Inscannat brev, från Wanda till Jozef

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Ewa Witkowskas familjearkiv

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Brev

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Ett inscannat brev

1945-05-31

Givaren har behållit brevet i original, detta är en inscannad version av brevet

Wanda och Jozefs barnbarn berättar: "The girls in Onslunda were visited by the representative of Polish government, who was one of the guys interned who was going around all places and taking information about who they are to inform the Polish government. When he visited, they learned that there were those two hundred soldiers, or navy, from the Polish navy who were interned in Sweden. My mother came up with an idea: 'Why don’t we contact them!', because they have been so long and they don’t have much contact with people. 'So let’s write letters!' And it grew to this joking thing that was great. 'Let’s write matrimonial offers!' So, they send those letters, and my mother asked the guy who visited: 'Who we should send those letters to?' And the guy say 'Oh, why don’t you send it to Mr Jósef Pastuszuk, and he will take care of this'. Okay, so he did! And he wrote back, it was a funny letter. And many other guys wrote back and there was a big correspondence going between those people. Even women who were married wrote those things just for fun. And then, in terms of my mother and father, it started from fun and then it grew to an actual very serious correspondence. And it turned out they were sort of soul mates. So this is how they met! Yes. And they were sending, corresponding by mail - sometimes sending two letters a day. The mail man at Smedstorp slott couldn’t believe this!" Detta är det första brevet Wanda skrev till Jozef, skrivet 31 maj 1945. De kom senare att bli varandras livspartners. Översättning gjord av Jozef och Wandas dotter Ewa, från polska till engelska: "Onslunda, 31 May 1945 Dear Captain of the Rescue Team, We are all in awe with your letter and with you! You have understood our letters in exactly the way we intended them to be received. And as to me, I am full of delight that it is YOU who chose me…OR have fallen in my lap… Pardon, first please get ready for millions of kisses from all members of my lady group. Can you feel our open arms yearning for you? And please note that this is just this one time that I am going to allow other women to kiss you. So, take full advantage of this chance. Don’t you see how open minded I am! One might even assume that not only am I “beautiful” but am also good-natured, and maybe even very kind. However given the fact that I am rather brave, I will tell you the truth – and whatever is to happen will happen – so in short, I am neither beautiful nor good-natured, and definitely not very kind. That’s it – take it or leave it! I have great hopes that you will survive this disappointment and be happy that I chose to be honest. So, let’s make a deal that we are going to treat each other without over-reaching expectations. And I am sober enough not to pretend that I am somebody else who is not me and am brave enough to tell you this openly and without unnecessary niceties. And thank God, there is Mr. Henryk who can enlighten you any time you wish. It truly gives me a physical pain that I cannot satisfy my curiosity regarding you. Just imagine (and such bad luck is unlikely to have happened within the last 100 years) that just the day after Mr. Henryk left, your wonderful letter arrived. We read it and read it again and again and we all cried and then we laughed. And we were trying to imagine the face of the censor going through our matrimonial ads. Whoops, I keep forgetting that the censor will also examine this very letter and might decide it does not meet his standards in terms of language and topic and you might never receive it…And then, following the camp-derived self-support practice, I started to curse. After all, if it wasn’t for Henryk being so keen on leaving, I would have known everything there is to know about you by now! I am sure that you understand that it is very difficult and risky for a person to set on such an important endeavor based on pure fantasy. It might be devastating for a weak-spirited person to even consider such an option – but thankfully as we have already established, I am brave. So rather than hesitate and withdraw I see an opportunity here, and I fantasize! And each evening my fantasy takes another form, and I am happy to admit that I feel very good about it all. Voila! And I think that like me, you should also be delighted that it is I that fate has sent you. And I am intentionally using a “sent you” format as if I were referring to being “sent by the Holy Spirit”. So, let’s be happy together and as I tend to laugh a lot, this will come very easily for me. (Would you be interested to see one of the pictures that I have created in my mind?). I see us holding hands and laughing, being happy about our youth, our life, our happiness on board of your ship – or whatever you call it. And wind plays with our laughter and carries it higher and higher, and it blows our hair, and it is all absolutely magical. How do you like this idyllic and platonic fantasy? As to our rendezvous in Paris, I am afraid that is not going to come soon. Actually, it is more likely that we might meet in England – as we all here aspire to join the Women’s Auxiliary Service promoted by the Polish Government in London that we have learned about from Henryk. We already did apply for this service. But of course, I would be delighted to see you in Stockholm! Well, so here goes our mysterious adventure. But we need to face vis major – to our chagrin it turns out that we are not quite free yet. It is really very difficult to express how much I am longing to be free, free in the full meaning of the word. I imagine that, when the first day of my true freedom comes, I will go somewhere far, far away, crossing fields and meadows, against blowing wind – it must be against the wind because this is the most fulfilling position. You need to wrestle, you lose your breath, you get so tired. And this feels magical! Just to provide you with a reference, I got arrested in the first half of 1941. So, I have had four and a half years of walls, barbed wires, bars, guards, etc. You would probably like to know how old I am. Well, this tends to be a rather tricky question but as a brave girl let me be honest – 25 years. Not bad, isn’t it? Frankly, I think that I should subtract the years of the camp and prison as this was not life – just the horrific vegetation, or more precisely, true Gehenna i.e. pure hell though I do not like to use this word. But those years taught me many lessons, changed my view of the world, it became very different from the polite and civil one that I developed at home and at school. Now I consider myself a person fully prepared to face life. Having gone through those years taught me not to surrender and not to go crazy, however tempting it might have been. I can’t imagine that I might face any more scary surprises in my life. But let’s not talk about it right now – those memories are still throwing me off balance. Now I am expecting that life will bring me joy and happiness. And I think that I deserve that. I need to put evil behind me. I am very grateful for your offer of help. Maybe you have some Polish books or newspapers? I would greatly appreciate gaining access to these things. We don’t have much of that sort of thing here. We are told that our quarantine is supposed to end soon (here everything appears to be referred to as “supposed”), which frankly drives me nuts – I tend to react impulsively. I was invited to spend some “relaxing time” with our major caregiver – “the lady on the estate”. Supposedly I/we will be very happy there (“supposedly” again, you see). I am not sure how it will all work out since I know no Swedish, only German and some English. But it will all work out somehow, as carefree people tend to say. And after all, we are all waiting to go to England. Don’t you think that everything in this world should have some boundaries, like my writing to you for example? I realize that at some point I need to finish this rather lovely chat with you, my delightful Józek. I am happy that your name is Józef, I have a soft spot for this name. If you do not mind, please call me Ceśka, as this is how all close to me people call me. Wanda belongs on the envelope and in the passport. So Ceśka is sending you very strong handshake and lots of best wishes from her friends. Please remember that I am waiting for your letter that will hopefully contain some information about you, maybe even a photo? Ceśka, My address: Gąsiorowska Wanda Onslunda Flyktinglägret, Skäne P.S. Sorry, that am writing with a pencil but none of us has yet acquired a pen. Though it is a rather unimportant detail, isn’t it. On another note, please remember that our SOS is still very much active and urgent and that contra-attacks from Swedes are likely to come dangerously close."

• Gasiorowska, Wanda Czesława
• Pastuszuk, Jósef

Polska

3404422

SMF201

3327601 Volym 1. Brev Volym

https://samlingar.shm.se/archive/7149664d-55ba-4863-9af5-c6ffad5f8029