“Dobranoc, Józef.” With these words Mama would put me to bed, as we struggled daily under occupation. A few months before I was born, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland, igniting World War II. The Germans quickly conquered Poland and constructed a new government in my home city of Krakow, administering their new possession from a castle. I grew up into a world at war, German soldiers speaking a foreign tongue as my mother and I walked to market. Jews were forcibly concentrated in a ghetto in Krakow, and then later relocated for execution or hard labor. I saw an old man shot, right on the street, just for bringing food to the Jewish ghetto. Nobody enjoyed war, and nobody enjoyed Nazi occupation. When news came that the Soviets would liberate Krakow, we took it as good news. However, while the city was liberated, my mother hid in the basement while my father fabricated many stories to deter the new occupying forces. As it turns out, the Soviet troops practiced mass rape.
I remember playing on the street with our neighbor’s son when Tata pulled me indoors and told me how we’d leave our homeland. “Józef: you, your mother, and I are going to leave Poland. It’s not safe for us any more.” I burst into tears! Despite the war, Poland was all I knew. Leaving Poland meant leaving my friends on our street. Leaving Poland meant no more mushroom picking trips in the forest with Mama. Leaving Poland meant no more pierogi cooking in Tata’s bakery. Leaving Poland meant leaving the only world I knew.
My parents packed all our money and a few belongings, leaving the rest to our neighbors, and we snuck out of Krakow, pretending to go on a weekend trip into the mountains following the end of the war. We took trains to the port city of Szczecin, where underground movements helped smuggle displaced persons, mostly Jews, from Poland to the American-occupied section of Germany. My parents and I were the odd ones out as the only Catholics in our group sneaking toward Germany. On trains and in trucks, I saw Jews who avoided capture by the Nazis. They looked so lifeless, as if fear stole the warmth and life from them; yet they kept moving on. Their children were more like me: scared, but happy to see other kids. We had to be quiet when sneaking, which was really difficult for us, but survived, if only because we were kids and all were wanted to do was have fun.
After several nerve-wracking days, some of them filled with hunger when food ran out, our group of Poles safely arrived in American-occupied Germany as displaced persons. While many of the others decided to stay in Germany, Tata advised against it. “Poland must be rebuilt. Germany must be rebuilt. England must be rebuilt. If we are to live, we are to live somewhere untouched. America it is. It will be hard, because in America they speak English, not Polish or German. But we will survive. It will be better there.”
I remember Tata speaking German, intertwined with broken English, negotiating for a visa for us to move to America. Thankfully we were, by some miracle, allowed to immigrate to America, and the journey was planned for us and aided by American authorities. We left from the American occupation zone by train to France and crossed the English Channel to Southampton. Along the way I heard so many languages I didn’t understand and saw so many spectacles for the eye to behold. When it came time to board the ship to New York, it occurred to me that I would never again see my homeland.
How long that week was! The stench of masses trapped below deck was only cured by the scent of seawater on deck. During this time my parents found other Polish, and some German, immigrants on our ship also headed to New York. One German man in particular, Alfred, was fluent in English and helped us learn it. Tata and I could speak German somewhat well, but Mama could not even communicate with Alfred, though he did not mind. As it turns out, I got the hang of English more quickly than Mama or Tata, which Alfred praised me for. I rejoiced in playing catch with other kids on the ship, in spite of my accent! My poor parents, however, struggled learning English. While I was having fun they looked so… somber.
Our arrival in New York came with our entrance into the harbor. Many people were really excited to see Lady Liberty, except me. Sure, it was a tall statue, but what really impressed me were the even taller skyscrapers of Lower Manhattan, buildings with heights unseen in Krakow. My family travelled together with the other Polish immigrants and found our way to Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where there was a gorgeous view of the Manhattan skyline. Luckily many Poles lived in Greenpoint and spoke Polish, so we were not completely lost. However, it was also home to many Italian-Americans, and all of us had to speak English daily.
My parents enrolled me in Catholic school where they hoped I would see fellow Poles and at least feel more comfortable. I cried on my first day of school, afraid of being separated from Mama and Tata! I wasn’t the only one, and our teacher spent the day comforting us and telling us how we’d make new friends and have fun learning. She was a nice Italian woman named Mrs. Fiorica whose parents moved to America in the 1890s and had her a year after they arrived. She told us that her husband was a clown and if we were good for the year he’d visit and give us all balloons. “He’s a clown?!?,” we screamed. Here was a nice teacher whose husband was a clown. From then on we kept obedient, hopeful of the day we’d see Mr. Fiorica.
Each Sunday, my parents and I went to church at 4 PM when a priest would celebrate mass in Polish. My parents always looked forward to Sundays because they could praise God in their native tongue, socialize with fellow Poles afterward, and it gave an excuse to dress up and relax after a week of work. Tata found a job at a bakery, while Mama spent her days cleaning the house and studying English, while sparing time for lunch with other Polish women. My parents were set on raising me as an American and tried to speak English to me as often as possible. We were embarrassed to be Polish, in spite of the neighborhood, and we wanted to reinvent ourselves. I was called “Joseph” in school, and my parents made sure to keep calling me that. Eventually I started signing my name as “Joseph Roman” instead of “Józef Romanowski”.
Life settled over time. My mother eventually found work as a secretary while my father moved up to start his own bakery. My class eventually got to see Mr. Fiorica, and boy was he tall! The day was filled with laughter as we were rewarded for our obedience. I made Polish friends, and I made Italian friends. There was even one Filipino girl, Malaya, whose family had to hide in the jungle during Japanese occupation. Despite her kindness, many classmates made fun of her for being “brown”. I could see her holding back her tears and I made sure to befriend her, knowing what hell she’d been through. I had a new sister, Anna, and a new brother, John, who each spoke only English. I eventually proposed to Malaya, which outraged both my parents and hers. We didn’t care. They had to accept it for the chance at grandchildren.
That’s where you come in, Maria. As you go to college, your mother and I hope you keep our stories dear to you. We hope that one day you can travel the world and visit our homelands: the beautiful islands of the Philippines and the elegant plains of Poland. But now it’s late. You have to sleep early to catch your flight in the morning! Dobranoc, Maria. Good night.
