My Boyhood War

by Bohdan Hryniewicz

  At the beginning of December 1941, we heard great news on the radio: America had declared war on Germany. Now everybody believed that the war would soon end, maybe even by the following summer. We also heard of German reverses near Moscow. It sounded like what had happened to Napoleon 130 years before would now happen to Hitler. The bitter Russian winter and the lack of proper winter clothing created a large number of frostbite casualties in the German Army. We started to see convalescing German soldiers without fingers, ears, noses and even eyelids.

  Christmas of 1941 was very subdued and we celebrated with only one guest, Wiktor’s younger cousin Zygmunt, whom I liked. He was a stamp collector and advised and helped me with my collecting. I do not remember any contact with my father. When 1942 started, we did not return to public school. Mother hired a tutor, a young man who had been a student at Warsaw Polytechnic before the war. Tadek Szymanski from across the hall joined us. The three of us had lectures from noon, which allowed us to go skiing in the morning. In addition, we had French lessons twice a week from an older lady in her home. According to my mother, she had a proper ‘Parisian’ accent. Once a week, late on Friday afternoons, a group of boys met clandestinely at the Church of St Casimir. Jesuit priest lectured us on religion and Polish history, subjects that were forbidden in the schools.

  That winter, again, there was no heating coal. Our stock of coal was completely finished. In most cellars, however, there was a deposit of coal dust that had accumulated on the floor over the years. In our case, it was almost 2ft deep. An ingenious somebody was making cast-iron stoves specifically designed to burn coal dust. They were spherical in shape, about 18in in diameter with a hinged cover on top through which the coal dust, previously wetted, was loaded. There was a grate and removable ash box at the bottom. They were installed in front of the opening to the firebox of the tile stoves. They were difficult to light, but once lit they were kept burning around the clock. One had to be careful moving around as these protruding stoves could get red hot.

  Our tutor emphasised mathematics and science. In one of his lectures he talked about the forces created when water changes state from liquid to steam or ice. I decided to conduct experiments to prove his teachings. The first was the expansion of water when it freezes. That one was easy. I took a beer bottle, filled it completely with water, closed the ceramic cork with a rubber washer and placed it outside the window. Next morning, as expected, I found that the bottle was cracked. In the second experiment I planned to prove the force exerted by steam. This was more challenging. I found an empty bottle of mother’s eau de cologne. It was made of very thick glass and had a metal screw top. I half filled it with water and closed the metal top tightly. Accompanied by Andrzej and Tadek, I opened the lid of the potbelly stove in the dining room, where we had lectures, placed the bottle on top of the red-hot coals and closed the lid. We all retired behind the door and waited. Nothing happened for a while. After what I thought was sufficient time I decided to check. I entered the room by myself and lifted the lid of stove with a poker. I saw that the water in the bottle was boiling. I closed the lid and as I turned away the bottle exploded. The noise of the explosion was rather subdued but created a shockwave, alerting mother in her salon. As we were frantically trying to put out the glowing pieces of coal that had fallen on our furniture and carpets, mother’s young assistant arrived to see what had happened. The young lady immediately brought wetted towels that finally stopped the fires. The damage was quite spectacular: the carpet had a multitude of small holes burned through, the furniture likewise had charred black spots and the white gypsum plaster ceiling above the stove was grey with embedded pieces of black coal. There was grey dust everywhere. By the time mother arrived, about half an hour later, the room looked a little bit better. Between our maid, my mother’s assistant and the three of us, the dust was cleared away but the little black holes and spots remained on our furniture and carpet, to say nothing of the ceiling.

  Mother called all three of us and asked for an explanation, zeroing in on me. I told her that it was my idea and why and how I did it. She explained in a stern but quiet tone that I had not exercised good judgment; not only did I cause considerable damage but, more important, I endangered everyone and could have been blinded by the explosion. She let us go saying that we would discuss the matter further. Later that day she told me that she had decided not to punish me, but I had to promise never to conduct any more experiments without first checking with her or Wiktor. I abandoned all future scientific experimentation and directed my efforts to making a slide projector. This project was approved by Wiktor, who also helped. I built a plywood box with an electric bulb inside; it was ventilated so it would not catch fire. I used a magnifying lens from a torch to concentrate the light into a cardboard tube where a second movable lens from a watchmaker’s loupe allowed focusing. I made slides from strips of drafting paper on which I traced figures of Napoleonic soldiers in ink. The projector worked fine but I soon lost interest.

  Some time during the spring, while walking the streets of Wilno, Wiktor found himself approaching a German officer. They recognised each other as they had been close friends when studying at the Vienna Technical University before the war. He was an Austrian drafted into the German Army. He was in charge of the Wilno office of the Große Heeresbaudinstellen, a German Army heavy construction office that constructed facilities for the German Army using local labour. Anybody working for it was issued special ID documents that protected them from casual arrest and gave them more freedom to move around. As a result of this chance meeting, not only Wiktor, but also his cousin Zygmunt, was immediately employed and received the coveted IDs. Later on, several other friends, all members of the Polish Underground, were also employed there.

  6

  The Best Holiday,

  June–August 1942

  Some time in June of 1942 mother arranged for us to spend the summer at the Powidaki Estate, 12.5 miles north-west of Wilno. This large estate belonged to some descendant of my father’s maternal great-grandfather, Zenon Jan Dłuski, who had eight daughters and forty granddaughters. We were told that there would also be three young girls, relatives of the owners. This did not make me happy; I would have much preferred if they had been boys.

  The day of our departure finally arrived. In the late morning a simple one-horse farm wagon pulled into the courtyard. Even though I knew that most of the good riding and carriage horses had been confiscated in the war, I was still hoping for a team of horses with a carriage. After saying our goodbyes, we mounted a wooden bench behind the coachman and went off with a rattle of iron rims on the cobblestones. We crossed the River Wilja by the Green Bridge and started the long climb up Cavalry Street. When we left town, we left the street for the old highway heading north from Wilno, right through Lithuania and on to Latvia. The road was straight and lined with old trees on both sides. It led to the countryside, through rolling hills, farmlands and patches of forest. We saw villages and glimpses of lakes and streams along the way. After about a three-hour drive, we turned into a long straight driveway framed by poplar trees on both sides. The drive stopped at a roundabout with an enormous beech tree in the centre, in front of a manor house. Fifty-two years later, when I returned to Powidaki, that tree was the only recognisable thing left standing. The manor house, its stables, service buildings, poplar trees, park and orchards were all destroyed by the Soviets. This was the case with all the manors in the former Polish territories annexed by Russia in 1944. Russians completely eradicated all Polish presence in what became the Lithuanian, Belarusian and Ukrainian socialist republics.

  As the cart stopped we jumped off and went up the front steps of the manor. The lady of the house met us, a beautiful woman in her late thirties flanked by three young girls a little older than us. We had previously met her in Wilno. We bowed to her and she offered her hand to be kissed, as was the custom, and then introduced us to the girls. After the appropriate bows, curtsies and handshakes were exchanged, we stared at each oth
er in awkward silence. It was broken by the arrival of the maid, who led us to our room. We first entered a large hallway. To the right, through opened double doors, we caught a glimpse of a large living room, to the left the dining room and, at the end of the hall, the stairway to the next floor. We followed the maid upstairs to our room, a large one at one end of the manor, above the short side of the building and overlooking the park. The girls’ room was also upstairs, another large room with a balcony over the front porch.

  The maid showed us where we could clean up, then led us to the kitchen to eat; we had missed our dinner at three o’clock and were quite hungry after our long ride. We then met the housekeeper, a small old woman in black, who had laid out the food for us. Everything was fresh and homemade, and tasted delicious. After that we went to explore the lay of the land, starting with the manor house. It was a large rectangular building typical of the Polish borderlands, about 200 years old, built with heavy logs plastered on both sides and painted white with a wood-shingled roof. There was a large living room with a parquet floor, a richly ornate gypsum ceiling and a tiled heating stove in one corner. There were card tables and seating groups throughout, overlooked by portraits of stern old men and beautiful women. Across the main hallway, the dining room had a huge table surrounded by at least a dozen chairs with more chairs, a serving table and a huge credenza against the walls.

  As soon as we had completed our cursory examination of the manor we made a beeline for the stables, a large masonry building with stalls for about thirty horses and an adjoining carriage house. The stable master told us they only had about fifteen horses left now, about six in the stables and the rest working in the field. All the best horses had been requisitioned by the Polish Army, then the Russians and finally the Germans. The stable master told us to come back the next morning and he’d teach us to ride. We got up the next day at sunrise to start what turned out to be the best summer holiday I ever had. For the next two months we had complete freedom to do whatever we wanted and go wherever we chose, provided we didn’t interfere with or disrupt the farm work. Powidaki was a medium-sized estate, about 500 hectares. Two-thirds was cultivated land and the rest was made up of pastures and forests. The principal crop was grain but potatoes, sugar beets and tobacco were also cultivated.

  The stable master was an older man who had served in the imperial Russian cavalry before and throughout the First World War. After that he had been in the Polish Army during the Polish-Bolshevik War. He was a retired master sergeant of the cavalry. We followed him around while he selected a mare called Old Soviet, bridled her and led her to the paddock. Old Soviet was one of two horses that were somehow acquired from the Russian Army; the other was a younger gelding called Young Soviet. Both were Kazaks, very tough, large ponies accustomed to harsh conditions. They were not used for ploughing but were harnessed to coaches or light wagons, or simply used under the saddle. The stable master told us we first had to learn how to ride bareback before he would put us in a saddle – so we started bareback, holding on to the mane as he led us around the paddock. We eventually progressed to riding independently on bridled horses, and after a couple of weeks were deemed good enough to ride with the men to take the horses to pasture at the end of the day.

  Every evening, after field work, the horses were groomed and taken to the pasture for the night. Everybody rode bareback. Each groom led two or three horses and I usually rode on the outside horse of the leader. From the stable yard a country lane led to the fields and pastures about a mile away. The lane was flanked by ditches, fences, balks, trees and bushes that kept our horses on track. We would leave the barn at a walk at sunset, moving to an extended walk once we got to the lane. As soon as the horses broke into a trot we’d push them into a canter as no one enjoyed bareback trotting. Quite often, as we approached the pastures we would let the horses go and run at a full gallop. The pastures were in lowlands with a stream running through them. There were swarms of mosquitoes so we had to close our mouths and squint our eyes while passing through them. When we finally arrived, the horses were hobbled with rope fetters in the pastures; we quickly mastered that. A man who guarded the horses at night would appear from a lean-to surrounded by smoke from a fire meant to deter mosquitoes. He was a big man who loomed even larger than he was because of his full-length sheepskin cape, black fur turned to the outside. He was always smoking a smelly cigarette made from weeds rolled in newspaper, also meant to keep the mosquitoes at bay. After some brief banter, the grooms and us boys would walk home as night fell.

  As a result of all this bareback riding my inner thighs developed big, painful scabs. After a few evenings the sores became quite uncomfortable so I decided to ease my pain by switching my sitting position, a trick I had seen done in the movies by Cossacks and Indians. I shifted my lower body to the right while leaning to the left in such a way that the crook of my left knee supported my body over the horse. This worked for a while but when the horse broke into a full gallop I started to lose my grip and slipped off. Luckily, I managed to thrust myself into a ditch to avoid being trampled by the horses behind me; the last groom stopped and helped me remount. The next morning the housekeeper took me to her room, made me drop my trousers, and dressed my scabs with some evil smelling poultice that was very effective.

  The old sergeant was a very good instructor and over the next two months we really learned to ride. Whenever we could, we would ride bareback. We loved to take the horses to the lake and swim holding their tails. Whenever any riding horse was available, we would saddle him up and go. But I still loved our evening bareback rides to the pasture and the walk back with the grooms the best.

  During that summer we spent most of our time following farm hands working on the estate. They were very difficult times since all agricultural products were controlled by the Germans and every estate and farm had to supply them with a crippling amount of crops and livestock. At the same time, shortages made it difficult to obtain the supplies necessary to run the estate efficiently. The owner actively ran the estate and spent most of his time supervising work in the fields, assisted by his younger brother, Marek. Most of our interactions were with Marek. He was a reserve cadet officer in the cavalry and had been about to start university when the war broke out. He managed to avoid POW camp and made his way to his brother’s estate. Throughout the summer he would disappear unexpectedly for days at a time, most probably something to do with the underground. The foreman, who lived in a czworaki (quadraplex) next to the manor, also took us under his wing. Altogether, there were eight families living there but only six included men as two had not returned from the 1939 campaign. The rest of the workers came from a nearby village of the same name as the estate, Powidaki. The field work followed the seasons. When we arrived, they were still ploughing some fields in preparation for sowing wheat for the autumn. Dogs always followed the ploughs, waiting for nests of field mice to be unearthed so they could gobble up the little babies. Not really any different from what was going on throughout Europe at the time, the strong devouring the helpless. Haying was next. Grass was cut and laid out in the meadows to dry, then raked into large haystacks mostly by women. The hay was then loaded onto wagons stacked very high; a wooden pole was placed on top and tied down. We would climb on top of the hay and ride to the barn. After it was unloaded, the ride back was great fun as the horses were driven fast. The empty wagon would sway and jump up and down on the country lanes and fields as the pair of horses broke from a canter into a gallop.

  Throughout the night many of the young farm hands and girls slept on the hay in the barn. One night we decided to join them. We arrived carrying our bedding to the amazement of everybody there. It was probably the first time someone from the manor had ever joined them. There was a lot of bumping, ribbing and teasing amongst the men and women, but as night fell the bustle died down. I fell asleep to rustling, murmuring, giggling and other noises that I couldn’t identify then.

  Tobacco was grown in a nearby field. By that time we
had already experimented a few times with cigarettes. I convinced Andrzej that we should try again. We went to the fields, broke off a few large green tobacco leaves and dried them in the attic. When they turned yellow we chopped them up and rolled them with newspaper into cigar-sized cigarettes. We sat facing each other and lit them. We coughed and gagged while we smoked them until the bitter end as neither of us wanted to appear chicken. We both got sick after that and I never smoked again. In the middle of August the wheat harvest began. On the first day, as tradition dictated, the owner led his men carrying a scythe. He started at the corner of the field, cutting a wide swath into the grain. As soon as he had moved a few feet, he was followed by the men behind him, the entire staggered line of ten to fifteen men moved forward with slow, measured strokes. They would stop from time to time to re-sharpen their scythes or take a drink of water brought to them by the younger boys. The men were followed by women who used sickles to scrape the fallen grain into piles, which were bundled into sheaves and stacked together. We helped with the stacking. Work continued from early morning until evening, day after day, interrupted only for the noon meal brought out by the older women or children. When the grain stacked in the fields was sufficiently dry it was transported to the barn. Again, we would ride on the fully loaded wagons, help unload the goods and return at high speed. Summer passed very quickly. Besides our forays into the fields, riding horses, swimming in the lake, fishing and picking wild berries and mushrooms, we also watched stallions covering mares, and the village blacksmiths shoe horses and replace the iron rings on cart wheels. We had a great time and to our dismay it passed quickly. At the beginning of September we returned home.