Excerpt From an Old Man's Journal
June 25th 2006
It has been a long time since I have written in my journal, which bothers me but it is becoming more and more difficult to type with my arthritis. I finally had to give up the cane and use one of those walkers that I used to laugh at when I saw other older people using them. We had a small celebration for my 77th birthday last week. Most all of the grandkids came and all of my beloved children came, even after all these years.
I was born in a small village outside of Krakow, Poland in 1929 and though I am an American citizen I will always think of Poland as home. Times were very tough and the standard of living was very low as I was growing up. We were poor but everyone else my family knew was poor as well. We barely made ends meet and had to do everything on our own. We grew our own food and occasionally we had meat, but that was a luxury.
I was ten years old when Hitler’s Panzer divisions came rolling into my homeland to enslave us and start taking the initial steps of his genocide. Americans always seem to remember the 6,000,000 Jews that were exterminated by Hitler but they never mention that 1/3rd of the Polish population was killed between 1939 and 1945. I will always remain bitter about this. Poles area very proud people and we have a very rich history that the Americans don’t seem to care much about. Today in America there are almost 9,00,000 poles (US Census Bureau, Census 2000)
I witnessed horrible atrocities while in Poland. Beatings, hangings, decapitations and other terrible things I won’t go into. I was just a young boy but I remember it all very well, you do not ever forget trauma like that. We were caught between the Russians and the Germans and I’m not sure which of the two were barbaric.
By the end of the war I was 16 years old, with no family remaining, some of them had been hauled off to extermination camps and were never heard from again, I was so confused and lost. I had no real skills other than raw physical labor. I had almost no money. There were very few jobs and wages were extremely low and I did not know what to do. A distant cousin of mine, who left Poland before the war had immigrated to America and he wrote me a letter late in 1945. He talked about things I could not imagine. America was the land of the free and the brave and anyone who was willing to work hard could make enough money to support him and even a family. He worked in the coal mines in West Virginia, he said it was dangerous but the pay was good and the man who owned the company was a decent honest man and assured me I could get a job there if I could find a way to the United States.
I looked around me at the Poland of 1945 and thought of the many wondrous things my cousin described and made a decision that I will never regret. I simply had to get to America. I had already witnessed the tyranny of evil men, I had already felt the heat from the flames of hell, and I was more than ready for a better life.
That better life brought me to America; it was long and difficult journey because I had little money and had to find my way to a major port. I was allowed passage on a ship in exchange for working the entire trip. I washed dishes, cooked, mopped floors and helped out with the maintenance of the ship. I knew nothing of ships but I made it to that great land of America, I will never forget pulling into New York Harbor and seeing Manhattan Island. Everything looked so perfect and peaceful and I could see the prosperity and happiness in the eyes of the people.
In time I did make it down to West Virginia and lived with my Cousin, his wife and two children and went to work in the coal mines. I was young and naïve but I was good with math and knew that I would be able to buy a house and live on my own after only a few months of work, and the company that I worked for even helped me make a down payment and loaned me money to buy a house. I was still young and single I didn’t need a big house, but opportunity was so rampant that I bought a two story house with 3 bedrooms in it. I could not believe it. America truly was the land of opportunity and everything my cousin had told me was true. Sitting in war torn Poland it almost seemed too good to be true, but it was all true. I count my blessings
I eventually married the daughter of another Polish Immigrant who worked with me. That big house came in Handy and we had 4 wonderful children in 6 years. We have 11 grandchildren and one on the way now. I have been an American citizen for 40 years and consider myself American but I still consider myself a Pole. I speak my native language with anyone who speaks it as well. The kids today don’t respect the traditions and customs of the old Poland I knew, they don’t even bother to learn the language. They don’t care for the traditional food of our people and the recipes that have been passed down through dozens of generations in my family mean nothing to them. This hurts me, but I am old enough to know that change is inevitable.
I cannot envision what course my life would have taken if I had remained in Poland. Life in America was very easy and comfortable but there were still ill feelings towards us from some people. Jokes were told behind our backs, and everyone seemed to believe that the Poles were inferior to other groups intellectually.
I had witnessed all of those horrible things before I came to America and they were very troubling to me, I needed to talk about them, get them out and share with others the horrible things that happened. I wanted to talk about losing almost my entire family to the genocide that occurred then, but no one in America wanted to talk about those things, they didn’t want to hear about those things at all. Everyone wanted to just move on and act as if it had not happened. It’s been many years now, and still no one here cares about the ramblings of an old Polish man.
I worked in the same mine for the same man for 42 years and retired very nicely, I would never have had these opportunities had I stayed in Poland. But all the old ways that I cherish, the food, the language, the traditional song and dance that helped us all make it through the hard times mean nothing to the younger generations. I looked through my grandson’s World History text book just last week and there was very little information about Poland or its history. There were a lot of charts and graphs and information about agriculture, infant mortality rates and things like that, but almost nothing was said about the things that I witnessed. Man truly is the some of all his parts and those are the most powerful parts of me, and no one seems to care. Sometimes I want to cry but I am an old man and I have to be strong just as it always has been.
I long for a day when America will recognize what I and millions of other went through. I long for a day when someone reasonably educated want to hear about what it was like for me. I long for a day that I know will never come.
It has been a long time since I have written in my journal, which bothers me but it is becoming more and more difficult to type with my arthritis. I finally had to give up the cane and use one of those walkers that I used to laugh at when I saw other older people using them. We had a small celebration for my 77th birthday last week. Most all of the grandkids came and all of my beloved children came, even after all these years.
I was born in a small village outside of Krakow, Poland in 1929 and though I am an American citizen I will always think of Poland as home. Times were very tough and the standard of living was very low as I was growing up. We were poor but everyone else my family knew was poor as well. We barely made ends meet and had to do everything on our own. We grew our own food and occasionally we had meat, but that was a luxury.
I was ten years old when Hitler’s Panzer divisions came rolling into my homeland to enslave us and start taking the initial steps of his genocide. Americans always seem to remember the 6,000,000 Jews that were exterminated by Hitler but they never mention that 1/3rd of the Polish population was killed between 1939 and 1945. I will always remain bitter about this. Poles area very proud people and we have a very rich history that the Americans don’t seem to care much about. Today in America there are almost 9,00,000 poles (US Census Bureau, Census 2000)
I witnessed horrible atrocities while in Poland. Beatings, hangings, decapitations and other terrible things I won’t go into. I was just a young boy but I remember it all very well, you do not ever forget trauma like that. We were caught between the Russians and the Germans and I’m not sure which of the two were barbaric.
By the end of the war I was 16 years old, with no family remaining, some of them had been hauled off to extermination camps and were never heard from again, I was so confused and lost. I had no real skills other than raw physical labor. I had almost no money. There were very few jobs and wages were extremely low and I did not know what to do. A distant cousin of mine, who left Poland before the war had immigrated to America and he wrote me a letter late in 1945. He talked about things I could not imagine. America was the land of the free and the brave and anyone who was willing to work hard could make enough money to support him and even a family. He worked in the coal mines in West Virginia, he said it was dangerous but the pay was good and the man who owned the company was a decent honest man and assured me I could get a job there if I could find a way to the United States.
I looked around me at the Poland of 1945 and thought of the many wondrous things my cousin described and made a decision that I will never regret. I simply had to get to America. I had already witnessed the tyranny of evil men, I had already felt the heat from the flames of hell, and I was more than ready for a better life.
That better life brought me to America; it was long and difficult journey because I had little money and had to find my way to a major port. I was allowed passage on a ship in exchange for working the entire trip. I washed dishes, cooked, mopped floors and helped out with the maintenance of the ship. I knew nothing of ships but I made it to that great land of America, I will never forget pulling into New York Harbor and seeing Manhattan Island. Everything looked so perfect and peaceful and I could see the prosperity and happiness in the eyes of the people.
In time I did make it down to West Virginia and lived with my Cousin, his wife and two children and went to work in the coal mines. I was young and naïve but I was good with math and knew that I would be able to buy a house and live on my own after only a few months of work, and the company that I worked for even helped me make a down payment and loaned me money to buy a house. I was still young and single I didn’t need a big house, but opportunity was so rampant that I bought a two story house with 3 bedrooms in it. I could not believe it. America truly was the land of opportunity and everything my cousin had told me was true. Sitting in war torn Poland it almost seemed too good to be true, but it was all true. I count my blessings
I eventually married the daughter of another Polish Immigrant who worked with me. That big house came in Handy and we had 4 wonderful children in 6 years. We have 11 grandchildren and one on the way now. I have been an American citizen for 40 years and consider myself American but I still consider myself a Pole. I speak my native language with anyone who speaks it as well. The kids today don’t respect the traditions and customs of the old Poland I knew, they don’t even bother to learn the language. They don’t care for the traditional food of our people and the recipes that have been passed down through dozens of generations in my family mean nothing to them. This hurts me, but I am old enough to know that change is inevitable.
I cannot envision what course my life would have taken if I had remained in Poland. Life in America was very easy and comfortable but there were still ill feelings towards us from some people. Jokes were told behind our backs, and everyone seemed to believe that the Poles were inferior to other groups intellectually.
I had witnessed all of those horrible things before I came to America and they were very troubling to me, I needed to talk about them, get them out and share with others the horrible things that happened. I wanted to talk about losing almost my entire family to the genocide that occurred then, but no one in America wanted to talk about those things, they didn’t want to hear about those things at all. Everyone wanted to just move on and act as if it had not happened. It’s been many years now, and still no one here cares about the ramblings of an old Polish man.
I worked in the same mine for the same man for 42 years and retired very nicely, I would never have had these opportunities had I stayed in Poland. But all the old ways that I cherish, the food, the language, the traditional song and dance that helped us all make it through the hard times mean nothing to the younger generations. I looked through my grandson’s World History text book just last week and there was very little information about Poland or its history. There were a lot of charts and graphs and information about agriculture, infant mortality rates and things like that, but almost nothing was said about the things that I witnessed. Man truly is the some of all his parts and those are the most powerful parts of me, and no one seems to care. Sometimes I want to cry but I am an old man and I have to be strong just as it always has been.
I long for a day when America will recognize what I and millions of other went through. I long for a day when someone reasonably educated want to hear about what it was like for me. I long for a day that I know will never come.
posted by Schizoid at 11:14 AM
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