of a classical text is like a business crook’s falsification of O Sarmatian Review n June 28, 2002, representatives of records, and should lead to similar consequences. went to the National Theater in Warsaw (the Wierzbowa On balance, it appears that the producer’s mind was too Undivine Comedy stage) to see the production of by petty to accommodate Krasiƒski’s grand themes. Zygmunt Krasiƒski. The play was written in 1833, and it Grzegorzewski’s mentality was unable to comprehend reflects the tragedy of a young aristocrat (Krasiƒski) torn the subject matter of Krasiƒski’s drama. The producer was between the duty to his accommodationist father and the intellectually unsuited to direct the play. conviction that the injustices of the system require a violent One wonders why persons such as Mr. Grzegorzewski response. In the play, this personal drama assumes are tolerated as artistic directors of the National Theater. universal proportions. The leader of the revolutionaries Surely this post should be given to a person who is able named Pankracy (Dostoevsky seems to have modeled to present literary traditions in a light that encourages The Devils Stavrogin and Peter Verkhovensky in on this the viewer to become familiar with them. We asked little known Polish character) offers a defense of the knowledgeable people, who appoints artistic directors and revolution in a grand monologue. The leader of the producers at the National Theater? Is it director-in-chief defenders of the old system, Count Henry, cannot muster Krzysztof Toroƒczyk? And who appoints the director-in- a matching rebuttal, but he is profoundly convinced that chief? The Communist-induced secrecy and apathy about the revolutionaries are wrong. Other defenders of the old details of appointments is such that no one could give us system are shown as cowards, cheats, and spiritual dwarfs. an authoritative answer. But we found some of the On the other hand, the revolutionary mob is shown as sponsors of the National Theater. These are: Telewizja fully corrupt and dominated by hatred, greed, addiction Polska SA, Polskie Radio SA, Bank Pekao SA, Anpol- to orgiastic sex and class envy. At the end of the play, Reklaman na City Lightach. ∆ Pankracy wins and ‘the Ramparts of the Holy Trinity’ (against which the revolutionaries fought and won) surrender. But instead of the moment of triumph, Pankracy is overwhelmed by weakness exacerbated by a light that Lives Remembered suddenly blinds him. He dies exclaiming “Galileae, vicisti! (a reference to Jesus’s victory on the cross).” Death by a Thousand Cuts: To our great amazement, this powerful plot was A Polish Woman’s Diary grotesquely distorted by producer Jerzy Grzegorzewski. Krasiƒski’s message was loud and clear: the old order is of Deportation, Forced Labor corrupt and it has ever been so, but it provides a place for and Death in Kazakhstan values essential to human dignity. The revolutionaries are April 13, 1940–May 26, 1941 corrupt to the point of being incapable of embodying any values. Their leader is a cynical manipulator of crowds Part Three whom he despises, and he is motivated by gigantic resentment against those presently in power. Above this Zofia Ludwika Małachowska PtaÊnik dark reality loom the teachings of Christ whose death on the cross was the ultimate guarantee that values have Translated by Leszek M. Karpinski meaning and that not all in the universe is a product of Edited by John D. L. McIntosh, with assistance greed, resentment and hatred. from Bogdan Czaykowski and Kenneth Baulk In a clear distortion of Krasiƒski’s text, Mr. (continued from the April 2002 issue) Grzegorzewski added words to it and eliminated others. He made the nihilistic element of the play into its only Tuesday, May 7, 1940 Undivine Comedy element. He made into a display of Yesterday we were surprised to see Józef late in the vulgar sex couched in the self-preservation instinct. The evening. He took leave from his work gang to see how element of nobility in the old system was entirely we were doing and if we needed bread. At his base, one is eliminated: Wife’s and Priest’s admonitions were made September 2002 SARMATIAN REVIEW 903 allowed to buy 3 lbs. bread daily. He promised to send printed for Poles?” To avoid any further conflict I will us some at the first opportunity. People in his work never again talk to them about politics. gang live and cook in dugout earthen huts. They must Wednesday, May 15, 1940 complete the seeding by May 10; if the date is not met, I am celebrating my holy patroness’ day [name day] all the supervisors will be arrested. This is the reason sitting at home and painstakingly perusing Russian they have no time off. Our third day of work and Jania, newspapers. I did not go to work today. My poor knee who is always in the pink of health, could not go to has started to hurt again from lifting dung. I hoped that work because she has a fever and a headache. the pain would ease with the help of an overnight compress. Finally I’ve decided to take a day off to rest. I Thursday, May 9, 1940 hope to get well soon. At present I prefer to be with this Yesterday thirteen new people were brought here large company of people. It is even possible to work a from Janów. Mrs. Zieliƒska with her sister-in-law, little, four hours in the morning and then, after a noon owner of some 18 hectares in Jamielno and a villa break, three hours more until evening. Then in the near Janów; Mrs. Radomska-Ujwaryowa from Sieradz remaining time I brood about things that are gone and near Łódê, who escaped [from the Germans] hoping will never return. Since my dear sister Winia and I have to be safe in Janów [under the Russians] with her always thought of ourselves as a pair of horses from the mother Mrs. Wilczkiewiczowa; both of them were same harness, she is probably thinking about me. But what deported with Mrs. Radomska’s two children. Mrs. about my son, does he remember me? For my birthday Brewczyƒska’s husband has been arrested; she is a last year he wrote a beautiful poem. I wonder what his mother with four children. All have been housed under thoughts are at this moment? I feel so sorry for my little miserable conditions in the old granary which recently boy who unluckily was born at the wrong time. When he had some windows replaced. They spent last night in a was only three, he lost his father. For two years he had school room near us. . . . trouble with his tonsils. Then, the death of Aunt Jadwiga [Pepłowska] and Uncle Bronisław [Popiel, husband of Saturday, May 11, 1940 her sister Jadwiga] was a sad experience for a sensitive The new arrivals are two Orłowski women, Zdzisia, the child. How happy he was when he passed the high school deaf Mrs. Halewiczowa, and Mrs. Szczepaƒska, an entrance exams and wore his first school uniform. He had engineer’s wife who has already fallen out with some of his own small room in Marysia’s apartment in Lwów [the her companions and is trying to get close to the Orłowski Bladyes]. In September all was lost. He now lives among women, counting on their help. Today we had a visit from strangers. My poor child! His future seemed so secure an official who once again recorded our year of birth, with his loving father and mother. Now, so suddenly at information about property, how many workers we the age of thirteen, he has no one. He has all the important employed [in Poland], membership in political parties, if abilities, good nature and he was surrounded by human anyone in the family had been arrested, etc. love. I have named the Baums [longtime family friends] I have been working for six days and feel content. Even as his legal guardians. I hope that under their guidance he on this poor nourishment I feel healthy, sleep well, and will grow up to be a good man. have a good appetite. We are told that this place is located Yesterday I wrote my fourth card to him in Russian, some 2,400 feet above sea level. The air of the steppe is informing him that I’m healthy and work on a farm. I clean and fresh, but our lodging smells like a cabin without gave him my address and asked for a speedy reply. I a chimney. The same building houses a co-op store with suspect that he received only my first card mailed in nothing to buy, a school room, a schoolmaster’s lodging Złoczów; the others from here were confiscated. and a couple of Kazakh families. The first few days were very difficult when we were exposed to their curiosity. Thursday, May 16, 1940 They looked through our things and wanted to buy For the last few days the place has been surveyed, as clothing, watches, tobacco, etc. we were told, for a new railway. We will be moved to .. . . another location. I think the building of this new railway When I translated the news from the newspapers about has to do with the war. Yesterday the two Wilczek boys successes of the German campaign, the people from Janów [Wilczkiewiczes] came for a visit from the work gang. accused me of being a traitor to Poland. They told me: One of them brought some bread for his mother, the other “How can anyone believe all this propaganda, especially one for Mrs. Brewczyƒska—he did not even bother to see his own mother. This morning the cart driver brought 904 SARMATIAN REVIEW September 2002 us 4 lbs. of bread from Józef. What joy, because we had attack of gallstones. Her pain was so severe that she started to worry as there was no more flour for flat patties fainted. She feels and looks miserable. Her brother, Alfred (which are not very good, but at least they are something Ujwary, unexpectedly had a day off from the work gang to eat). From the mushrooms gathered by Jania we will because the engine of the plough he operated broke down. have soup for supper. For dinner we had buttermilk with Seeding of the wheat over there is almost complete and cheese soup. I have even put on some weight. Went to soon everybody will be back. The sixty-year-old Mrs. work but the wind is so furious that after two hours we Zieliƒska is always full of energy and enthusiasm. She headed back home. Mrs. Wilczkiewiczowa and Mrs. keeps saying that this hard life adds to her strength. The Zieliƒska, the major’s wife, are the only ones who can fifty-eight-year-old Mrs. Dobrowolska, sister of Mrs. endure the work but even they did not want to work in Radomska, a retired teacher, is completely useless at any this cold weather. And to think that yesterday was such a work. She complains endlessly of pain in her back, legs, beautiful, sunny, warm day. etc. The upravliaiushchii [chairman] and the zaveduiushchii [manager] saw through the game; they told Friday, May 17, 1940 Tadzio that we were not producing enough and the newly The day is sunny but cold after yesterday’s windstorm. arrived group “ne rabotaet harasho” [is not working hard]. At 9 a.m. everything is still covered with white frost. The steppe was so wonderful today when Mrs. Szkudłapska and I went to gather kiziak. When we stopped Saturday, May 18, 1940 for a moment, I stretched myself on the ground facing the For two days we have been cleaning the kolkhoz cattle sun the way our Alina [Popiel, her cousin] used to do. sheds. The feeding troughs are made of clay and sod bricks. What is their fate? When will I know what has happened This must be the first time since the shed was built that to Winia. . . . Are we ever going to see each other again? anybody has tried to clean them. There is such a crust of dried out mold and filth waiting for us to come and scrub Monday, May 20, 1940 it off. What annoys us is that all this precious fertilizer is Today I wrote a card to Mrs. Niemczewska, the other carted away to a garbage dump on the banks of the small day to Marys [Marian Bladye] and to the Jarosiewiczes. river. It should be used to nourish the steppe which is Six days have gone by without any news about my dear covered with dry scarce grass. I recall how passionately I family, home and country. I was up at 5 a. m. to admire gathered all natural remains like dry plants, vegetable peels the beautiful sunrise and gather some flowers instead of and ashes to a compost pile which we later mixed with mushrooms, which I looked for but could not find. In the lime and used to fertilize our fields and vegetable gardens. steppe I saw a Kazakh family: parents and children by We live here like animals: we eat, gather kiziak and small their poor cart. A double-hump camel was grazing nearby. twigs for fuel, go to work and then quickly rush home They must have arrived from far away as it was only near and eat again, and sleep. . . . Aktyubinsk, 60 miles away, that we saw camels. I have never seen them here. We see daily these poor people Saturday, May 19, 1940 with their shabby belongings on ox-drawn carts being A beautiful sunny day. I stay home waiting for water to resettled from one place to another. The local people are warm up. I intend to give my body a complete wash in not good looking and they look untidy. We are told that Mrs. Brewczyƒska’s large metal washing bowl. Our daily many of them are afflicted with syphilis. Two women wash in the presence of live-in companions, and often without noses and one without an eye live in the village. visitors, is usually limited to a quick hand and face The children do not look healthy with their big swollen washing. The primitiveness of our daily life abuses all stomachs and thin legs. They own one cow and a few our cultural habits. Visitors keep telling us, “do not despair, chickens. Their diet consists of dairy products—of milk you will get used to it and will live like others around and eggs. The government allowance of flour and groats you,” but we still delude ourselves that we soon will be is extremely small. Bread is not available at all. They bake back home. For this intention we say daily a holy rosary bread patties on small sheets of metal heated by kiziak and a litany. The group is growing larger everyday: Mrs. from underneath. The zaveduiushchii has gone to the work Ujwaryowa, Basia Brewczyƒska, sometimes Genia with gang to fetch some bread without assigning any work to her mother. Mrs. Szkudłapska leads the prayer in such a us. This being so, and it being such a beautiful day, I went moving way, weaving into the incantations of the rosary to the steppe and reclined myself on the remains of a straw many of the thoughts that are in our hearts and minds. stack in the warm sunshine. Genia Brewczyƒska came After yesterday’s work, Mrs. Ujwaryowa suffered an with news from a young Kazakh who listened to the radio September 2002 SARMATIAN REVIEW 905 at the NKVD office in Novorossiiskoye. He told her that pitchfork while others were forming bricks of kiziak by France has taken half of Germany, the Germans have hand. broken their pact with Russia, Japan has threatened Russia Just as Mrs. Ujwaryowa, the two Brewczyƒskas and I and the local Kazakhs only wait for Turkey to join with were finishing our evening May service to the Blessed them. If only something of importance could happen! Later Virgin, a messenger from the farm office arrived calling on we discovered that all Genia’s news items were her us to a meeting with the zaveduiushchii in the school own invention. room. Feeling tired, I did not go and fell asleep. After two hours my companions came back from the meeting and Tuesday, May 21, 1940 woke me up. They had discussed the haymaking. To Again his morning I had to stay home as my knee gave increase the harvest yield to 15,000 cubic meters, we were me so much pain. In the afternoon I went to work. ordered to begin working much earlier as of the 25th of However, my knee swelled up and in addition my legs May. Last year’s harvest was not enough to feed the cows got sunburned. I worry about my legs but at the same which had to be sent away to another farm. The work time think about my poor father: how much he would gang members are going haying. I would like to go too, have given to be able to walk like me. [Kajetan as haying is nicer work then making kiziak and the food is Małachowski was paralyzed and spent the end of his life better, but they do not want us there. in a wheelchair.] Until now we had an agreement with the zaveduiushchii Janka spends lots of her free time with a triangular that instead of working on Sundays and on other Catholic fortune telling device, persistently talking to spirits, asking holidays, we will work on the Russian official holidays. them when we will return. They tell her, “Tomorrow! This agreement was still in force yesterday. However , Because Russians are afraid of Poles and will allow them this morning Alfred Wilczkiewicz and I were told by the to go free!” I showed this poor child the game with spirits manager that we must work today and also that our but now regret it because it is turning into something serious. working hours will be longer: 7–12 and 3–7, altogether We just bought 2 lbs. fish for 5 rubles and will be having a nine hours. I protested that it is too long. We don’t have ball. enough strength without the food we are accustomed to having. We live on leftover money that we collect among Wednesday, May 22, 1940 ourselves. Milk costs 3 rubles and an egg 1 ruble, way This morning Genia received a card from her catechist over the normal price. “Buy yourselves a cow,” he advises from Janów [in Soviet-occupied western Ukraine] which us. I remind him about the promise he made upon our was mailed fourteen days ago. The Wilczkiewiczes got arrival to build bunks for sleeping. “Kupite sebe krovati” two cards from Borysław. They are now back from the [buy beds for yourselves] he answers. I tell him we don’t work gang and work with us making kiziak. From a big have money. “To zarabotaite!” [then earn some] is his pile of dung we separate a portion on the ground, add reply, and I ask him, “But how? Our pay is twenty-five water and straw and then run a horse over it several times rubles for 1,000 bricks of kiziak and we have to pay such to mix it well. Next we load and press the mix into two high prices for everything.” He tells us to follow him and wooden forms. The finished product, when it is ready, he will show us how to work. We try to explain that today looks like bricks, which we then pile up for drying in the is our very important holiday and we will not work. “You sun. At first our work was very clumsily done until the should forget about holidays,” he tells us. I reply, “We are manager’s wife showed us how to organize this old and it is impossible to forget.” Mr. Wilczkiewicz production. The pay is meager, 25 rubles for 1,000 bricks. officially declares that they will go to work, and so they One happy event of this day was that we poluchili did, but Mrs. Ciesielska and I stayed home. The major’s [received] 6 lbs. bread for 2.70 rubles. Yesterday we had wife rushed over a couple of times to warn us about the to pay 4 rubles for half that amount. Today I sent a card to consequence of such a revolt. I told her that only with Mieczek and Mrs. Niemczewska wondering when and if resistance and solidarity can we win any relief and that I will get a reply. “you are just strikebreakers.” I expected to be punished and not receive flour, but we got 2 lbs. flour and 1 lb. Thursday, May 23, 1940: Corpus Christi barley each. This afternoon I worked together with Mr. Wilczkiewicz, Mrs. Zieliƒska, Mrs. Radomska, Mrs. Dobrowolska, Mrs. Friday, May 24, 1940 Brewczyƒska and Tadzio. I moved manure with a A sunny day with a horribly powerful wind that blows clouds of dust carrying small stones that painfully hit our 906 SARMATIAN REVIEW September 2002 bare legs. Tumbleweeds travel for miles and when stopped It is a good thing that Mieczek is not with me. We both in a hole or against other objects serve us as precious fuel. would be living in poverty splitting our meager resources Yesterday we went to the steppe and gathered four sacks two ways. I wonder how difficult life must be for my of them so we have a sizable supply of fuel. I’m in love dearest sister Winia who was taken without clothing, with the steppe with its wide-open horizon. Here and there bedding or money. Let’s hope she survives these horrible a small hill, ravine, boulders with fast moving gray or times. . . . green lizards and gophers rummaging at night. I have difficulty seeing all these with my shortsighted eyes. I Sunday June 2, 1940 like gathering flowers, some yellow with leaves like Despite Mrs. Szkudłapska’s protests, Tadzio, Janka, the carnations, others light brown like snails. I discovered wild two Wilczkiewiczes and two Kazakh girls were loaded garlic with blossoms, also small bushes covered with tiny on oxcarts and taken away to weed the wheat fields. They white flowers. How refreshing is the scent of thyme. were given hoes to cut out tumbleweed. Now we still enjoy Near the farm flows a small river walled by a low dam our holiday, but what will happen tomorrow? Who will holding back water for a pond. Below there is only a dry bring water by oxcart, trample the kiziak, and transport it bed filled with many colorful stones. I picked some of them on the sledge to people forming bricks? My hands are for Mieczek but wonder if he is ever going to see them? cracked and chapped like a kitchen grate. In spite of washing they always look dirty. For the last few days the Tuesday, May 28, 1940, the Farm supply of provisions has been getting worse as there has Yesterday Mr. Wilczkiewicz received a card from a been neither bread nor flour. We are lucky that Mrs. friend in Janów. It reads: “Be happy, the spring is here, Szkudłapska found somewhere a driver who yesterday it’s getting warm. Today we celebrated Whitsuntide at and today brought us bread and will pay an extra 100 home; it’s getting cloudy.” This fills our hearts with new rubles for the trousers. Józef wrote us from the base that hope. Everyone in our colony reads these words as good things are also bad and food is expensive. There is no political news. Though the newspapers talk about German bread because the oven collapsed. Everything is victories, we try to dismiss them as misleading plokho[bad]! One day a Kazakh passed by; his cart was propaganda. Rumors circulating around tell us different driven by an ox and a camel. He had a couple of sheep for stories. sale asking 250 rubles each. Local sheep have heavy thick The Germans have suffered a defeat; the Soviet Union tails in which they accumulate fat. This breed, Aris aries has been invaded by fourteen countries. . . a big war is laticanda, is common in Syria, Palestine and Arabia.We coming. We also hear that soon we will go back home. It were told that in the past, when Kazakhs kept hundreds would be a good thing for me as my money is almost of sheep, the price was 50 kopecks each. They used to gone. I lent sixty rubles to the Szkudłapskis but when we roast a whole animal on a spit and whoever entered the get paid the amount they receive is kept a secret. At present hut was welcomed to share the meal. The co-op store sells I have three rubles in my pocket. A special day for us: mutton for 1 ruble a pound; it’s too expensive for us. We those who work are allowed to buy 3.5 oz. sugar and 3.5 are all living now on money borrowed from Mrs. oz. candy for 1.10 rubles. For the past two days our rations Ciesielska who managed to sell her husband’s suit for of bread were 7 oz. a day, but there is no bread today. 600 rubles. She has only 300 rubles left. Everything is so Mrs. Szkudłapska is fixing soup, which will be our expensive: 2 lbs. butter, 40 rubles; 2 lbs. cheese, 6 rubles; breakfast and supper. Yesterday we had a ball—pierogies eggs, 1 ruble each; milk, 3 rubles for a quart. with cheese. When we were busy cooking, Józef came Józef wrote about Mrs. Lewkowiczowa’s death, from his work gang to see us. He worked there since May probably of a heart attack, at the age of 58. 3rd, without any time off for rest. They work under very Early this morning before breakfast I went to the steppe heavy pressure to complete the spring planting. He is tired, and exercised for the first time in months. At present I do dirty, covered with dust, and hungry. They were without not feel exhausted considering the long hours of physical any kitchen facilities for the last two days. Luckily Mrs. work I did in the month of May. At 11 a.m., I went and Orłowska shared her food with him. Seeing with his own washed in the “little lake” as we call this shallow, eyes how stone-broke we were for food and money, he overgrown, muddy pond of brown water. Later in the day, decided to join the work gang gathering hay. At least he in the company of Mrs. Ciesielska and Mrs. Szkudłapska, will get cheaper food for 1.25 rubles a day. He has not I wandered around the steppe gathering kiziak. For the received any cash for the work he did and now must pay first time I carried a full sack; before, Tadzio or his mother 20 rubles extra for bread from his own pocket. would do it. Thank God I can still cope with heavy physical September 2002 SARMATIAN REVIEW 907 work in spite of such a loss of weight. It is truly painful to loaded carts. Three times a day he loads and unloads the look at my skin-covered bones. Even the zaveduiushchii hay all by himself. Today, Mrs. Hurtovaia, the wife of the states his opinion: “tsotka kharasho rabotaet” [auntie is Russian tractor driver, came and stacked up the hay. She working hard]. He called me first “mamka” [little mother]. said she would get 6 kopecks for a hundred kilos. Little Krysia calls me “Pani Pacinkowa.” At times when I’m up to my elbows pressing bricks of cow dung, I think Thursday, June 13, 1940 how fitting this name is for the situation [in Polish, packaç My knee is not improving. I stay home. means to smear, and Pani Pacinkowa translates as Mrs. Smeared-Face]. Friday, June 14, 1940 Today I gathered a bunch of violets, yellow and pink Mrs. Szudłapska and I tried to grind some wheat, but flowers. How beautiful those pink little flowers are with the Kazakh women have taken back their quern-stones. their tiny silver leaves which spread their long vine-like We did not make much flour. We eat bread, soup twice a stems on the ground. Then, here and there, one’s eye rests day and in the evening coffee without sugar but with a on clusters of small yellow flowers glittering like gold. drop of skim milk. Yesterday I bought from Mrs. All these plants remind me of a floral carpet. The twitter Szkudłapska 3 oz. butter to spread on my bread, and it of birds sounds everywhere, but there are no people around made it taste so good! Only maybe three times since I left although houses are located only fifteen minutes away. home have I had a small piece of bread with butter. My only consolation here is this immense open steppe, covered with fragrant flowers. I grow fond of it although Sunday, June 16, 1940 everything is so different from our fields, meadows and Today the food situation is plokho [bad]. For breakfast, forests. Especially beautiful here are the sunrises and watery soup with cheese—for dinner dumplings in water sunsets. Our companions from Janów claimed that once with a splash of skim milk. Janka and Genia went by truck at sunset they saw two suns. to the ore mine hoping to fetch some food but one cannot count on luck. For the foreseeable future, our diet will Saturday, June 8, 1940 consist of watery soup with cheese and maybe a hard- I have stopped worrying. Feeling totally helpless, I am boiled egg—the only thing we can get here. We make our leaving everything to fate. Every day I say a novena to St. own curds by adding a couple of spoonfuls of starter curd Anthony asking for news from Winia, Mieczek and from the previous day to freshly boiled and chilled milk. Marysia. I’m grateful to God for having enough to eat In about four hours it curdles and by heating it up we and good relations with Mrs. Szkudłapska. make cheese. Procurement of food has becomes very difficult.

[Marginal mote added March 28, 1941] If I return to Friday, June 21, 1940 my country, I want to be in good shape to work and rebuild One must rabotat [work] to poluchat [receive] bread. Szczepłoty. If I do not return—my God!—grant me peace On Wednesday, 2 lbs. for two days, today, 1.5 lb. Our and readiness to die; do not prolong this pain. entire menu consists of thin soup for breakfast and supper and coffee with a drop of skim milk for lunch. Bread helps Sunday, June 9, 1940 us to satiate hunger and I’m sure I would devour with I am worried about my knee. It is still swollen although great pleasure a whole loaf by myself. The truth is we do it excuses me from the hard work in the alfalfa fields. not eat anything nutritious. If we could only have the food Yesterday was a very hot day causing the workers to suffer of our servants [in Szczepłoty] who had so often greatly from thirst. complained though they received as much as they could eat of buckwheat, barley, potatoes, pierogies and Wednesday, June 12, 1940 dumplings always well basted with fat or milk as well “Vykhodnoi den” [a day off]. Everybody is home. as buttermilk, milk and cheese. . . . Yesterday Józef came home and with pride handed his Our Polish colony has grown by one person, Józio mother the 80 rubles he earned for two weeks working Chubowski from Powidno, Gródek District. The little boy with the seeding gang. A very hot day; I spent three hours told us he is the son of a policeman from Lwów [Lviv] at the steppe by the haystack. It is a place where I can be named Stanisław Kumalski. The Janów colony took him left in peace and not disturb anyone. under their roof when they heard about a Polish boy The hay is transported in a strange way—one single running the streets who had been separated from his aunt. Kazakh drives two oxen pulling a train of two heavily It is a good deed but the boy is unruly and will cause lots 908 SARMATIAN REVIEW September 2002 of trouble. Twelve of them already live in one room. Eight sentenced to 5 years of forced resettlement in Kazakhstan of them once lived independently in their own homes and and still has two years to go. Her husband was arrested now are rounded up and forced to live together in one and she has no information about his fate. She has a 7- room. Old married women, an old spinster, two young year-old daughter who is left under the care of her sister- men, a young teenage girl and three—now four—children in-law. . . 2 to 5 years old now coexist in a communal life. [Note added on November 17] This woman has now Monday, June 24, 1940 been sentenced to ten years in prison. It is the name day of my late Jan [Prof. Jan PtaÊnik, her husband]. I recall that ten years ago a group of his former Saturday, June 29, 1940 students, led by his two assistant professors, Drs. A long letter has arrived from Hania. She writes that Charewicz and Wagner, visited his grave and brought a after my departure some villagers forced their way into silver laurel wreath with a sign “To our beloved late the house shouting that they would take everything and master.” Now Wagner is dead, and Lucia is perhaps hiding chase her away, but she somehow survived. All the house somewhere. Once I received a note from her signed with possessions like furniture, bedding and clothing that were an assumed name. My family and friends are all scattered inventoried, had to be sold and the money forwarded to and I am here all alone. I have been reading Thomas à the Raikom [Soviet District Administrative Unit]. She was Kempis’s Imitation of Christ in which I find new strength. given a piece of land near the mill which has been seeded The experience of these hard times has given me a new with winter rape. As recently as last fall it was used for spiritual depth and power to survive. pasture for the village stock. She had it ploughed and From somewhere Józef bought a German translation of planted potatoes, beans, cabbage and beets. Mikhail Sholokhov’s novel Der Stille Don [And Quiet Flows the Don]. After morning exercise at my beloved Friday, July 5, 1940 haystack, buying milk and eating a bit of dry bread, I From July 1st and for three days, I have been working dressed up and went back to the haystack with volume with the work gang poisoning gophers that were causing three of the book, in which the author describes the struggle damage to the cornfields by chewing off the stalks. We of the Don Cossacks, supported by General Denikin’s put a cotton swab on a stick, dip it in a bottle of poisonous volunteers, against the Red Army in 1918. The Cossacks acid and then push it into the hole, which is next covered were under the leadership of Hetman-General Piotr with a handful of grass and a shovel full of earth tightly Krasnov. My understanding of this book has changed pressed down. One person carries the bottle and sticks entirely since I first read it a few years ago when I judged while the other uses the shovel. it dull and difficult to read. We are starved for the printed On Tuesday afternoon it rained so heavily that we could word. not work and had to return. The trip was awful. The earth here, when it gets a sprinkle of water, turns into a sticky Friday, June 28, 1940 clay which makes walking or driving impossible. Carts Yesterday I went alone to Novorossiiskoye. The 100 and trucks have to detour through rough, dry riverbeds rubles sent by the first wire were paid out to me, but the and ravines because the furrowed steppe road has deep other wire, also for 100 rubles addressed to Sarsai, will be pools of water, making some places impassable. Our truck paid over there. The Novorossiiskoye postmaster promised could not have climbed a little hill near the headquarters to instruct the local Sarsai postal clerk to pay the money if we had not pushed it after throwing a few shovels of to me. dry earth under the wheels. Our group of ten rode in the I said my prayer to St. Anthony. Lately I have said many back of the truck. Those first in line held on to the driver’s prayers and novenas asking for Winia’s freedom from cab, with the others behind clinging to their shoulders. prison. . . All of a sudden the truck jerked and Mrs. Dobrowolska, We just had a visit from our Jewish people from who was holding on to me, threw me against the cab, Niemirów, who now are living on the Second Farm. All badly bruising my forehead just above the eye. I had a the women have grown thin . Mrs. Baumohlowa received plum-sized blue lump, which is starting to fade away, but a letter from her brother who wrote that not all the the whole area around my eye is still black. Despite all arrested people are being badly treated in the prison. this, on Wednesday I went to work. We received there our [In Novorossiiskoye] . . I met a woman from a part of provisions of 2 lbs. of bread and a pint of milk. The milk Poland that, prior to 1918, was a part of Russia. She was was sour and gave me a severe case of diarrhea. Even September 2002 SARMATIAN REVIEW 909 today, after a strict diet of tea and Inozemtsov’s drops [a Three [women] teachers with small boys from Dawigrad herbal remedy], I am still suffering. On top of all this, I are with her. She got my address from Mieczek. I only strained my knee by hard work and now walking gives received one card from him. Are they afraid to write to me a lot of pain. Therefore, I keep busy doing some deportees? Mrs. Radomska received a letter from her washing and repairing my badly faded brown summer father, Dr. Thulia, from Janów signed “Prawdzic,” an skirt. assumed name. He writes that no more people have been Mrs. Szkudłapska seized the opportunity of my being deported. They expect good crops thanks to an abundance home and both yesterday and today went to Rudnik. of rain. The Russkies are gathering taxes in dengi [money], Yesterday there was no bread and she was not able to find livestock and food. The fields have been seeded. Farmers’ a buyer for the trousers. However, she managed to procure property is not been confiscated. Since yesterday poor a pair of canvas slippers with rubber soles for 12 rubles Mrs. Radomska has been sick. and some sausage for 16 rubles. Our administration has ordered us to spend nights with On July 1st I had a pleasant surprise. Finally the missing the work gang in the steppe because so much time has 100 rubles from Janek [Jan Baum] were delivered and in been wasted transporting us and we have been showing addition Hania sent 50 rubles. She is in Szczepłoty as our up for work late. Today the 60-year-old Mrs. Zieliƒska, ambassador. She may also send some food. It happened Mrs. Ujwaryowa, the Ciesielskis, Genia, Janka and Tadzio that when I was sleeping: a boy, sent by the postal clerk, left for work. They will probably sleep there. knocked and asked me to come over to collect some Today Mrs. Szkudłapska brought only a little bread. . . money. The postal clerk lives in the same building, so I The Russkies are amassing troops on the Polish border threw a coat over my sleeping gown, slipped into Mrs. and boast about occupying Bessarabia and Greece. Szkudłapska’s slippers and went. In their quarters, lit by a lamp standing on the floor, his wife was chopping up a Monday, July 8, 1940 chunk of meat. After a long questioning as to why I do The anniversary of Bronek’s funeral [Bronisław Popiel, not have a passport or any other documents to identify her sister Winia’s late husband]. Two years have passed myself, I signed the money order on the floor and the 150 and how lucky that he did not live to see these changes. rubles are mine. At present I have 225 rubles, which may On Saturday I went with a work gang weeding fields of be enough to survive ‘til the end of September. wheat. It was easy work that we completed in a short time. Yesterday I received a letter from Maryna Poziombko Getting to work is so hard and unpleasant. Maybe it’s [née PtaÊnik, her husband’s niece, deported from Polesie better that the work gang was ordered to sleep in the fresh where she was a teacher] dated April 28, 1940. On April air of the steppe in truck trailers or dugout earthen huts. 13, she was deported with her two small children, 4-year- Late in the afternoon, when we reached the main road, old Jerzy and 1-year-old Dzidek, to Beloraisk in northern where the trucks drop us off and pick us up, we were Kazakhstan, in the Chkalov region of Petropavlosk caught by a mighty wind with thunder and pouring rain. district. Staszek [her younger brother] had been interned We were almost blown away in the powerful gusts. Soaked there [in a POW camp during World War I]. Maryna writes through, we were picked up by a passing truck. After some about a number of pasiolki [settlements], established some 2 miles it got stuck in the mud. Mrs. Zieliƒska, Ujwaryowa four years ago, which are at present populated almost and Genia decided to go on foot, but Janka, Ada and I exclusively by Poles deported as Russian citizens before stayed behind. After two fruitless attempts to get the truck 1918, or taken prisoner during the Soviet-Polish war in moving, we started back home on foot through mud and 1919–1920, or deported from territories which became puddles. Layers of clay kept sticking to the soles of my Soviet after the October Revolution. They hear Polish precious shoes that once belonged to Mieczek. From time spoken all around them. She lives off selling things she to time I scraped them off. How lucky I felt when another brought with her. In expectation of deportion, she had truck picked us up a mile and a half from the farm and gathered and packed whatever she thought was of any brought us home. On Saturday I received 50 rubles from value. Her husband, who was arrested on March 21, 1940, Maria Pepłowska [her cousin]. Writing back I asked is still being kept in Stolin. The landlord [of the house for two thick cotton shirts, a sweater and a pair of warm where they previously lived] is selling all their property stockings if anything was still left after the death of that was hidden from the official listing and keeps sending her mother and my aunt [her mother’s sister]. money. She has a nasty flu but still has to do all the work I traded my elegant shoes for a pair of valonki [felt with her children around. boots], 2 lbs. butter and 10 eggs. If I have to live here through winter, I must have warm shoes. 910 SARMATIAN REVIEW September 2002 She is with Wojciech Schmidt on Zielona Street. It [Note added later on top of page] Later I realized the surprised me that Wojciech has moved from Warsaw to 50 rubles had not come from Maria Pepłowska, as they Lwów. JaÊka [Popiel, a teenage relative] wanted to be had already left for Kraków. It had been sent by Stefania reunited with her mother in Toruƒ, but the woman from Matuszewska, her boarder and teacher friend from the Toruƒ [on a visit to Lwów], who was going to take her school where they had both taught. back to Toruƒ was deported by the Soviets, so the entire plan collapsed. My son asked if I received a parcel and Tuesday, July 9, 1940 cards. I have received only two cards from him. Yesterday Dr. Podhojecka came from Rudnik and issued On July 11 I had a surprise: I got 60 rubles from Hania me a posvidka [sick-leave note] stating that I’m not capable and 35 from Mrs. Niemczewska, so I now have 350 rubles of working until July 15. Also she gave me pills called and will be able to lend money to the Szkudłapskis who salol. Mrs. Dobrowolska told me how to make a special have used up all their savings. medication that helps even against dysentery. Mix On July 12 and 13, I went to work weeding a field of whipped egg whites with chilled boiled water; it should barley, which is rather poor, heavily mixed with oats. We be drunk once a day. Today I’m happy I feel better. spent the night in the truck trailers. At 2 p.m. a strong Last night the bedbugs were so nasty and troublesome wind started to blow and it got cold. that at 1 a.m. I gathered my blanket and pillow, put on my coat and went to the haystack hoping to get some sleep. Monday, July 20, 1940: at the Work Gang The night was still and warm so I slept well. Daybreak On Monday and Tuesday of last week we did not work was sunny. much waiting for the agronomist to arrive and assign new When poor Mrs. Radomska heard about it she was ready jobs. Now more intensive work has begun: we are working to join me at the haystack for the next night. Her sister very hard from morning to evening preparing a few brought her to our place before noon, but an hour later I thousands square meters of thrashing-ground for the grain. had to take her back home because she felt sick and wanted to lie down. Shortly after, she was seized with excruciating Friday, July 26, 1940: at the Work Gang pains. Her liver is enlarged by almost two inches and It was a good week, though on Monday it came to a although a strict diet is necessary, our living conditions clash with the upravlaiushchii [chairman]. On a scorching preclude it. We have no choice but to eat this heavy, sour hot afternoon, when I was resting in the shade of the and often half-baked bread. It is very difficult to get butter sowing machine, Tatarenko appeared and ordered me and groats. For a few days I have lived only on tea or immediately to work. I told him that we had already coffee with bread. Feeling much better, I tried to eat worked 5 hours and there was enough time to put in the dumplings made of dark, moldy-tasting flour, cooked in remaining 3 hours before the evening. “You will be water with whipped-in egg yolks. Ada lent me some working not 8 but 16 hours during the khliboborka barley, which made my dinner and will still be good for [harvest]!” In extreme exasperation I started to pound the tonight’s supper. ground with my fists, screaming: “I refuse to work 16 hours!” This incident made a bad impression on the Wednesday, July 10, 1940 brigadir [work brigade leader], who keeps nagging me The days are very hot. Although my stomach feels much for not working hard enough. better, I have no desire to join the work gang before my A card from Mieczek dated July 13 and 100 rubles from posvidka [sick leave note] expires. I have lost a lot of the Janeks [the Baum family] gave me great comfort. weight and look as thin as a rail. Altogether I have received 300 rubles from them. There is also a parcel from them mailed on June 6—one and a [Note on the top of page] I have definitely been helped half month for delivery. Probably another parcel from by the cooked pike I bought from Kolia Tatarenko, an Hania is waiting for me at the post office. I will have to avid fisherman, a good-hearted teenager but a great wait patiently until Sunday when I return home to open rascal. the parcels. Luckily, two weeks have gone by since I started working Sunday, July 14, 1940 with the work gang and I have stayed healthy. Others are Yesterday I received a card from Mieczek dated July 1. not so lucky. Mrs. Ujwaryowa has been sick for two weeks, He informs me that since April 14 he has been staying at her brother Mieczek spent a week and a half at home with the Baums. Marysia [Bladye, her niece] brought him there. the flu and boils on the sole of his foot. Alfred has been September 2002 SARMATIAN REVIEW 911 sick since July 7. Even the indestructible Mrs. Zieliƒska For the last three nights some of us have slept on and has been taken home with high fever and a stomach pain. others under the wagons loaded with hay. With the work Our food provisions are simple but substantial at this gang are Mrs. Orłowska and Mrs. Hałaczowa from the time: 2 lbs. bread and one liter of soup all at one time Second Farm at Sarmorsa; Borys Ciuk, son of a judge daily. It will help me to regain my lost weight, which is from Jaworów and a first grade high school student, a now slightly under a hundred pounds. I wonder how Winia very nice, well brought up Ukrainian boy; and two looks. Since the beginning of the war she lost so much Altschillers, Jewish men, with their brother-in-law weight. She even complained of some internal pains and Nachtigal, also from Jaworów. was afraid of cancer. Mieczek wrote that Janek [Baum] submitted 75 rubles—this was the limit allowed—to the [Here the signature of a Kazakh appears] prison authorities for Winia. Next time the Baums will try to send her a parcel with clothing that she asked for Saturday, July 27, 1940 through some woman. In the meantime Mrs. Thanks to the fact that almost every day someone goes Niemczewska wrote in a letter dated July 1 that Winia back to the farm (Mrs. Ciesielska to visit her child, or the has been looking for help in treating a “family illness.” girls to bring news, provisions and mail), today I received [This is how Marys Bladye, in a letter to his wife, referred a card from Hania. In the card sent July 15, she informs to the deportation to Siberia where Zofia’s brother me that all the meadows have been harvested and she has Stanisław also perished.] The next line in the letter informs received her share. Her open varicose veins have healed, me that she is up and walking around although she still so she is able to work. She misses all of us very much, cannot write, but it does not matter, “Auf Wiedersehen!” complaining about how bad people are and blames them I was full of hope that Winia had already been freed for everything tragic that has happened. She writes that from prison. However, Mieczek’s card of July 13 shattered Mr. Jaworski has repaid an old debt of 30 rubles and Vasyl these hopes. One good thing is that she is still in the Tymchyna, our long time coach driver, added 20 rubles country. She received some clothing and money from to be sent to me. The coach driver’s wife, Hanunia, Hania. Mieczek writes that he is left alone in Lwów supplied sugar and a side bacon for the parcel. The first because Marysia left with Wojciech Schmidt for Warsaw parcel was sent June 18 with the second following on on June 4. She had already confirmed by telegram their July 1. Rumor has it that one parcel is already waiting for successful arrival in Warsaw. [Maria Bladye crossed me in Sarsai. How can I allow myself to think that people illegally the heavily guarded Russian-German are evil? demarcation line to the German-occupied part of Poland. She was led by Franciszek Jerzy Karpiƒski, her future Wednesday, July 31, 1940: at the First Work Gang second husband.] I wonder if she will be settling down On Monday everything started well. Just before we left there permanently and getting a job? There is no news I collected the parcel from Hania in perfect shape. 4 lbs. from Marys [Bladye]. No correspondence gets to or from sugar, 4 lbs. flour, buckwheat, pasta, dry rolls, and more POWs or those arrested. Everyone has someone among than 2 lbs. bacon that was a bit old but good to have. Our them. dear Hania! Also, the parcel from the Janeks [the Baums] At present we are preparing a haroshii tok [a good mud was waiting for me: more sugar, kasha, chai [tea], candies, threshing floor] for storing grain. It requires raking, a small bucket of lard, wheat meal, and corn meal— leveling the ground, watering, covering with straw and everything packed in solid linen sacks. I’m using one of treading down with a mowing machine which runs back them to wrap and carry my bread. The little bucket serves and forth making the surface hard. Finally, when it was me as an eating dish. The high quality canvas wrapping, ready, it was swept clean and prepared for piling grain in which I washed, will serve to carry my bedding. In the large mounds like potatoes back home. Tractors and evening the postman brought me a bumazhka [piece of harvesters break down all the time and as a result the paper] to sign for a third parcel which was already progress of work is painfully slow. The ominous black delivered and is waiting for me at the Szkudłapskis. I clouds started to move in from the west, pushed quickly will collect and unwrap it on Sunday. by a powerful wind blowing dust. I thought those piles of grain would be flooded by a deluge like those we were Thursday, August 1, 1940 twice caught in when we were poisoning gophers, but it On Monday I received a letter from my dear Mieczek all ended with a dry and powerful sand storm. who writes often and about everything. How wonderful it is to have one’s own good child! Unfortunately, the news 912 SARMATIAN REVIEW September 2002 is bad. On July 7 he went [with Jan Baum] to Saturday, August 10, 1940: at the Work Gang Kazimierzowska Street [the infamous Lwów Brigidki Today Genia brought rumors from the farm that America Prison] to hand in a parcel with clothing and money for is beating the Germans. Yesterday we heard that Hamburg Winia. It was rejected without any information. So, it suffered such a heavy bombing that it amounted to means that she has been transferred to another prison or slaughter. German women hung out white flags while the deported to Soviet Russia. . . . men trampled on Nazi swastikas. Others say that England Filip came to see him in Lwów and brought a suitcase is dropping 1000 bombs a day over Germany. The Pope from Tymczyna. Lincia and Genia [Alina Popiel and traveled to America, which supposedly has declared war Eugenia Kulerska, relatives] are with Uncle Zubrzycki in on Germany. I will not believe all these rumors until Kobylniki near Warsaw. Mieczek confirms them. Stefan’s family [Stefan and Irena Kamieƒski, relatives Last Thursday Mrs. Szkudłapska brought a letter from from Lwów] have a lot to worry about. Their old mother him dated July 20. He feels very depressed, fearing is sick and in severe pain; Ewa, their 3-year-old daughter, deportation. He tells me that he wrote to Hania asking her came down with high fever and was unconscious with for his warm fur coat, heavy socks and earmuffs. suspected typhoid fever. . . Immediately I replied to the letter and wrote another to One day recently a card came from Vasyl Tymczyna Professor Bujak [historian, Professor at the Jagiellonian who visited Mieczek in Lwów. He described Mieczek as University in Kraków and Jan Kazimierz University in “very depressed.” When visiting Janów he run into Stefan Lwów/Lviv, and a lifelong friend of her husband, Dr. Jan Kam who has a job there. Dealing with Kam is difficult PtaÊnik] asking him to shelter my son temporarily and as he is like a weasel and impossible to know. then send him to the German-occupied part, possibly to the PtaÊnik family near Kraków, or the Dàbrowskis in Monday, August 5, 1940: at the First Work Gang Jarosław, or to Mrs. Brodowiczowa. . . Saturday evening I went back to the farm and immediately upon arrival, the postman welcomed me with Tuesday, August 13, 1940 a money order for 200 rubles from Janek. They sold I’m sitting at the roadside waiting for a truck heading Marysia’s furniture for 2,250 rubles; a very low price! for the farm. At least half an hour has passed and nothing Now they will gradually be sending money to me. Already has appeared on the horizon. they have supplied me with 500 rubles. This will be enough Every morning for the last few days I have felt strong to survive the winter. pain in my back. I tried, however, to force myself and worked My daily expenses here are small: 90 kopecks for 2 lbs. until evening. Today the pain became unbearable and the bread, sometimes eggs and rarely a needless extravagance overseer excused me from work for a couple of days. like buying perfumes for 4.65 rubles from the prikazhchik [clerk]. Thursday, August 14, 1940: First Farm Finally I unpacked Hania’s second parcel containing a Yesterday I felt unwell, aching all over and had difficulty heavy cotton dress, which will be good for work, a kerchief getting up. Today, after Mrs. Szkudłapska gave me to cover my head, and food. I am indulging myself by massages in the morning and afternoon, the pain eased. I eating sugar from this parcel, hoping to strengthen my wish I could stay back here for some time. Now the work body. gang is winnowing grain from morning till evening which pays very little: 33 kopecks per day. We are being told Tuesday, August 6, 1940 that we are not fulfilling “the norm.” For dinner, supper This is the birthday of our late father [Kajetan and half liter of milk we are charged 1.80–2.20 rubles Małachowski]. Mother Wilczkiewiczowa arrived today daily. Our daily pay is not enough to cover this. Some bringing good news which the driver, a Russian people from our farm are resettled to Sarmorsa where milk Communist, shared with her during the trip. Supposedly and eggs are difficult to come by, especially when so many the Germans are asking for peace, but England does not people arrive at the same time. Mrs. Wilczkiewiczowa want to negotiate until Germany is defeated. Italy has was moved on July 13, Mrs. Radomska and Mrs. surrendered [later added by her: Not true!]. The Germans Dobrowolska yesterday. Today is Mrs. Brewczyƒska’s turn want to withdraw from Poland but “Batko” Stalin is not and nobody cares that her eight-year-old daughter has been willing to return what he got in such an easy way. It is suffering from diarrhea for the last few days. Tomorrow rumored that the German fleet is destroyed. Mrs. Ciesielska will be going with her sick mother and her little daughter Krzysia who has whooping cough and September 2002 SARMATIAN REVIEW 913 diarrhea. Maybe we can stay here for now and then spend Bedbugs keep multiplying at a frightening rate. Last the winter in Sarsai where Józef could get work in the night after an endless struggle and feeling almost eaten blacksmith’s shop. I still hope that things will change for alive, I threw on my coat, grabbed a pillow, blanket and the better. On August 13 Mieczek’s letter of August 3 sheet, and in the light of the full moon walked to the straw arrived. He writes that everybody expects great changes. Hitler stack and there I finally fell asleep . . . Who would have is like a second Napoleon; history may be repeating itself. thought that a widow of a university professor. . . would Mr. Argasiƒski from Niemirów wrote to Józef that be forced to climb a stack of straw during the night to get liberation is near. They expect the collapse of Germany, a few hours of sleep. which is being beaten by Britain both at sea and in the air. (to be continued in the next issue) Italy is waiting for the outcome.

Sunday, August 18, 1940: 22nd anniversary of Letters Marysia’s death Authenticity of document Again I’m hit by diarrhea, so once more to a diet of egg I have recently had an opportunity to read an old issue of whites whipped and added to chilled boiled water. The Sarmatian Review containing a document (allegedly from upravliaiushchii [chairman] is on my back and reminds Bolesław Bierut’s archives) detailing the methods of me that “nado rabotat!” [you have to work!] Yesterday, Communist rule in Poland (SR, XIV:1, January1994, pp. when we were already in bed, a tractor pulled in a trailer 211-213). It does not seem to be authentic. I am familiar full of grain and we were ordered to unload the sacks. with the Bierut Archives, and I do not believe any such On Friday we faced a big problem with the accountant document was found in these Archives. Moreover, in 1947 who arrived drunk in our room and demanded more vodka. no one thought about the mass pollution of aquifers: mass I bought a half liter and Mrs. Szkudłapska started to treat pollution of the environment was not an issue then. It is him to it. With the greatest difficulty we somehow got rid therefore likely that the document is a forgery. of him. He told us that the NKVD instructs them not to Andrzej Paczkowski, Oslo, Norway talk or take anything to eat from Poles fearing the danger Professor Paczkowski is a historian at the Polish Academy of of being poisoned. Vodka was good enough for him Sciences in Warsaw and a ranking member of the Institute of National Memory. Ed. though! In the afternoon Mrs. Szkudłapska left for the work gang to visit with her children. I relaxed in total Jewish members in the right-wing NSZ solitude writing letters to Mrs. Strusiewiczowa [a friend I would like to elaborate on the article by Professor Marek from Wierzbiany], Mieczek and Hania. In her last letter J. Chodakiewicz in the April 2002 issue of the Sarmatian Hania shared bad news with me. Mr. Kuspys has been Review. The author read my master’s thesis and an early arrested and his wife resettled and to add to the disasters draft of my monograph on the National Armed Forces all her things disappeared. She was left only with the (NSZ) during the Warsaw Uprising. However, I have since clothes on her back. A baby was born to the Mirans augmented and revised my work. Therefore, a few [farmers from Szczepłoty]. Hania complains about people clarifications are necessary. who use things that were given to them for safekeeping. First, the information provided by Chodakiewicz on the Even Mr. Jaworski [manager of the mill in Szczepłoty] Jewish insurgents fighting in the ranks of the NSZ is wears Marys’s windbreaker, but to make up for it, he took imprecise. Jewish activist Calel (not Caleb) Perechodnik with him some flour and 100 rubles to Mieczek when joined the 2nd Company “Neda-Kosa” of the 1st Battalion of traveling to Lwów on business. Genia Brewczyƒska just Captain Lech Przystojecki (alias: Lech Îelazny) which was arrived with news from a driver who told her that since formed by the officers and soldiers of the Sword and Plow August 8 all mail exchange between the Soviet Union Movement (Miecz i Pług), subordinated to the Chrobry II and western Ukraine has been suspended. Only mail NSZ-AK Group. It is unclear whether Perechodnik joined posted before August 8 will reach its destination. It simply the Chrobry II by accident or because he was familiar with means that something is happening. There was also talk some of the participants (his Polish comrades were “pre-war at the work gang that because the rabochie [workers] are anti-Semites,” Catholics, and Nationalists). Perechodnik receiving money and food from their families and friends, himself was a Beitarim, or an adherent of the extreme right they do not care about work. I have suspected that such wing Zionist-Revisionist movement. an excuse to stop money and food could face us all. Aside from Perechodnik, there were other Jewish insurgents in the National Armed Forces during the Tuesday, August 20, 1940 Uprising. Chaim Lazar lists over a dozen Jewish soldiers 914 SARMATIAN REVIEW September 2002 of the Chrobry II NSZ-AK (Lazar, Muranowska 7: the the issue further, in mid-July 1944, the far-right Sword Warsaw Ghetto Rising, Tel Aviv, 1966, p. 327). His numbers and Plow Movement joined the NSZ-AK, thus indirectly do not include persons of Jewish background, e.g., Wiktor subordinating itself to the Home Army. When the 1944 Natanson (alias: Humiecki) who fought under Captain Warsaw Uprising broke out, however, the remaining Piotr Zacharewicz (alias: Zawadzki) in the 1st Company minority NSZ-ONR subordinated itself to the majority of the 1st Battalion staffed by the officers and soldiers of NSZ-AK, thus indirectly becoming part of the Home the National Radical Camp, subordinated to the Chrobry Army as well. The National Radicals thus displayed II NSZ-AK Group. Despite his leftist background, Captain political maturity as they temporarily suspended their Roman Born-Bornstein was the chief physician of the oppositionist tendencies for the sake of victory over the Nazis. Chrobry II. There were some insurgents of Jewish Third, the battlefield history in World War II Poland background in the company led by Leonard Kancelarczyk was complicated by the fact that the command of the (alias: Jeremi) from the National Worker’s Movement of National Armed Forces was not informed about the hour the ONR of the 2nd Battalion of the Group. Dozens of and date of the Uprising by the leadership of the Home Jews fought in the ranks of the NSZ Special Motorized Army. Hence, the NSZ failed to mobilize on time. Brigade “Kolo:” Jerzy Zmidygier-Konopka (alias: Por∏ba) Therefore, many NSZ soldiers fought individually in the fought in the NSZ squad of Cadet Officer Tadeusz AK units. We are unable to provide precise statistics, Niezabitowski (alias: Lubicz) in the Gozdawa Group of because they were obliged by previous agreement to keep the Home Army. Zmidygier-Konopka was awarded the their membership in NSZ secret. They posed as the freshly- Cross of Virtuti Militari and the Cross for Bravery before recruited AK soldiers who had not been affiliated with falling on the battlefield on August 25, 1944. any underground group prior to the Uprising. Nonetheless, Further, in the Warsaw command (Okr∏g Warszawa- within a few days after the Uprising broke out, the NSZ Powiaty) of the NSZ there was at least one high-ranking Warsaw command managed to reassemble in the City Jewish officer, Feliks Pisarewski-Parry. Pisarewski-Parry Center. As a result, most of the cohesive units of the NSZ was a member of the Home Army. According to his in the City Center fought under their own unified NSZ memoirs and underground dispatches, he was captured command, which was in turn subordinated to the Home by the Gestapo. A special squad of the NSZ under Captain Army Headquarters. The most notable exception was one Piotr Zacharewicz (alias: Zawadzki) attacked a Nazi of the largest and most audacious insurgent units: the police prisoner convoy and freed him. This was done on Chrobry II Group of the NSZ-AK and NSZ-MiP, which the specific order of Major Mieczysław Osmolski (alias: fought independently of the NSZ Warsaw command, Mikołaj), the commander-in-chief of the Warsaw District taking orders directly from the AK. Meanwhile, other NSZ (Okr∏g Warszawa-Miasto) of the NSZ. Osmolski and officers, who rallied their troops in the districts of Wola Pisarewski-Parry had been closely acquainted before the and the Old Town, also subordinated their units, the Special war: they trained at the same boxing club. After being Motorized Brigade “Koło” in particular, directly to the rescued, Pisarewski-Parry joined the NSZ where he local Home Army command. However, while fighting under worked in the intelligence service. His NSZ rescuers the AK leadership, many of the NSZ, especially the National provided him with the new false identity papers, and they Radicals, continued to stress their separate status. For example, arranged for surgery meant to mis-identify him if he ever when Second Lieutenant Stanisław Tylingo (alias: Bóbr) fell into German hands again. Thus it seems that the was awarded a Virtuti Militari Cross by General Tadeusz relationship between persons of Jewish origin and Polish Komorowski, he declared that he was a soldier of the Nationalists was more nuanced and complicated that the Academic Legion (Legia Akademicka) of the NSZ. current historiography allows. Perhaps the easiest way to explain the relations between Second, I would like to make some clarifications the AK insurgents and their colleagues from the NSZ is concerning the place of the NSZ within the Home Army. to invoke the image of regimental rivalry within the same Following the agreement of March 1944 between the NSZ army. They fought together against the common enemy and AK commands, a minority group led by the National (or, more properly, enemies, since there were two, Hitler Radical Camp (Obóz Narodowo-Radykalny) refused to and Stalin). The AK and the NSZ assisted one another join, while the majority part of the NSZ that was politically without forgetting that there was competition between controlled by the National Party (Stronnictwo Narodowe) them not only for political power after the war but also subordinated itself to the Home Army. They constituted for valor on the battlefield. This sentiment was fully an autonomous force within the Home Army, using on reflected in the opinion of one of the Home Army superior their documents the designation NSZ-AK. To complicate officers who stated at the end of September 1944, only September 2002 SARMATIAN REVIEW 915 the insurgents affiliated with the Polish Socialist Party Announcements and Notes and the National Armed Forces had not succumbed to defeatism (“ze Êrodowisk politycznych wysuwajà si∏ w The Australian Institute of Polish Affairs tych ci∏Ïkich chwilach członkowie NSZ i PPS”). It should has recently celebrated its tenth anniversary. Sarmatian also be stressed that only the Communists remained Review received a commemorative booklet detailing the outside the Polish military fraternity. One only needs to Institute’s activities. Among them are the establishment peruse the clandestine press of the Polish Socialist Party of an annual prize in the amount of $2,000 for the best (PPS) or the liberal Biuletyn Informacyjny of the AK to book on Polish affairs; organizing a series of lectures on realize that the Communists took no interest in liberating Polish affairs delivered by politicians and scholars; and Warsaw from the Nazis. Nonetheless, under Nazi fire, maintaining a Polish-Jewish dialogue in Australia. tactical cooperation between the AK and the miniscule Professor Andrzej S. Ehrenkreutz, formerly of the Communist force did take place and the rank-and-file University of Michigan, played a major role in setting up probably developed soldierly solidarity that transcended the Institute. Our congratulations to him and to other AIPA the ideological boundaries. members. The title of my forthcoming book on these issues is W Before Kochanowski: Old Polish Literature online skier powodzi: NSZ w Powstaniu Warszawskim, 1944 (Into has a new section the Flood: The National Armed Forces during the Warsaw on the Middle Ages containing the Âwi∏tokrzyskie Uprising, 1944). The title invokes the pre-war “Youth Sermons, the Gniezno Sermons, portions of Paweł Anthem” (“Hymn młodych”) sang by the young Włodkowic’s treatise On War and Tolerance, and more. Nationalists and National Radicals to the tune of the It is truly remarkable that Włodkowic wrote the following popular revolutionary song “Warszawianka:” in the late fourteenth/early fifteenth century: “If a non- Christian wants to live peacefully among Christians, he Złoty słoƒca dzieƒ dokoła should not be harmed in any way by word or deed. . . Biały Orzeł wzlata wzwyÏ. Jews in particular should be the beneficiaries of this W gór∏ wznieÊmy dumne czoła, tolerance because our faith and our truth come from their Patrzàc w Polski znak i krzyÏ. books.” Polsce niesiem odrodzenie, Depczàc podłoÊç, fałsz i brud. Poetry links—Everypoet.com W nas mocarne wiosny tchnienie, A new internet site offers a broad range of English- W nas jest przyszłoÊç, language poets and other poets in English translation. Z nami lud. Recently, links to SR’s poetry pages have been added: Naprzód idziem w skier powodzi thus Słowacki, S∏p-Szarzyƒski, and others are now Niechaj wroga przemoc drÏy JuÏ zwyci∏stwa dzieƒ nadchodzi available to those browsing the site . Subscriptions Sebastian Bojemski, Kosciuszko Foundation Fellow, We very much appreciate those subscribers who send in Charlottesville, Virginia checks before the reminder is due. Rest assured that the correct amount will be credited to your account. About the Authors Jolanta Wróbel Best teaches philosophy at the Houston Corrections Community College System. In SR XXII:2 (April 2002), p. 883, a typing mistake Sally Boss is one of the founders of Sarmatian Review. distorted the meaning of the first line, second column in John J. Bukowczyk is Professor of History at Wayne State the Our Take essay. Instead of “preferable to no worship University in Detroit, Michigan, and editor of Polish at all,” it should have read “preferable to any worship at Americans and Their History: Community, Culture, and all.” This typing mistake was corrected in the Web version Politics (1996). of SR. Alex Kurczaba is Associate Professor of Polish at the In the SR Index in the same issue (p. 863), while quoting University of Illinois-Chicago. per Bogna Lorence-Kot is Professor of History at the California the salaries of Polish MPs, we failed to list a monthly College of Arts and Crafts. diem bonus which all MPs receive. It amounts to Zł 2,245, Cyprian Kamil Norwid is a Polish Romantic poet. or about $530. This in addition to the basic salary of $2,240 Zofia PtaÊnik was forced by the Soviets into slave labor in and several other perks. The correct figures in złotys can Kazakhstan where she died of overwork and hunger. be found in Rzeczpospolita, 26 March 2002.