I was always in exile
I was born in a cellar on September 17th 1915, although my documents state that this date is only ‘alleged’. The First World War was in progress and Poland was under Russian occupation. At the time of my birth, the place where my parents lived – Smorgonie, in Vilnius region – was bombarded and everybody hid in a cellar. Only afterwards some old women reported my birth date to the Register.
Sometime before the Second World War broke out I found myself in Warsaw. Around the end of 1940 a work office, the so-called ‘Arbeitzang’, was formed in Warsaw and one had to register there under the penalty of death. One day I went there to get myself registered and the Germans never let me go again - they took me as I stood. At that time they needed labourers to send to Germany. I think I was lucky because I was not taken to a concentration camp but to work in Germany.
In 1941, the Germans transported us by train to our destination. Before our departure, they subjected us to a very unpleasant examination. During this examination we had to stand in front of them totally naked, which was extremely intimidating. We didn’t believe the Germans were merely taking us to work; we all thought we were going to a concentration camp because they took us to have a shower and ordered that we make bundles of our clothes and leave them aside. Once they turned off the shower everybody felt himself or herself to see if they were still alive. When the Germans told us to put our clothes back on we rejoiced not being dead yet.
The first town we were transferred to after the disinfection was Braunschweig. Once in Germany, we were a little less scared because it was obvious that the Germans needed us for work. I was assigned to a fruit and vegetable processing factory in Oldenburg, almost on the border with the Netherlands. They sent us to work in groups. My group numbered some thirty people, seven from Warsaw, the rest from other towns.
Our living quarters were on the upper storey above the factory. We would get up at 4am to start work at 5am. Our job was to fill up cans with fruit and vegetables for the German soldiers. The living conditions were severe, especially in winter. We slept on straw-filled mattresses and had only one blanket each. When frost came the walls were covered in ice an inch thick. In my room there were four Polish women, including myself. Food was only by consignment; we were given a piece of bread and a lump of margarine once a week. I was young and could have eaten the whole lot in one go but I had to save it for the next days.
Sometimes after our shift we were allowed to go to town, on the condition that we wore a ‘P’ sign on our clothes. We only had some sort of a trough to wash in, so we collected cans from the factory to use as basins. The fleas were unbearable and there were lots of them. The Volksdeutsche workers, who fled to Germany for fear of Poles, had brought them along. When one of them took his shirt off it was virtually crawling with fleas.
Poles showed kindness and helpfulness towards one another. We organized sabotage to reduce our workload.
One of us would break down machinery so that we all could rest, while the Germans were repairing it. When we were pickling beetroot and turnips in massive cement basins, the leftovers were collected for us Poles to eat. Sometimes it was already fermented but the Germans would still put unskinned horse or cow legs in it and serve it as soup, with the hairs and all.
When we were working in a factory called ‘Tabako’ we used to get this turnip dish sent in army cauldrons from ‘our’ factory. One day we were having it for lunch and – like with all young people – there was a lot of laughing and joking going on. I ate and talked merrily when I noticed everybody staring at me. I shot a glance at my plate and saw white maggots with black heads on it! I started throwing up. It lasted for several hours. Our German supervisor found me vomiting in a toilet and yelled at me for faking and avoiding work when I had in fact been gravely ill. I retched horribly. Eventually, I contracted jaundice and was admitted to hospital, even though they previously didn’t believe that I was sick. We had no medical care and only the most severe cases were taken to hospital.
We Poles liked to walk this little path; we called it ‘The Polish Track’. That’s where I met my future husband. He had been working at a sawmill located on a canal for barges coming down from the Netherlands. They had a tiny kitchen there where Poles often congregated. Everybody would bring a pocketful of something: peas, sugar or oats if they worked in a mill. We’d cook lunch together and then go for a walk along the canal. We were young.
There were many Catholics living in that area but when a Polish pilot got shot down and died, they were glad. We didn’t get too many air raids but sometimes the Allies released this gas, napalm, which burned like a wall of flame. At those times, we had to seek shelter. It was already 1943-44.
In the last year of the war the air raids intensified. The Germans were fleeing. They had closed down our factory and transferred us to another labour camp. Chaos reigned. People tried to hide anywhere they could. We hid in the woods but often the Germans were already there. We were in fact living like vagabonds.
It was early 1945 in Linden. Very soon the Americans arrived, or more precisely, Canadians. They were very young - boys of 18-20 years of age. At first, they evicted Germans from their houses and placed us, Poles, Ukrainians and Russians there. Later they moved us into tents. We were well looked after; they fed us white bread and powdered milk.
From Linden we got relocated again, to a former German ammunition production plant, in the woods. The conditions weren’t too bad - we had a canteen and medical care at our disposal. We stayed there, waiting, for almost two years. Some American military officers started arriving; they were asking us where in Poland we came from. They showed us maps and that’s how I learnt about the Russian occupation of the region where I was born and where I lived before the war. I had nowhere to go back to. The same went for my husband who was from Poznań region. We were forced to look for some place new to settle down but we didn’t know where to turn.
Initially, we got an offer from Argentina but they required that my husband go there first, with us to follow. He didn’t like the idea of leaving me on my own with our infant daughter. I remember it was then that we got married. An Italian chaplain came to celebrate the marriages of twelve couples in a large camp canteen. For our wedding feast we were served Polish pea soup.
Later, Australian immigration intake officers arrived. I had never heard of Australia before and they only told us that it’s a tropical country and we wouldn’t need any winter clothes; so we sold all our warmer garments. We hadn’t been told what our stay in Australia was going to be like, where we were going to live or what we were going to do. We knew nothing about what would happen to us; we were heading for the unknown.
We traveled to Naples in Italy where we were to attend the final qualifying interview before departing for Australia. A measles epidemic broke out at that time and our one and a half year old daughter, who was born in 1948, fell ill. She was quite weak when we appeared before the commission but luckily we were approved for further travel. The wait for our transport ship, (Casto Bianco), lasted six weeks. During our four-week long voyage many more children contracted measles and two of them died. Nearly every family had a baby with them. We had a stopover in Perth to bury one of the children, (the other one was ‘buried’ while we were still at sea). We spent Christmas, 1949, on the ship.
We arrived in Melbourne on December 29th 1949. We were then loaded on an old-fashioned train and sent to Bonegilla. I still remember the unbelievable heat. The bush-clad hills around our camp were on fire. There was smoke everywhere. I feared for my kids because this view brought back memories of war. Only later did we learn that this wasn’t anything unusual and that the fires were a natural phenomenon and not a result of arson.
We were given accommodation in a camp on the outskirts of the town. We lived in barrel-shaped barracks with steel sheet roofs and only one room. The washrooms and toilets were communal, as was the canteen where we had all our meals. The food was completely different and strange to us. Our first impression of Australia was rather terrifying. One German woman screamed at her husband that he shouldn’t have brought her here. She demanded that he take her back.
Men soon commenced their two-year work contracts. Women stayed in the camp to look after children. Many of them took to knitting, embroidery, etc. My husband was employed on a construction site in Canberra. He could only visit the kids and me once a month. Our second son, Stasio, was born around this time. After a while I got a kitchen job. Our manager was English and she was very demanding, especially in terms of hygiene.
Poles had been rather supportive of each other. We stayed in Bonegilla for two years, until the contract expired. After that my husband went with a friend to Melbourne to see where we could settle. In 1951 we moved to a sparsely populated suburb called Maidstone. Our house had been made out of metal components from the nearby aircraft building plant. We had no money to buy a house but my husband borrowed $200 from a Jewish man and another $200 from a Yugoslav man who moved in with us. I wasn’t able to work with three little kids but we took in four more housemates – labourers – and I took care of their laundry, cooking and shopping for a boarding fee. That’s how we managed to pay off our loan after a while. It wasn’t easy, I worked hard and I was bringing up children, too.
Life was entirely different then. We had only one small Polish shop in our neighbourhood. I would go shopping at Queen Victoria Market. My husband bought an old motorbike with a trailer and once a week we brought home produce from the market so I could cook for us all. I had no time for myself. My husband was working for the port authorities, deepening the canals. He was working three shifts.
The Australians weren’t particularly welcoming or friendly; rather, they approached us as if we were from another planet. Knowing that we had arrived from Germany, their children would make the ‘Heil Hitler’ gesture when meeting in the street with our children or us. They tried to avoid us as if they didn’t trust us or were suspicious of us for some reason. We felt isolated. Not everyone was like that though. We had another neighbour who was rather kind. At work my husband mingled mostly with Italians, Greeks, Yugoslavs and other immigrants who tended to stick together.
Initially we had difficulty communicating in English so in shops we’d just point at the products we wanted to buy. Our English got better when our children started attending first, kindergarten, and later a nearby Catholic school with two nuns for teachers. We picked up a lot from them; it was quite funny at times. One night after school I was saying prayers with my daughter when she looked at me and burst into tears. I was saying the Polish ‘Zdrowaś Mario’ while at school they had taught her to say ‘Hail Mary’.
In 1961, I suffered liver and stomach failure. After two serious surgeries I was left with only one fourth of my stomach. It took me a long time to pull myself back together. My sister, who lived nearby, helped my husband look after our kids. I remember that children from our neighbourhood were very mean to me at that time. They would poke their tongues out at me or smash their cricket balls into our windows. They still thought us to be intruders. Maybe it was because they had no idea what we’d been through before coming to Australia, I wouldn’t know. I was fortunate to have had such a good husband who could do a lot of things without asking for anyone’s help.
When I recovered a little, we started a small chicken farm. This proved over time to be quite a profitable business and gave us extra income to support our family. When my husband was at work, I was cleaning the chook coops. Later he got a fence-building job on top of his regular one. We finally fared a little better and even started going to parties, when my husband suddenly died of heart failure.
When my oldest boy, Janusz, turned 17, he enlisted with the Navy. Unfortunately, he had to fight in Vietnam. After that he married an Australian girl and took up a managing position in a TV equipment store. He’s a pensioner now and lives in Bayswater. My daughter finished high school and got an office job. She lives in Werribee with her Australian husband and their kids. The youngest son is married to an Australian as well and used to work for the railways at Port Melbourne. I have two grandchildren and two great-grandsons. Another one is on the way. I speak Polish to my children who have no difficulty understanding me.
Now I’m 90 but still very active. I enjoy a good read, knitting, gardening – even though my son doesn’t like me to exert myself too much. After my husband’s death, I got involved in the Polish community. Twenty years ago I became Committee Member for the Polish Senior Citizens Club in Footscray. Since 1987 I’ve also been a volunteer with the Migrant Resource Centre. In my Club, I was elected secretary and I’ve held this position ever since. We have weekly meetings and other members often tell me that I must remain ‘in office’ until I’m 100.
I really look forward to every Club meeting. I pride myself on the appreciation diplomas I’ve received. I got one just recently from our Chairman ‘For continuous support and work for the benefit of the Club and its Members’. I’ve gotten another one from Australian Polish Community Services in recognition of my volunteer service to the Polish community. There’s also the Civil Award of Maribyrnong City Council for community work and a medal signed by Prime Minister John Howard and Minister Julie Bishop. I’m not sure I really deserve all these honours.
I never regret coming to Australia. Before I had never had my own house as I was always in exile, first in Russia and then in Germany - and you wouldn’t call that a ‘life’, would you?
