Life in the city started to return to quasi-normality. The Russians formed a new administration and militia, which replaced the Polish police. Our school reopened with the same Polish teachers and books but more crowded classes. A few weeks after we went back to school, my brother started to complain about a pain in his knee. Mother examined his leg and found nothing more than a small black mark on the upper part of his right knee, so she told him to go to bed. I woke up early next morning while it was still dark, to the sound of Andrzej sobbing quietly. He showed me his knee, which by then was very swollen and red. Mother immediately sent Pola to get a droshky (carriage) and took him to the hospital, where he was operated on right away. His knee was opened from both sides and a drain was inserted through it. He had a very serious infection and was on the verge of getting gangrene. As the hospital was overcrowded with war casualties there were shortages of medical supplies and medicines, including sulfa powder, which my mother found on the black market. In the days before penicillin and antibiotics, this was the only medicine against infection. My mother and Pola took turns staying with Andrzej in the hospital. Every few hours a nurse would come and pull back and forth on the drain that went through his knee to keep the wounds from scabbing over. It was very painful. After a few days, when the drains were removed, Andrzej came home sporting scars two inches long and half an inch wide on each side of his knee. Eventually he told us what happened. One morning at school, before the teacher arrived, some boys were playing with peashooters. Andrzej held a pen with a steel nib dipped in ink between his teeth and as he instinctively ducked to avoid being shot, he had jammed the steel nib into his knee.
In October we started to hear rumours that the Russians would give Wilno to Lithuania. At the same time they started very openly to remove and cart away all manner of equipment, machinery, furniture and art from office buildings, universities and private residences. One day, coming from school I watched as all the merchandise was removed from a very large, five-storey department store of the Jabłkowski Brothers. I saw trucks full of upright pianos, radios, furniture, carpets, all being carted away and taken to the railway station. In the last week of October, as the Russian Army started to move out, the NKWD intensified its arrest of prominent Poles, who were then all shipped to Russia. I watched convoys of military trucks loaded with equipment and soldiers, confiscated city buses with officers’ families, guns and tanks all moving out. The same tanks that I first saw six weeks before were now rumbling through the streets of Wilno on their way out of town.
3
Lithuanian Annexation, 28 October 1939–17 June 1940
The day the Lithuanian Army entered Wilno, 28 October 1939, was overcast and gloomy under a light drizzle. Later, a parade was held. Just as they had before the war, troops marched down our street and under our balcony to Cathedral Square. We all watched, including our father, who had come back from the country house. The previous few weeks, when the Russians were here, he visited us a few times during the day, always using the kitchen entrance and wearing simple workman’s clothes. Parading Lithuanian troops, infantry, cavalry and horse artillery looked almost like the Polish Army, which had very similar uniforms in the same khaki colour. The only differences were their German helmets and double-breasted officers’ overcoats. The departure of the Russians and arrival of the Lithuanians brought immediate relief to the city. The fear of the Russian secret police (NKVD), arrests and deportations abated. There was also an immediate improvement in the food supply; there were no more shortages. Lithuania had a very advanced agriculture geared towards export. The two principal co-operatives, Miastas for meat products and Pienocentras for milk products, immediately opened several very well-stocked shops. However, the problem was that those stores accepted only Lithuanian currency – litai. Before banks started to exchange a very small amount of old Polish currency (equivalent to £4 per family), only the newly arrived Lithuanians were able to shop there. Father found enough litai in his box of foreign coins to buy some wonderful fresh ham.
After the arrival of the Lithuanians, uncle Karol appeared dressed as a labourer. He had avoided capture by the Germans and the Russians and made his way to our country place when the Russians were still there. When I finally got him to myself I bombarded him with questions: how many Germans had he killed, how many tanks he had destroyed, what had happened to Rex, and on and on. Well, to my great disappointment Rex was not a hero. At the beginning of the second week of war, when they were under heavy artillery shelling, Rex ran away. He ran from the edge of the woods where my uncle and his troops were in position, through the open fields, towards a village where the Germans were. Through his binoculars my uncle later saw Rex on a leash led by a German officer. I was hurt that Rex was not only a coward but a traitor too. My uncle said that German superiority in the number of troops, tanks and planes made fighting very difficult. Nevertheless, the Polish Army fought well and bravely, inflicting heavy casualties on the Germans. In the engagement where Rex ran away, the dismounted cavalrymen destroyed several German tanks with their 37mm Bofors anti-tank guns. In the same engagement, uncle ambushed and destroyed three German trucks loaded with troops in his armoured car. The accompanying armoured car with its machine gun inflicted heavy losses on German soldiers. Eventually, all eight of his armoured cars were lost. The Poles were making a fighting withdrawal towards Hungary when the Russians entered from the east. My uncle and some of his soldiers managed to escape and avoid capture, making their way to Wilno. He holed up in our country house with my father and one other officer.
Life started to return to normal except that now, instead of the white and red Polish flag, a very large yellow, red and green Lithuanian flag flew from the tower on Castle Hill visible from our bedroom windows. Mother reopened her beauty salon. Pola no longer had a problem buying food as the shops were full once again. More and more Lithuanians moved into Wilno, taking over the administration of the city. A very aggressive policy of de-Polonisation began in the city. Lithuanian was made the official language and all the streets where renamed in Lithuanian. Wilno University, the second oldest in Poland, was closed. Many Polish university teachers were laid off and Lithuanians took their place. This influx of Lithuanians, combined with the thousands of Polish refugees who arrived in September, created overcrowding and shortages of accommodation. The Lithuanian administration started to requisition rooms in private dwellings. One of our rooms, the one with the balcony, was taken over for a Lithuanian teacher. She turned out to be quite pleasant, spoke Polish and created no problems.
The capital of Lithuania was transferred from Kaunas to Wilno (Vilnius), bringing with it embassies of neutral nations, opening a window of escape to the West. Under pressure from Germany, men of military age (between 18 and 50) were not allowed the necessary permits to leave Lithuania. Mother used her professional skills to make some Polish officers look either younger or older. Her success rate with the ‘older’ group was 100 per cent but not so good with the younger. Most of them made their way through Sweden and joined the Polish Armed Forces in France.
Two months after the Lithuanians arrived, their government made sweeping changes in all schools and we were assigned to a different one. Half of the Polish teachers were laid off and substituted with Lithuanians. There were more classes every day, including intensive Lithuanian lessons, as well as Lithuanian history and geography, taught in Lithuanian. Teaching of the Polish language was greatly reduced. Lithuanian is a Baltic language with no similarity to Polish. What especially irked everybody was the forcible change in our names to correspond with Lithuanian. I, Bohdan Hryniewicz became Bohdanas Hryniewičius. We all tried to rebel against this change. We had one young male teacher who was very chauvinistic. Any infraction of the rules, such as speaking in Polish during his class, or giving our names in the Polish version, had been immediately and harshly punished. His favourite punishment was to have a boy stand in front of him with both hands covering his eyes while he snapped a heavy rubber band into his nose. I can
attest that the pain was quite excruciating.
The first Christmas of the war arrived. There was no joy and all festivities were very subdued. During Christmas time a letter came from mother’s older brother, Stefan, postmarked from Portugal. Before the war he was in the Polish Air Force Reserve and was mobilised. Poland managed to evacuate a large portion of Air Force personnel through Hungary to France, where the Polish Armed Forces where re-formed. He wrote this letter from France. It was mailed through the Red Cross and postmarked in Portugal because France was a belligerent nation.
As soon as snow began to fall we started skiing again. Now we skied on Three Crosses Hill. It took us about fifteen minutes of cross-country skiing through parks to get there. There were no lifts. We walked up the hill for ten to twenty minutes in order to ski down in three to five. We built small jumps and started learning to jump. It was a lot of exercise and a lot of fun.
We dreaded the return to school because of the tension between us Polish students and the Lithuanian teachers. We particularly hated the teacher who used rubber bands on our noses and we all wanted our revenge. One fine spring day we got it. This teacher was always elegantly dressed and on this day he was sporting a new white linen summer suit. We had previously noticed that upon entering the classroom he usually sat down on his chair without looking at it. His chair had a dark brown concave plywood seat. During the break between classes we poured ink on the chair seat. He entered staring at us sternly and sat down without looking. As we watched him he started to wiggle, and got up touching his backside. The look of rage and horror on his face, when he brought his hand to his eyes, more than compensated for our previous suffering. Unfortunately, this prank had severe repercussions. All parents were given heavy penalties for our bad behaviour.
The first half of 1940, the second year of the war, destroyed our hopes that the war would end soon. Instead of an imagined French offensive that would defeat Germany, the opposite happened. The complete collapse of France made us realise that the war would go on much longer. Nevertheless, everybody still believed that Germany would be defeated and Poland would be independent again. The only consolation was that our national honour was preserved since France, with a much larger army and helped by the British, did not last much longer in May–June 1940 than Poland had in September 1939.
While the world’s attention was occupied with France, Stalin took over all the Baltic states. On 17 June 1940, Russian troops entered Wilno for the second time. A few days later, on 22 June, France capitulated.
4
Return of the Soviet Occupation,
17 June 1940–22 June 1941
The entry of Soviet troops to Wilno did not go according to plan. The troops entered the city from several directions and were supposed to meet at the Green Bridge over the Wilja and continue towards the interior of Lithuania. A tremendous bottleneck formed at the bridge. Several units arrived at the same time, each trying to force its way first. The tanks were forcing their way through horse-drawn artillery, the cavalry through the infantry. Nobody wanted to give way to the others. It took some time for the officers to establish order and the units to start moving on again. The appearance of the soldiers was worse than when they came the first time in September 1939. Soldiers in the same unit were dressed in different uniforms and hats. The equipment looked uncared for. The Russian troops disappeared into the barracks. From then on, a solitary Russian soldier was never seen on the streets of Wilno. From time to time a unit would march through the streets singing. Once I saw a Russian platoon marching with the officer leading and the sergeant behind him. Hanging by a string from the sergeant’s neck was a large alarm clock.
On the surface there were no noticeable changes; Lithuanian police were still on the streets and in charge while Lithuanian soldiers wore their same uniforms and insignias. The NKVD arrived but kept a low profile. There were no mass arrests, apart from some prominent Poles. The arrival of the Soviets terminated our school year. And again I barely managed to complete Year 4.
After the Russians gave Wilno to the Lithuanians, father returned from our country house to the apartment. This arrangement did not last long and he moved back to the country. His return visits to the city were becoming less and less frequent. There was also a visible change in the interaction between our parents, much colder and more restrained. That did not seem to bother me; I did not feel much closeness to my father, only to mother. Andrzej, on the other hand, was definitely affected. When the summer of 1940 started we did not go to our country house. Instead we played with our school friends in town. We reconnected with the Kulczyński brothers, who were now living in town with their mother. They had not heard from their father since he left for the September 1939 campaign. At the end of July, mother told us that we would stay with father in the country for the rest of the summer. We packed our knapsacks and when father came we left immediately with him. He told us that we would not take a train but would walk instead. It was not far, slightly more than four miles. This visit to the country was no longer fun. Neither Kulczyński nor the Misiewicz boys were there. Staś Slusarski had to work on the farm as his father had not returned from the September 1939 campaign. Father was working on his garden, orchard, beehives and a new venture of raising rabbits. He was occupied all the time. We were asked to help and were assigned different tasks, removing weeds, picking fruit and vegetables, collecting grass for the rabbits. The fun and gaiety of pre-war summers was not there anymore. After three weeks, and well before the summer was over, I wanted to return home and father walked us back to the city.
The autumn of 1940 brought many changes to Wilno. The independent country of Lithuania ceased to exist but, together with Latvia and Estonia, became a Soviet socialist republic: the Lithuanian SSR. The Lithuanian police were transformed into a Russian-style militia. In place of the previous operetta-style uniforms, which had earned them the sobriquet kalakutas (turkeys), they were now wearing Russian navy blue uniforms. Their ranks were swelled with Russians and Belarusians. Lithuanian soldiers wore their same uniforms but now sported red stars on their caps. Shortly thereafter, they disappeared from the streets of Wilno altogether. There was a large influx of Russians and their families. There were officers, government officials and NKVD. Many Lithuanians started to return, including the teacher who used to live in our requisitioned room. Instead of her, we got two young Russian officers with their wives. Our large dining room was divided into a passageway and two small rooms, by a 7ft high partition that left a 3ft space beneath the ceiling. I imagined the Russians were used to the lack of privacy. They turned out to be very pleasant and well-behaved people. Since mother was fluent in Russian there was no problem with communication. The young wives asked mother’s advice on how to dress and behave. They lived with us for almost a year without any problems. Individually and in private, Russian people can be very warm and hospitable. Russian women, the wives of officers and officials, started coming to mother’s beauty salon. One of them was the wife of an Air Force colonel. She and her husband were cultured and educated people from the upper classes of old Imperial Russia. They were saved from the purges by his degree in aeronautical engineering. Once they became friendly with mother, in the privacy of our apartment, they told her what life was like in Stalinist Russia.
At the end of the summer, when we returned from the country, we had found a new housekeeper. I missed Pola and never warmed to the new housekeeper. She was not a typical maid from the countryside, but an educated woman whose husband had been arrested and deported to Russia in 1939. The other big change was school. Once again we were assigned to a new school, even further away. The Russian model was now imposed. The Lithuanianisation of Polish students was replaced by Soviet indoctrination and Lithuanian was no longer the sole language of instruction. Instead, classes were taught in Polish, Lithuanian, Russian or Yiddish, depending on the location and student body of the school. We were pleased with this change; however, we still had to take both Lithuanian and Russian as a second language.
We even had to learn the ‘Internationale’ in Lithuanian, which we were required to sing practically every day. To this day I still remember, in Lithuanian, the opening verse of this Anthem of International Socialism:
Stand up, damned of the earth,
Stand up, prisoners of starvation …
Our new school was farther away in a different part of the city, with predominantly working-class children. It was part of the social engineering programme in the new Socialistic Republic to disperse the children of the bourgeoisie. All of us kids got along quite well, being united as Poles. The authorities tried to introduce Pioneers, an entry organisation to Komsomol, the youth organisation of the Communist Party, without success. The few boys who joined were tormented whenever they appeared in their white shirts and red kerchiefs. The arrival of the Russians brought several diseases: typhus, cholera and dysentery. There was even talk about cases of the plague. We all got vaccinated against cholera at school. I had a severe reaction, my arm swelled up, became very tender and I ran a very high fever. Shortly after, I became quite ill with bloody dysentery; it was not fun. I was prescribed opiates, burned toast, boiled flaxseeds and apple sauce made on a glass grater. I made a quick recovery.
We started skiing again when winter came. The winter of 1940 was not as severe as 1939, one of the coldest on record. All the Polish coal mines were in Silesia, annexed by Germany, which caused a tremendous shortage. The lack of fuel created great hardships. We were lucky because father had arranged for a larger shipment of coal to be delivered to our cellar in the summer of 1939. It was enough to last for two winters.
Father came by, on the morning of 24 December, bringing Christmas presents for Andrzej and me. After we opened our gifts, he left and we did not see him for the rest of the Christmas holidays. Our parents divorced in March of 1941.
My Boyhood War Page 3