My Boyhood War

by Bohdan Hryniewicz

  The post-war agreement concluded in Potsdam on August 1945 by the Big Three, Stalin, Truman and Churchill, established the provisional western border of Poland on the Oder–Neisse line, which included Szczecin. The Potsdam Agreement provided for the expulsion of the German population from Poland, including from the newly acquired German lands, Czechoslovakia and Hungary.

  From the day the Russian Army arrived, they raped much of the female population, sometimes without distinguishing between Germans or Poles. To Russians soldiers, rape was not a crime, but an act of revenge for German crimes committed in Russia. When we arrived in Szczecin the city was called The Wild West. Bands of AWOL Russian soldiers roamed around, German soldiers, mostly SS and RONA, were hiding from the Russian authorities and Polish criminals were busy looting and raping. During the daytime, the Polish military together with Milicja patrols managed to maintain control. Night-time was dangerous and filled with the sounds of shots being fired, feet running, calls for help and the glow of fires. The Russians brought three battalions of NKVD troops, who exterminated the gangs.

  After searching for a few days, mother and I found a large abandoned second-floor apartment at 11 Piastów Avenue. It was perfect for mother. The apartment fronted onto a wide avenue and was within a block or two of other streets that were becoming desirable commercial streets. Damage was slight; there were feathers on the bedroom floors, some smashed furniture, broken china on the kitchen floor and a few ‘calling cards’ left on the floor by defecating Russian soldiers. Most of the window glass was intact. On the door we nailed a red and white postcard-sized cardboard notice showing a Polish eagle and the wording Zajęte przez Polaka (Occupied by a Pole). Mother registered our new home with the Polish City Administration and that completed the ownership process.

  I started the third year of gimnazium on 2 September 1945. Only two Polish schools had opened; both were in the same building. The elementary school had about 250 children, the secondary school 250 co-ed students.

  I located the recently opened Boy Scout headquarters. There I met Roman Jurgens, whose family had returned from Germany, where they had worked as forced labourers. Roman was already appointed to lead the first troop to be formed in the combined schools. I was appointed second in command. In a short time we organised a troop of forty Boy Scouts. At the same time, a group of girl guides was also formed.

  Mother’s salon was doing quite well. Our apartment was located in an upper-class residential area reminiscent of Paris. There were three consecutive multi-street intersections in the pattern of Haussmann’s Paris. The first, half a block away, was referred to as Plac Sztywnych (Square of the Stiff Ones). The name mocked the Russian cemetery recently established in the garden section of the square. Only officers were buried there. All their graves were marked by wooden obelisks topped by red stars. Once, hearing martial music, I went there and saw a Russian funeral cortège preceded by a military band and followed by an honour guard. Once the coffin was lowered into the ground, and speeches were made, the command ‘Fire’ was given. A ragged volley sounded, followed by white torn newspaper confetti floating down over the honour guard. The salute was repeated twice more to increasing laughter and derision from the spectators. The Russians clearly had no blank ammunition and removed bullets from their cartridges, sealing the casings with wadding made from pieces of newspaper.

  The period 1945–46 was a time of mass migration in Central Europe. When we arrived, in August, there had been 70,000 Germans and 12,000 Poles in Szczecin. Germans from all parts of Pomerania were directed to the border railway station of Szczecin-Gumience. The Allies approved the plan for the German expulsion from Polish territories. The newly formed ‘Combined Repatriation Executive’ was in charge. Under this arrangement two railway routes were opened to the British Zone of Occupation. A British military mission arrived. The transports were protected by Polish frontier guard troops to prevent the Russian soldiers’ excesses. Father was in charge of rail transportation. He told me that more than a quarter of a million Germans left then.

  Meanwhile, an influx of new Polish population arrived from several directions. First were the Poles from central Poland trying to find a new place to live. Most had lost all they had during the war. They were the largest group, over 50 per cent. Second were the Poles repatriated from eastern Poland, which had been given to Russia. Those arriving in Szczecin were predominantly from Wilno and north-eastern Poland; they represented a third of the new arrivals. Both groups came by train. The last group were Poles returning from Germany: forced labourers and prisoners of war. They arrived in British Army trucks. By the middle of November hundreds of thousands of repatriated Poles had arrived. In the spring of 1946 the British Army continued to bring Polish POWs from camps in Lübeck. Once a week, a convoy of twenty to thirty British Army trucks arrived. I was asked to be a guide and interpreter for the English captain in charge. He and I communicated in French. Once a week, for the following two months, I left school mid-morning and spent the rest of the day riding in his jeep. The convoy overnighted and returned empty the next day. After several trips the British captain asked me about the shootings and fires during the night. I explained the problems created by the Russian soldiers. I said that the situation had improved in the past few months, but I wasn’t sure that he believed me. A few weeks later, with the arrival of a new convoy, a Milicja officer arrived at the Państwowy Urząd Repatriacyjny PUR office (State Office of Repatriation) and wanted the British captain to see what they had discovered that morning. I translated and the captain said, ‘Let’s go.’ The police officer jumped into the jeep and directed us to the edge of a small park nearby. We stopped the jeep and walked over to where a few Milicja men were standing. On the ground we saw the bodies of two partially naked women, one young and pretty, the other in her fifties. Both had obviously been raped. The young one’s throat had been cut and the other had been shot repeatedly. The captain did not say anything but was visibly shaken.

  Nałęcz arrived in Szczecin some time in the autumn. As Inspector General of the Harbour Guards, he came to review the newly formed unit in Szczecin. At that time the Russians allowed Poles access to and control of the facilities on the west bank of the River Oder only. The main harbour and shipyards on the east side were held by the Russians. We spent the next couple of days together with a young lieutenant who commanded the Szczecin unit. We rode in the official car, a German VW kuebelwagon, and managed to access an area in Politz, where synthetic gasoline had been manufactured. This area had been given to Poland by the Potsdam Agreement, but it remained under Russian control for a year. The latter had dismantled all the machinery and removed all furniture and fixtures, even the railway rails. All this was trucked to Szczecin, loaded onto river barges and towed across the Baltic to Russia. The 10 miles between the plant and the harbour were littered with pieces of machinery.

  The young lieutenant had been an AK partisan in Wilno. He was lucky to have avoided the fate of the Wilno AK brigade. In July 1944, this brigade helped the Russians liberate the city and was told by the Russians that it would be rearmed and would join the LWP. The brigade was surrounded by NKVD troops with tanks, and 6,000 soldiers were arrested and sent to Siberia. Most of the officers were executed but some managed to escape. The lieutenant and most of his men were from that group of escapees.

  The political climate in Poland was very tense. The Allies recognised the Polish Provisional Communist Government and withdrew its recognition of the legitimate Polish government in London. We all felt betrayed. At the same time, we could not believe that the Allies would allow half of Europe to be taken over by Russia. Surely there would soon be another war between the Western Allies and the Russians.

  The Allies recognised the Provisional Government on the condition that free elections would be held within a year. Stanisław Mikołajczyk, Prime Minister of the Polish Government in London, under pressure from Churchill, returned to Poland in July 1945. As the leader of the Peasant Party, the largest party in Poland, h
e thought he would win the elections. The underground civil government that had functioned during the occupation dissolved itself in the summer of 1945. The underground armed resistance continued against the NKVD and Polish communist forces. The government declared an amnesty in August 1945 and a large number of AK soldiers revealed themselves. Nevertheless, the armed resistance continued for the next two years.

  Against this background of political turmoil, in April of 1946, the government organised a great manifestation in Szczecin. It was heralded as Trzymamy Straż nad Odrą (Keeping Watch over the River Oder). It brought an unprecedented number of participants, estimated at more than 23,000, from all over Poland. This was at a time when Szczecin’s total population was slightly over 70,000 Germans, and only 30,000 Poles. The largest single group was the scouts, about 12,000 in their khaki uniforms for boys and grey for Girl Guides. There were also large contingents from the communist party Zwiazek Walki Mlodych or ZWM (Union of Youth Fighters) wearing white shirts with red kerchiefs modelled on the Russian komsomol. Equally large were the ‘Wici’, a Peasant Party youth group. There were other groups representing veterans, concentration camp inmates and trade organisations.

  All these groups had arrived by special trains, trucks and buses. At that time there were only about 300 students in our secondary school. In our scout units there were less than thirty older boys and girls, who were put in charge of liaising with 12,000 incoming scouts. From then on, we were busy all the time. We met the rail transports and directed them to their places of bivouac. They camped in schools and parks, also next to buildings with bath and toilet facilities. The scouts all had camping equipment and the army provided field kitchens. The Organising Committees assigned us two trucks with drivers for food delivery. I was in charge of one. There were still problems with robberies at night, especially by Russian soldiers. The Milicja gave us weapons to protect ourselves and the Girl Scout camps. Fifteen of us were armed with First World War Austrian Mannlicher carbines. There was not much we could have done against the Russians and their PPSh machine pistols with their seventy-one bullet drum magazines. Luckily, we never had to find out.

  Emotions were very high. Even before the ceremony started, there were clashes between the scouts and the communist ZWM. The opening ceremonies were officiated by Communist President Bolesław Bierut, his Prime Minister Osóbka-Morawski and Marshall Rola-Zymirski. Also present was the recently arrived Stanisław Mikołajczyk of the Peasant Party. President Bierut’s speech was drowned out by shouts of ‘Mikołajczyk, Mikołajczyk’, which grew in intensity. They were started by the Wici youth of his Peasant Party, and immediately taken up by the scouts. The visibly angry president left.

  The next day, the ceremonies commenced with a field mass and continued with a parade down the Avenue of the Polish Army. The political bosses were watching from the reviewing stand. Army units led the parade, followed by the Communist Party organisation and ZWM, their youth organisation. The scouts received orders that morning informing them that in punishment for yesterday’s excesses, they would not be permitted to march. This order was ignored and about 12,000 scouts converged on the parade route, in perfect marching formation. The Milicja, army tanks and communist youth stopped them at several places. We organising scouts diverted the columns. They managed to join the tail of the parade in large compact units. I made my way forward (we local scouts did not march in the parade) opposite the reviewing stand. As soon as the first scout units arrived, the president and his whole communist entourage left the reviewing stand. Only Mikołajczyk stood reviewing the scouts as they marched to ever-growing chants of ‘Mikołajczyk … Mikołajczyk …’ That evening, there were several fights between the Boy Scouts and ZWM members.

  Over the next few days special trains transported scouts home. On one of the trains, a scout hanging too far out of the window was killed when his head hit a pylon. Two days later, in an empty freight car, I and three other scouts escorted his coffin to Warsaw.

  When I returned, Roman and I concentrated on completing plans for our camping trip scheduled for July. The campsite was on the shore of the Baltic Sea on the island of Wolin, a shore island located at the end of the River Oder between the Baltic Sea to the north and Szczecin Lagoon to the south, formed by two branches of the River Oder. The north coast was all wooded with pine and beech forest. It had wide pristine beaches with sand dunes. At that time the island was almost devoid of people. The Germans had left and Poles were just trickling in. The only town was Międzyzdroje, a typical resort. It had a small population as well as a few shops. Our camp was close to the Leśniczówka Grodno, the forester’s house. The current Polish forester in residence was from an area near Grodno in eastern Poland, hence the name. The trucks dropped us off at his house, where the road ended. The forester led us to a clearing about half a mile away, close to the beach. That was our campsite. He warned us to be careful with fire as the forest was very dry.

  There was a lot of game in the woods, mostly deer and wild boar. The forester, with whom I became friendly as we were from the same part of Poland, told me that there was an overabundance of game. During the last five years no one had been hunting. He had become concerned lately that the Russian soldiers stationed all over this area were ‘hunting’ using machine pistols and unnecessarily wiping out game just for fun. He invited me to return in the autumn and hunt with him; he promised to have a hunting rifle ready for me. July passed quickly as we engaged in typical Boy Scout activities.

  At the beginning of our third week, a forest fire broke out nearby. There was no one in the area except for our troop and army units who were already working to contain the fire. We spent the next three days clearing and digging fire brake lanes. It was hard working in the glaring sun with the smoke and heat of the fire, but we managed to contain the fire.

  I left a few days early, before the camping trip was over, at the end of July. Before I had left for the camp, Nałęcz told me I needed to be in Warsaw before 1 August. There was going to be a commemoration of the second anniversary of the Uprising that I should attend. I put on my pack, walked to town and took the ‘bus’, an army truck with wooden benches, back to Szczecin.

  When I arrived mother was sitting alone in the living room. She looked at me and said, ‘Please sit down. I need to talk to you,’ indicating the chair opposite her. She looked very sad and sombre. She looked at me and said, ‘I have to ask you something.’ Looking down, she proceeded to tell me in a dead, toneless voice: ‘A few days ago I was talking with one of my clients. It turned out that she was from Warsaw and was there during the Uprising. Commenting on the terrible human loss, she gave an example, an incident she had witnessed during the end of fighting in the old town.’ She paused, looked at me and resumed: ‘While in the Arsenal building she saw a young boy lying on the ground in the entrance gateway. He was about 15 or 16, handsome with wavy dark hair. Two nurses were bandaging his legs. As he lay on the ground he quietly repeated: “I will never be able to ski again … I will never be able to ski again.”’ Mother paused, looked up at me and asked: Was that Andrzej? I looked straight at her. Our eyes locked and I quietly said: ‘Yes’.

  As she slowly got up I did too. She came to me and hugged me close for a long time. Then, without a word, turned around, went to her bedroom and closed the door behind her. Once again, I felt relief. Relief that even though she learned that his death had not been a quick one, she had not discovered that he lingered on for another three days, in an overcrowded hospital, without painkillers.

  26

  Third Visit to Warsaw, 31 July–

  11 November 1946

  The following day I asked mother if she would come to Warsaw with me. She hesitated: ‘No … I will go in a few days.’ It was obvious that she did not want to be there for the anniversary of the Uprising.

  The night train from Szczecin arrived in Warsaw the morning of 31 July. I met up with Nałęcz, Pobóg and Holski. Nałęcz told me that I would be one of several participants to be decorated duri
ng the next day’s ceremonies. Witold was in Warsaw, I met up with him and his wife Maryla, and he filled me in on what happened two years before, when he, Edward and Czajka crossed the Vistula to establish contact with the LWP.

  On 1 August, Nałęcz and I arrived at the Theatre Roma. I was shown to a special section where there were thirty to forty men and women already seated. I sat close to the stage, next to Pobóg and Witold. The usual military trappings were on stage: honour guard with colours and an orchestra. Members of the Provisional Communist Government and military brass took their places. Following the national anthem and the customary long-winded bombastic speeches, an announcement was made: ‘The meeting of the Presidium of the Provisional Government, acting on the petition of the governing body of the ZUWZoNiD, has resolved on 30 July to decorate the following citizens of Warsaw province …’

  As names were called, we stepped forward, one by one, and had our decorations pinned on us. Our names were called alphabetically in the ranking order of our decoration. The first called were the eleven recipients of the Cross of Grunwald III class, followed by ten recipients of the Virtuti Militari V class, and the thirty-five recipients of the Cross of Valour. About one-third of the decorations were awarded posthumously. I was the third, and the youngest, to be decorated with the Cross of Grunwald. Before the capitulation, I had heard rumours that Nałęcz had recommended me for the Virtuti Militari award in recognition of re-establishing contact with our headquarters while we were cut off in the telephone exchange building.

  The Order Virtuti Militari is Poland’s highest and oldest military decoration awarded for ‘heroism and courage in the face of the enemy in time of war’. Established by the last King of Poland during the War with Russia in 1792, it was awarded during the Napoleonic Wars and in the 1831 Uprising against Russia, reinstated in 1918, when Poland became independent and awarded during the Polish-Bolshevik War. During the Second World War, the Polish government in exile and the LWP formed in Russia continued to award the Virtuti Militari. Virtually all the recipients of this order, from 1792 to the Polish-Bolshevik War, had been decorated for warfare against the Russians. Needless to say, the communist underground did not like that and in 1943 decided to create its own military decoration. The Provisional Government confirmed the Cross of Grunwald as a state military decoration. The order was divided into three classes, so even though it was of a lower rank than the Order Virtuti Militari, its third class ranked higher than the fifth class of the Virtuti Militari.