Otorowo, Poland

by

Basia Meder

It was May 1995. The Polish spring, deep, mellow and green, surrounded us. As a part of my year-long journey around the world I had dreamt of visiting the place of my birth, Otorowo. It is a small village near the old and famous city of Torun, the place where Copernicus was born.

I took my 75 year-old mother with me, anxious to reconstruct the places of our past from the fragments of her memories. Neither of us had been there since my family left in 1948.

I drove slowly along a quiet and narrow country road lined by striking old trees covered with two or three week-old, gentle-green leaves. The flat landscape seemed endless. My eyes were wide open. I breathed the fresh air and felt the strong earthy smell awakening to the new season. On the top of the high electric poles, storks spread-out their huge freshly built nests.

I felt Mum's excitement. It was an emotional experience for both of us. Her rusty memories started returning when she said: "Oh yes, I do remember this building, turn left here, then to the right", and then, "Oh yes, I was cycling here to Makowice to buy bread and to sell milk!"

Otorowo was and still is in a farmland area. The only time I saw its name was on a bus stop sign. Vast green pastures, meadows and fields are cut across by the rows of weeping willows. The landscape is like Chopin's music: peaceful as paradise. Is this why I love piano music so much? It was in this place my parents arrived in the spring of 1946.

That year, the day I was born in August was bright and sunny. Around the house fruit trees were growing, laden with plums and apples. There were no hospitals nearby. The doctor was not able to arrive fast enough. My father (Tata) brought me into this life. With a smile Mama recalled the moment where Tata put through the window a huge branch of plum tree covered with big fresh aromatic fruit. He was so happy and proud of his new baby daughter.

But for my mother life on the farm was very hard. In her childhood she had been used to a wealthy home with servants. The war changed everything. In Otorowo she had to learn how to milk a cow and to look after the farm animals. She was mostly alone during the day with two children. She hated it more and more. My father was born on a farm in Lubaczow. Despite his law degree and continuing work at Torun University he was happy to look after the Otorowo farm, which they had received as compensation for the family assets taken by Russia in Lwow region.

Otorowo has not changed much since those days. In my mother's words "if anything has changed through the last fifty years under Communist rule it has only been for the worse". The farm's buildings are run down with creaking wooden floors and stairs, but still look cared for. Pigs, chickens and ducks are everywhere. Rusted machines and tools are covered with grass.

Life here is very basic, strict and limited. Although poverty is visible everywhere, the people are friendly. For them everyday hardship is similar to that of fifty years ago as experienced by my parents and other settlers. Most people who live here look after the farms and at the same time work in the city. There are very few young people.

Mama's memories became dramatic. Sadness overcame all happy experiences of her youth. Her feelings of hopelessness, fear and self-pity became clear on our trip fifty years later. The farm at Otorowo brought her memories of hardship and eyewitness stories of horrors: suicides, wartime murders, and other atrocities. But after a while I closed my ears - I didn't want to listen.

It was a great surprise for me after seeing a number of faded pictures from the past with smiling and happy faces. Was it a moment of truth, of recovered emotion after so many years? An openness after years of compulsory discretion, where secrecy became a way of life for many Polish people? How much did this place of my birth and Mama's dramatic youth affect me in the past, and now?

Halina, one of the present owners of the farm, enriched our visit by her warm old-fashioned hospitality, the surprise treat of tasty country sausages, bread and a long chat.

I left the farm lost in contemplation after many hours of wandering around. A gusty wind blew behind us. In contrast, the mild, green plains were covered with fresh grass and spring flowers. The fruit trees, especially apple trees, were covered with sweet-smelling white blossom. In the slow-flowing creek the ancient trees were reflected in the calm water. Joyful, yellow marsh marigolds were nestling nearby.

On the main road several old windmills were dimly visible in the twilight. It appeared to me like a dream landscape. I had the impression that time had stopped here many years ago. The landscape itself had not changed much; only the houses were run down and people had become much older.

* * * * *

Suddenly, during this trip to Otorowo, something struck me. I realised that my family and I had been migrants and travellers all our life long.

My parents were married in Lwow, a city in east Poland, later taken by Russia. They were forced to run away from all their wealthy family possessions when the Gestapo searched for my father, an officer in the Polish National Army. In 1944 they moved to the north of Poland.

They arrived in Otorowo with my four-year-old brother, a few months before I was born. However, life on the farm was too difficult for them. Less then two years later they went to the city of Torun, where my younger brother was born. But the migrant life did not stop for them, or me. They moved several times as a result of the political and economic changes in Poland after the Second World War.

So I was a nomad too. In 1981 I became a Polish migrant in Australia along with my son. We gradually adjusted to life in a foreign country. During this time I too have moved several times. Now, my home is in Canberra where I have built a house and created a garden, a place of solitude, friendship and joy. I spend many peaceful hours working or resting in the garden, photographing its changes, sipping champagne with friends.

After my trip to Otorowo and hours of talk with my Mama I realised something else: my Canberra house has been the place that I have lived for the longest period. It is my home; modest, but dear and comfortable. And Australia is my home too. I am proud of my new country, where my son and his new family will grow together. I am a proud Pole and will always treasure my memories. However, Australia is the place where I belong now, the place I choose to live, to return to from all my journeys and the place I call home.

The faded old pictures and the new ones from Otorowo in Poland are precious reminders of my past but I turn to meet the future in Australia.