Bogdan Broniewski spent his first seventeen years cosseted and indulged, with all the unquestioned privileges of a member of one of the wealthiest families in Poland. But after the Nazis attacked Poland in September 1939, his life was suddenly ripped apart. Poland Adieu shares the true story of Broniewski's difficult and treacherous journey from a life of privilege to the perils of life as a refugee. Broniewski begins his memoir by offering in-depth details into a world of hunting, horseback riding, and private tutors-a world abruptly shattered after he and his family are forced to flee their country. With their family fortune abruptly gone, the Broniewskis soon find themselves living for the next five and a half years as refugees in France, as the war rages around them. As young Broniewski exchanges comfort and security for hardship and danger, he grows into manhood while enduring illness, near starvation, and imprisonment. In spite of the overwhelming odds, Broniewski seeks an education and prepares to make his way in an uncertain world. Poland Adieu is an inspiring story that proves that the drive to achieve success and happiness in life comes not from outside influences, but from strength and perseverance found deep within the soul.

Poland Adieu

From Privilege to PerilBy Bogdan Broniewski

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2010 Bogdan Broniewski
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4502-4722-1

Contents

Acknowledgements.................................................viiPreface..........................................................xiIntroduction.....................................................xiii1. Complacence...................................................12. Chaos.........................................................63. Garbow?The Beginning..........................................134. Bohdan's Heirs................................................165. The Gerlicz Family............................................216. Change and Progress...........................................257. Family Ties and Tensions......................................318. Lessons Out of School.........................................359. Some Close Calls and a Cure...................................3810. Hunting and Horses...........................................4211. Hunters and the Hunted.......................................4912. Warsaw?No. 25 Mokotowska.....................................5313. Servants and Friends.........................................5714. A New Locale and New Times...................................6115. Time Plays Out...............................................6616. Flight.......................................................11117. On to Bucharest..............................................11618. Destination Paris............................................11819. Poland Is Lost...............................................12120. A Difficult Passage..........................................12321. Back to School...............................................12722. The German Juggernaut........................................13023. Our Flight Resumes...........................................13424. To Spain (Almost)............................................13725. Flight or Scenic Tour?.......................................14126. Temporary Shelter............................................14427. Hunger, Cold, and Sickness...................................15028. The Gestapo in Our Midst.....................................15429. Turning Points...............................................15830. The Occupation?Ever More Dangerous...........................16331. Fifteen Days in Hell.........................................16632. A Change of Fortune..........................................16933. Liberation, Celebration, and Retribution.....................17434. Devastation and Tragedy in Poland............................17835. Peace and Change in Sight....................................18436. Our Lives Change Course......................................18737. The Mind Calculates; the Heart Resolves......................191Afterword........................................................215Appendix A: Polish Campaign......................................218Appendix B: Guide Bleu Maps, 1939................................221

Chapter One

Complacence

Beginnings are often anticipated and celebrated. Endings often slip past us unnoticed. Only when we look back over our lives do we know when something ended: the last time we spoke to or touched someone we cared about, the last time we played a childhood game, the last time we were someplace we would never see again. Such an ending, completely beyond my imagining, abruptly altered the course of my life when I was just seventeen years old.

It was the opening of the hunting season. My brother, Andri, and I were planning to hunt partridges that morning. We were on the family estate, Przybyslawice, at Garbow in Poland. We had wakened early, eager to be out at first light. Andri was just eleven months younger than I, and the two of us spent almost all of our time hunting and horseback riding. We didn't know that there was anything remarkable about our lives. Hunting and horseback riding were a centuries-old tradition among the wealthy classes in Poland. Until that day, it was the only life we had known.

The family coachman, as always, brought a horse-drawn carriage (called a bryczka) to our front steps. Built low to the ground, the carriage was practical for traversing difficult terrain. The coachman sat in front, and Andri and I sat in the rear, accompanied by one of our faithful dogs, Pufik, who was an eager participant in such outings.

As we rode past large ponds that surrounded the estate, we could see and hear that they were alive with the bustle and chatter of water birds. The neighboring fields were home to partridges and pheasant, and beyond lay forests that sheltered large game, including deer and wild boar. As young children, we had hunted with shotguns that could not shoot far or do much damage. Now that we were older, we owned real hunting rifles of high performance, and we expected to bring home a game bag full of partridges.

Events did not go as expected that day. We were interrupted by a distant roaring that grew louder and louder, until soon we felt the ground reverberating beneath our feet. We looked up and saw a dozen or more planes flying low overhead. It was an astonishing sight. One rarely saw planes in Poland's skies. Air travel was a thing of the future, and Poland's defense was still based almost entirely upon its cavalry, as in World War I. Our country had virtually no modern armored divisions or warplanes. Our coachman, who fancied himself an outstanding mechanic, declared confidently, "Those planes have good motors. They can't be ours. They must be German."

It was September 1, 1939. Standing in that heretofore quiet field, we were witnessing the opening hours of a war that would wreak devastation across three continents and leave between fifty million and seventy million people dead?more deaths, and in a shorter amount of time, than any other war.

Andri and I had lived almost obliviously to the threat of that war, although it had been hovering over Poland for more than a year. Indeed, the threat had begun earlier than that when Hitler violated the Treaty of Versailles. Under that treaty at the conclusion of World War I, the victorious powers?primarily France, Great Britain, and the United States?stipulated that the Rhineland was to remain a demilitarized zone. This region, which included the Ruhr Valley, was where heavy industry was situated and was fundamental to any German war effort. In 1936, Germany invaded the Rhineland. France and Great Britain protested vigorously, but in order to avoid an armed conflict, they let it pass.

In March 1938, the Nazis annexed Austria and, after a short while, seized part of Czechoslovakia, an area on the western border known as Sudetenland. Soon after these alarming developments, Great Britain's Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, and France's Premier, Edouard Daladier, went to Munich to meet with Hitler. There was a strong sentiment to avoid war at almost any cost, particularly among the French, who had suffered the greatest losses during the deadly war years of 1914-1918.

France and Great Britain agreed to recognize Hitler's fait accompli in the Rhineland?as well as in Czechoslovakia and Austria. In return, Hitler was not to undertake any new military operations in Europe. All the world's newspapers showed what was to become an infamous photo of Chamberlain in his triumphant return from Munich, as he held aloft a document for a cheering crowd saying, "I bring peace in our time."

In the spring of 1938, the Wehrmacht invaded the rest of...