11 - ‘Liberated’ by the Soviets

Summary

A few weeks after my adventure with the violins, the Soviet Army found themselves ready to move in and ‘liberate’ the ruins of Warsaw.

The thunder of heavy artillery grew more distinct each day, so that I feared that even our quiet suburb might become a battlefield. How was I going to save my frail old parents, my little niece (and, of course, my father's violins)? Casting around for ways of escape, I was able to bribe a Polish railwayman to smuggle us into an empty wagon on a freight train to Zakopane in the Tatra Mountains. The journey lasted six days in the freezing cold of December. Most of the time we were locked into our draughty wagon in railway sidings, with no knowledge of when or if we would move again, with almost no food or drinking water, nor any kind of lavatory.

Somehow we tumbled out alive in Zakopane, and were lucky enough to find a villa to rent immediately. It was far harder to track down fuel or food. I trod through the snow for hours, driven on by the image of little Ewa in our new home crying with hunger.

I learnt that bread was available only if I were to join a huge queue at five in the morning waiting for the baker to open at nine. Even after hours in the darkness and snow, I could not be sure of obtaining a tiny loaf.

Milk, butter, eggs and a taste of meat were things to dream of. To make such dreams come true, I would trudge for miles through the surrounding countryside in search of a peasant farmer who could be induced to part with such commodities. My first expedition was unsuccessful because the knowing peasants would only accept US dollars. But one farmer indicated that he would barter food for jewellery, even for clothes. I returned next day with a comparatively unworn shirt, which he exchanged for a small sack of flour. As I wearily dragged this precious cargo back to Zakopane on a toboggan, I realised how weakened I was by hunger. Back in town I bartered some of the flour for a few eggs, a bottle of milk and a small piece of sausage. The hunt for food became my only occupation while my father stayed at home looking after my mother and little Ewa.