POLONIA
TODAY®
ONLINE
A Part of the Polonia Media Network®
|
|
SERIALS FROM PAST ISSUESRADZIA, AMERICAN PRISONER
|
| Born and educated in America, Radzia accompanied her parents upon their
return to Poland. There she marries a Polish Army officer and has two daughters,
Irene and Dana. Although her comfortable villa in Torun was not damaged by
bombing at the start of WW II, it has been taken over by a Volksdeutscher,
a Pole of German descent. Likewise, the Germans have confiscated her mother's
considerable real estate and bank accounts. She and the children are being
allowed to live in the basement of the villa, but are in poor health. Her mother
has successfully relocated in Warsaw, but Aunt Julia has died without proper
medical care. Edmund, her husband, is a prisoner of war. Chapter 17 Unpleasant things continued to happen. More heckling against Poles; more trouble for my children. The younger girl was now enrolled in a public school taught by teachers imported from Germany. The Polish instructors were in labor camps or exterminated. The discipline in the school was extremely strict. The unfortunate Polish children, before the war attended private schools where scholastics were stressed, yet there was ease and comfort. Now they hated the teachers and what they learned under the new system. The Polish language was absolutely forbidden. If a teacher heard the pupils talking in their native tongue, they were slapped on the mouth and scolded. Many a time the pupils were unaware the instructor was in the room; upon exiting they whispered in Polish to each other. Soon the girls heard the command of the teacher to return to await punishment. The younger one, Dana, never reported the number of times the teacher hit her hand with a ruler for some small infringement. She now tells me after so many years. Dana became a very frightened child, so much so that, when we went down the street together, she was the first to warn me to speak German when someone approached. We immediately switched to German ... "Ja, ja [Yes, yes] or nein, nein [no, no]," depending on the question. As soon as the coast was clear and no one within hearing distance, we resumed our Polish conversation. Diligently, the girls studied German. |