My Boyhood War

by Bohdan Hryniewicz

  We alternated shifts, breakfast and lunch and then lunch and dinner, six days a week. My schedule allowed for additional time to continue my studies in the English language.

  I had already been accepted to the University of Cork in Ireland, the physics department at the University of Amsterdam and to study shipbuilding at the University of Glasgow. I also considered applying to the newly established Polish University College in London. Their schools of science, engineering and architecture had already gained a good reputation. As it was, I continued to procrastinate before making any final decision. At the beginning of August I decided to stay in London and applied to Southwest Essex Technical College and School of Art in the north-eastern part of London. When I arrived for my appointment at the offices of the department of architecture and building, I was ushered in front of the department head, Professor Aldred, and I said: ‘Sir, I would like to be admitted to the structural engineering course.’ He looked at me. ‘Polish? ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘Do you have your matriculation certificate? ‘Yes, sir.’ I handed it to him; he glanced at my grades. ‘Very good.’ He scribbled something, gave it to me and sent me on to the admissions office.

  I took my admission paper to the offices of the Committee of Education of Poles in Great Britain and was granted a scholarship that paid my tuition and provided £20 a month for living expenses. This was the equivalent of a starting wage. I quickly found room and board through the college housing office.

  There were many Poles enrolled at the college. Our civil and structural engineering first-year class had five Poles, all ex-servicemen. We all had scholarships from the committee and were receiving £20 monthly. A British Marine in our class resented that his scholarship only gave him £14. Everyone was jealous of the few American veterans, whose scholarships were ‘astronomical’. We paid our landlady £3 a week for breakfast and dinner. We were lucky, our landlady worked in a restaurant and somehow we ate much better than other students.

  The curriculum was heavy, starting at 9.30 a.m. and ending at 5 o’clock. On Fridays we had three hours of workshop practice and three hours of drafting in the afternoon. The workshop, masonry, carpentry, welding, piping and plumbing were hands-on experiences. We mixed mortar and laid bricks, worked with woodworking tools and machines, we welded, soldered pipes and made lead joints, all under masters of those crafts. I found this very useful later on. Our surveying lecturer was Professor Michalski. Quite often English students turned to us and asked, ‘What did he say?’

  With the money I had earned over the summer I purchased drafting tools and a slide rule. I improved my wardrobe. We no longer wore our uniforms, except on Fridays for the workshop.

  At the end of September I helped mother move to a town house owned by Mrs Zielińska at 46 Penywern Road near Earls Court. She lived there and had a small hairdressing salon for select Polish ladies. Mother rented a room from her and opened her cosmetics salon alongside her. It was mutually beneficial for them. Mrs Zielińska also rented rooms to students from the Polish School of Architecture.

  From then on I spent Saturdays and Sundays there. The Polish community had a very active social life. There were evening dances and theatre productions in the White Eagle and the Hearth. A Polish mass was celebrated at Brompton Oratory on Sunday mornings. The wide pavement in front was a place to meet old classmates and friends. We were always there before and after the mass. During the mass we usually retired to one of the nearby pubs for a pint of ‘half and half’ (ale and bitter). After the mass, we returned for ‘Catholic Review’. At Christmas, several of our classmates were in London from different universities in England and Ireland.

  In early January, when the carnival season started, there were balls and dances every weekend. On Saturday nights, the balls were at the ‘Polish Eagle’; on Friday nights and Sunday afternoons, they were in other Polish places. The balls were quite formal and went on until midnight, when the older people left. Public transportation stopped running around midnight and resumed again at 5 a.m. The younger generation, who could not afford taxis, continued to dance, to less stately music, for the rest of the night.

  * * *

  The Polish Armed Forces under Allied command had over 250,000 men. They were the largest Allied force after the US and Great Britain. When the war ended, less than half returned to Poland. Others started to emigrate to Australia, Canada and South America.

  The United States Congress passed special legislation that allowed Polish servicemen who served in the Second World War under Allied command and were demobilised in Britain, to immigrate with their families. In 1949 the American consulate started to process applications for entry visas. Mother, who fulfilled that requirement, and I as a family member, applied for visas.

  * * *

  The academic year ended and I started to look for summer jobs. The committee rules provided that scholarships would be paid during holidays if the recipient was working full time in the field of his study. I was offered work with surveying crews or as an apprentice draftsmen that paid only about £1 10s per week. On the other hand, as a labourer on a construction site I could earn £7 or more. The committee agreed that this counted as work in my field of study. I had no problem finding work nearby. It was hard, but with overtime I was making over £10 a week. After the summer I had a tidy sum saved. I decided to improve my wardrobe and ordered a dinner jacket tailored by Hector Poe of Regent Street. That set me back 30 guineas.

  By summer we had some indication that our visas would be granted soon. At the beginning of September I began my second academic year. Expecting the level of US engineering schools to be higher than in Great Britain, I took additional evening courses in structural design at the third-year level. Knowing that we would be living in New Jersey, I did some research into local engineering schools. There were four. The highest ranked was the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, followed closely by Newark College of Engineering, then Rutgers and Princeton. Knowing that we would most likely be living in Newark, I applied to Newark College.

  On 28 September our visas were issued and our travel documents identified us as ‘stateless persons’ since we had no passports. His Majesty’s Government provided us with transportation. We embarked on the Queen Mary in Southampton on 8 December and arrived in New York Harbor on the morning of 14 December 1950.

  I was not yet 20 years old; I had £3 in my pocket; had lived in nineteen places in three different countries, under two legitimate governments and three occupying powers; had attended four grammar schools, five secondary schools, and started my second year of university.

  32

  Newark, NJ, 8 December 1950–September 1954

  We stood on deck as our ship was docking, in New York Harbor, and I asked mother what uncle Henry looked like. She remembered him from her childhood as a dashing young cavalry officer. She replied: ‘He is slim with wavy brown hair.’ Below us on the pier stood a corpulent man of medium height wearing a camel hair coat. He removed his hat, revealing a shiny bald head. Pointing at him I said sarcastically, ‘Nah, he probably looks like him.’ Mother looked offended.

  After the immigration and customs formalities had been completed, the same man came forward: ‘Niusiu, is that you?’ I smiled.

  He drove us to his home in Short Hills, NJ. His wife Charlotte and their triplet sons Henry, Richard and Stanley were waiting for us. We were received very warmly and stayed with them over Christmas. Because of the forthcoming Christmas holidays, uncle Henry’s meat processing plant, PASCO, the largest producer of Polish kielbasa in the New York area, had been extremely busy. He woke me up at 5 a.m. the morning after our arrival and we drove to PASCO. As soon as we arrived at the plant he put me to work. I skinned frankfurters for the next few days.

  Christmas was very like it was at home. We were made to feel like members of the family. The overabundance of food and extravagance reminded me of the Christmas before the war.

  After the holidays I met with the Dean of Admissions at Newark College of Engineering. Look
ing over my transcript he said that he could give me credits for courses in the third and even fourth year of study, but that I lacked the required core freshman classes. I had no choice but to start again as a freshman. I was to start in February and complete my freshman courses by summer’s end. I applied and was granted a full tuition scholarship.

  At the same time, I registered at my local draft board and received a 1A classification, available for military service and subject to the draft, later changed to 2S Student Deferment. This was during the Korean War. Knowing that I would most likely be drafted, I decided I’d rather go as an officer and enlisted in the Air Force ROTC.

  We moved into a two-bedroom apartment in Newark and mother started work in a garment factory. After Christmas, I found a temporary job as a draftsman and continued on a part-time basis once my classes started. Shortly after, I found another part-time job closer to school, making plastic lenses. I worked twenty-five hours per week through my freshman and sophomore years. Starting in summer 1952 until my 1954 graduation, I worked the same hours for a consulting engineering firm that had designed parts of the New Jersey Turnpike and New York Thruway.

  Having registered for the draft, I soon learned that the Selective Service Act provided that all Allied Servicemen who had completed either six months of active service or had endured sixty days of combat during the Second World War, were entitled to be classified 4A, the same as American veterans. I marched myself to my local draft board, was ushered to the office of an important looking woman sitting behind a large desk and told her that as a veteran of the Allied Army, with sixty days of combat, I was entitled to a 4A classification. She took out a large binder, looked up the paragraph I had referred to and asked:

  What Allied army were you in?’

  ‘Polish.’

  ‘Were you with us or against us?’

  ‘We were with you, madam. Don’t you remember? The Second World War started when Germany attacked Poland in September 1939.’

  ‘No. The Second World War started in December 1941 when the Japs bombed Pearl Harbour.’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘No problem. Please bring me a certified copy of the treaty between the United States and Poland to prove that Poland was an ally.’

  ‘Well … that’s rather difficult. Why don’t you just send my papers up the chain.’

  About six months later I received a letter from my local board stating, ‘Your case is being transferred to the State Board’; six months later, ‘to the Regional Board’; another six months later ‘to the National Board’; finally, yet another six months later, a new card arrived from Washington with a 4A classification.

  In the meantime, I was advancing through the ROTC ranks. In my senior year I was a Cadet Lt. Col. Wing’s Deputy Chief of Staff and member of the Arnold Air Society. Three months before graduation and commissioning, Col. Tudor, my commanding officer, called me to his office:

  ‘Cadet Lt. Col. Hryniewicz. There is a problem. You are not a citizen, therefore you cannot be commissioned.’

  ‘Yes, sir! I know, sir.’

  ‘Do not worry, I’ve already spoken with both New Jersey senators and they will seek a special act of Congress to award you a commission.’

  ‘Sir! I greatly appreciate your effort. However, I just received a full scholarship to MIT Graduate School. When I finish my graduate studies I will be eligible for citizenship and then I will join the Air Force.’

  A greatly relieved colonel replied: ‘Congratulations! That is probably for the best.’

  I graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree, with honours, in civil engineering. After finishing my summer job, in September of 1954, I drove my second-hand Buick to Boston and began my graduate studies at MIT.

  Epilogue

  The author today. (Warsaw Rising Museum)

  From Stettin (Szczecin) to Trieste in the Adriatic an ‘Iron Curtain’ has descended across the Continent.

  Winston Churchill, at Westminster College on 5 March 1946

  I was fortunate that we managed to escape communist Poland just as the Iron Curtain descended. I am most grateful for the help and education I received in England and the United States. The opportunities I was offered and was able to take advantage of allowed me to have a productive life.

  My fellow soldiers were not so fortunate. The so-called ‘free and unfettered elections’ were held a month after I escaped. Their outcome was predictable: many candidates of the opposition parties were disqualified, and the results were falsified. The feeble protests of the governments of the United Kingdom and United States were ignored. The communists took complete control and intensified their prosecution and oppression of former AK members. Thousands were arrested, imprisoned and some were shot. Others were denied employment and access to education. This persecution eventually diminished following Stalin’s death in 1953.

  Regardless of their youth, some of my friends from the battalion were not spared this fate. Borys, a runner a year older than me, returned to Poland in November 1947. Before he was able to complete his interrupted education he was drafted into the LWP and placed in a penal battalion. He laboured in coal mines for more than two years. Borys considered himself lucky that he wasn’t assigned to the uranium mines as everyone who worked there died.

  Sten was arrested by the UB in June 1952 while attending the University of Warsaw. He was sentenced to five years imprisonment for ‘attempting to overthrow the government’. While in prison, he too was forced to work in the quarries and coal mines. After twenty-eight months, he was conditionally released and rehabilitated in 1957.

  Baśka, CO of medics in our battalion, clandestinely completed two years of medical studies during the occupation. Upon return from the oflag, she was denied entrance to medical school until after 1953.

  * * *

  In September 1954, I commenced my graduate studies in the Department of Civil Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At the same time, I found part-time work as a structural engineer in an architectural engineering design office. A year later, when I completed my studies, I continued to work full-time for the same company. Soon after, in 1955, three engineers, all MIT graduates who also worked there, started their own design office and asked me to join them. Always ready for an opportunity, I accepted and became a partner in Symmes, Maini, Hryniewicz & McKee Architects and Engineers.

  Cambridge and Boston, with a large number of colleges and universities, were vibrant places to live and work. There were many Poles and some had experiences similar to mine; most of whom had arrived shortly after the war. I met and developed a lifelong friendship with two brothers, Witold and Jacek von Henneberg, both architects. Together with an older brother who did not survive, they took part in the Warsaw Uprising and then went through a POW camp, the Polish Army in Italy and the Polish School of Architecture in London.

  Their German name led to a few ‘interesting’ conversations. During a cocktail party shortly after his arrival in 1949, Jacek was introduced by a hostess: ‘Mr von X, this is Mr von Henneberg.’ Soon the following conversation ensued:

  ‘Where were you during the war?’ asked Jacek.

  ‘In the Luftwaffe’, replied von X.

  ‘How interesting. What were you doing in the Luftwaffe?’

  ‘I was a Stuka pilot.’

  ‘On which front?’

  ‘Mostly on the Russian. However, in the fall of 1944, we had a very interesting mission – exterminating Polish bandits in Warsaw.’

  ‘How fascinating!’

  ‘And where were you during the war?’ von X inquired.

  ‘Well, it just so happens that I was in Warsaw at the same time.’

  ‘Really, what were you in? … Wehrmacht or SS?’

  ‘No … I was one of the Polish bandits you were trying to exterminate.’

  I met a wonderful young woman in the summer of 1957. Her name was Linda Kelly, and she was a junior at Wellesley College. We married in December 1958. After six years of designing buildings, I
was ready for a change and resigned my partnership. In January of 1961 we moved to San Juan, Puerto Rico with our newborn son Andrew, where I started up a construction company. Over the next three years, two daughters, Sarah and Elisabeth (Lisa), were born. In 1962 I arranged for my father to come and stay with us for six months. We were reunited after sixteen years of separation. I found him greatly changed, much warmer and less reserved.

  We lived in a Spanish colonial house which we had restored in old San Juan. Our neighbour was a young Swede named Lars Odelfelt. As partners, we developed a condo hotel on the San Juan beachfront. This opened more opportunities and Lars went to Stockholm to explore them. In the autumn of 1965, Linda and I spent two months in Europe deciding whether or not to move there. It was my first return to Poland. By that time I had become a US citizen. In order to apply for a Polish visa, I had to fill out a questionnaire and answer ‘When and on the basis of what documents did you leave Poland’ and detail my military service. I answered ‘Left Poland on 23 December 1946 illegally crossing the border’ and listed my service during the Uprising. I also mentioned that in 1957, as a partner in Henneberg, Henneberg & Hryniewicz, Architects and Engineers, I won first prize in an international architectural competition in Warsaw. After a month of waiting, the visa was granted. When we arrived in Warsaw that October 1965, we hosted a small dinner party for my family and friends in a local hotel restaurant. There were two gentlemen sitting at a nearby table who nursed the same cold cups of coffee the entire time we were there. I asked the waiter to send them two cognacs. When they looked towards me I smiled and saluted them with my glass. They sheepishly smiled back and returned the salute.