E-VITA

In the year 1984 the situation in Poland was really difficult. After the martial law period the country and people were tired, deprived of any hope and very many Poles decided to leave the country, ‘to escape to the west’ as they said at that time. It was not an easy decision to take and not an easy thing to organise. At that time we thought the journey of that kind was most often one way trip and believe me it was a dramatic situation to decide to leave old parents, home, friends close the door and go for the unknown… we did not know the language, had no money… I was worried, my daughter was little. But my husband was more courageous. He was young, eager, very hardworking and clever. He was working a lot, he took extra hours in his factory and still we did not have enough to buy food, medicines, pay the rent etc. It was awful, scary and depressing time in Poland, shops were empty, we did not have enough money to buy food in the black market. Products like ham, butter, oranges, coffee were impossible to obtain in an ordinary way, they were considered delicacies. People were depressed and we thought it would be like that for ever.

My husband was a locksmith, he was very skilful and was able to do many different jobs. He had a friend who had spent some time in Germany. He knew some people there and had a good work. He talked my husband into the idea of going with him abroad to work and earn decent money. Well we sat down, we talked for hours, we debated different options, we had to invest some money into preparing the trip of course. I borrowed a sum from my sister, he started the procedure to get the passport – surprisingly he got his passport after only a few weeks, we decided it was a good omen. Finally my husband together with his friend went to West Germany – they stayed in a small town close to Hamburg. They found occupation in the house of a German man who was building a house and he needed professional help. My husband together with his friend built the house quickly and they also helped with all decoration works. The man was surprised and he could not believe his eyes at the tempo and quality of the work done by the two Polish workers. He was very satisfied and recommended the two workers to some other German families. So my husband had a real dilemma whether to come back home or stay in Germany and earn more money. Finally he decided he had to come back to Poland. He did great shopping – he bought sweets, fruit, coffee, cacao, juices, chocolate, some clothes for me and our daughter, some school accessories for other children in the family and a nice leather jacket for himself and he came back home. Our joy was great! We were as happy to be reunited as if he was coming back from far away after a few years of  separation. We enjoyed the extraordinary products he brought, which are all so obvious nowadays. It is unbelievable. We had a lot of money – we could buy a car – it was a small fiat, very popular at that time in Poland.

The German man was writing letters and he was inviting all our family to visit him, but we never went there.

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