The Diamond Wedding

         In the meantime, "Wicher" returned to Burg, having found his wife Lidka in Oberlangen. In the autumn of 1945 the Americans arrested one of the Poles for trading cigarettes, which they considered illegal. The Germans were ready to sacrifice everything for cigarettes. We got information from our friend, that he was in Bad Nauheim, where the third staff headquarters of the American Army, general Patton, were situated. We decided to go there and try to intervene and have him released. We went there with a friend, who drove the car and with Lidka, the sister of the detained man.
         After our arrival in the city, we were directed to the local security officer, having the rank of lieutenant. The conversation began. The American started to talk to me in English, and then he changed to German. I continued the negotiations in this language. This made the officer suspicious. As it turned out, the American was of German descent. In 1930s. his family went to the USA.
         Suddenly the officer told me: "You use the American uniforms unlawfully." I replied: "Wait, wait. I have the identity card of a ex-prisoner of war. I have a badge on my uniform that says "Poland." It is obvious that I am not an American." The American, however, decided to detain us until the explanation is given. When we were taken away, I said to Lidka: "Go quickly to Burg and report what is happening here." It was not that easy, since Lidka reached Nauheim by the car driven by one of us.
         We were taken to prison, of course a German one. The warden was also German, in civilian clothes. This is the paradox of history. We were arrested by Americans, put up in a German prison in the conquered Germany, and we were guarded by a German. Then, it was even more interesting. We were aware that it would take some time before Lidka would reach Burg. On the next day, we ran out of cigarettes. I called the German warden who lived on the location and asked him to buy us cigarettes.
         The German said that it was out of the question. I started a quarrel, knowing that it worked with Germans. The warden said at last: " A representative of a well-known aristocratic family does his time here. I don't know if he's an American or what. They told me to guard him and so I do. He has the cigarettes." I said to the warden: "Go to him, tell him that two Poles are here and they have nothing to smoke."
         An hour later the German brought us 2 packets of cigarettes, I told him: "I have to thank this man for it somehow." The warden said that it was impossible. Nothing is impossible. I suggested the following solution: "Bring us to your place downstairs and bring him there as well. We won't escape, anyway." And the German agreed to it. We waited a few minutes in his flat and he brought our fellow prisoner. A very dignified gentleman at the age of about forty introduced himself to us. It turned out that he is a Polish prince (I won't give his name). We asked how he got here.
         It turned out that he was driving from Frankfurt am Main, where the main headquarters of the Allied Army were, with documents allowing him to pass to France. In Bad Nauheim he was stopped by some "American cowboy," who - seeing the title Prinz in his documents - considered it very suspicious and canned the prince as a shady character - just in case. The aristocrat ended up in prison and the documents were sent to Frankfurt am Main to be checked. He was canned a day before us. We left after 3 days, and he still did his time. Later on, I learnt that the prince went to America.
         On the third day since our arrest, a non-commissioned officer from the American headquarters in Bad Nauheim came to us and asked if we had the registration of the car in which we came here. I replied that of course we had. He said that we were suspected of stealing that car. I showed him the documents. He wanted to take them with him. I replied that I wouldn't give them to him for sure, and that he could only take a look at them. He drove away and came back in a hour, taking us with himself.
         We ended up with the same security officer, who detained us. He told me: "I am very sorry. There has been a misunderstanding. If only you want to ask me for something, I would be glad to arrange it." When you hear something like that, it can only get your goat. I said: "Yes, I would like to ask for something. I would like to ask you to write that I spent 3 days in prison, detained by you on no ground. I have to justify myself to my authorities."
         Imagine that the Colonel wrote such a testimonial for me. The car was, of course, given back to us and we could return to our camp. After our return, I went to the local, befriended security officer having the rank of captain. As it turned out, in the meantime Lidka informed him of our problem when she returned to the camp. The Captain telephoned the lieutenant, gave him a dressing-down which sped up our release.
         I showed our testimonial, given by the representative of the allied service, to the Captain. And he told me: "Listen, if you had a friend in the high command of the army and if you showed him this document, then the Colonel would, first of all, be immediately degraded, and - secondly - he would also be immediately sent back to the States. The boy had the right to detain you, if he had any suspicions, but he wasn't allowed to give you such a document."
         There were many such contacts with Americans then. In the town of Herborn, about 1.5 km away from our camp, there was the cell of the intelligence service CIC (Combined Intelligence Committee), established before the end of the war as the united American-British intelligence service. Its representatives, working in Germany, had to find and detain the fascist activists, going into the hiding after the war. But not only...
         One day, two American CIC officers known to me from earlier contact, arrived at our camp, wanting to know what was going on in our camp. With them, a Soviet officer came, probably from the NKVD. The Russian addressed me in Russian, claiming that in our camp we hid Soviet citizens who should return to their country after the war. I pretended that I didn't know what he meant.
         From the earlier contacts with Soviet ex-prisoners of war, I knew what happened to these who came back to their homeland. A Soviet general's son who was released from German captivity, and had no intention of returning to the Soviet Union had said that the Russians who were in Germany, and thus saw the West with their own eyes, did not come back to their families, but were taken away for at least 5 years to camps in Siberia for some kind of rehabilitation from which they may never come back home. When I expressed my doubts that this didn't concern him, as a general's son, he only laughed at my naivety.
         In fact, in our camp we had given shelter to two Soviet Union citizens: a Russian man and a Georgian woman, whom we married to a Pole. Nota bene, it was a love match, not a mercenary marriage. Of course, I had no intention of informing the NKVD officer about it.
         It turned out that one of the American officers spoke Russian and he translated what the Russian was saying into English for me: he demanded that we denounce the Russians who were in our camp. I understood all too well what the NKVD officer was saying, but I tried to explain to the American officer that it was some kind of misunderstanding, that there were no Russians here. I didn't want to denounce the people who knew perfectly well what awaits them and didn't want to return to their country. I believed that they were free people and could make decisions about their fate on their own. The discussion dragged out. The Russian claimed that there were Soviet citizens there, and I denied that.
         The prolonged discussion was interrupted by my wife Terenia's small dog, a smooth fox terrier, named "Wicherek" in honour of our friend. The little doggie, which had always been very obedient and never attacked anyone, not even strangers, this time behaved in a totally different way. Probably, having sensed who it was with the canine smell, the doggie caught the Russian officer's trousers and began to pull at them with determination. A small commotion ensued and the enraged Russian, to my heartfelt content, retreated outside the camp's fence.
         During the following meeting with the American officers who visited us from time to time, I expressed my astonishment at the fact that they, despite being so democratic, didn't want to honour the wishes of these Russians who - not accidentally - didn't want to return to their country. The Americans explained themselves, saying that these were the orders of their authorities. For my part, I obviously didn't tell them that in our camp there are Russians who are hiding from their authorities.
         My command of foreign languages came in handy all the time. After I survived the winter 1945/46 as well as some kind of reorganisation among the ex-prisoners of war, I was offered a job as a translator in the command of the Polish guard companies in Fritzlar near Kassel. The command was Polish but on an normal course it cooperated with the American command, and hence the need for a translator. My wife, who spoke German and English a bit, worked as a typist, all the time in the uniform. This is how we made it to the summer of 1946.

Fritzlar

         In the meantime, my wife got in touch with her family back in Poland. The family, particularly her sister, began to persuade her to return to Poland. In principle, I didn't stay in touch with my family. I didn't know what was happening to my mother, father and a younger sister. The flat in Warsaw was destroyed. One moment, I remembered the address of my uncle who lived in Wlocławek. It was the only family address outside of Warsaw which I remembered, Wlocławek 26 Barska Street. I wrote a letter to the uncle: "Dear Uncle, if you know anything about my family, here is my address." It was amazing, but as it later turned out, it was to Wlocławek where my mother went with my sister, since there was nothing she could do back in the devastated Warsaw.
         My wife's sister gave us the news that they acquired a flat in Warsaw on the Belwederska Street. A room was waiting for me there. In these circumstances we decided to come back home. It was July of 1946.

Eugeniusz Tyrajski

translated by Katarzyna Wiktoria Klag

Eugeniusz Tyrajski, born on the 8th of October 1926 Home Army soldier pseud. "Genek," "Sek"(= a snag) K-2 company, "Karpaty" battalion "Baszta" AK regiment

Copyright © 2012 Maciej Janaszek-Seydlitz. All rights reserved.