The Bond

By Giuseppe Leonardo Sorbello

For lovers of evocative historical fiction... 'The Bond' transports you to pre-war Poland to experience two World Wars and Hitler's domination as it was experienced by a peasant family whose members will find their way into your heart, and will live on there long after you have turned the last page.

THE CHILD OF A HARDWORKING peasant farmer, Hana enjoyed an almost idyllic early life. Finding, and marrying her soul mate, she lived happily with him on their little plot of paradise. She gave birth to a daughter and adopted a dearly loved son.

Challenged by tragedy and unusual circumstances, Hana’s faith and the power of family love sustained her.

Then came the Great War. Hana and her family were among the millions of Polish refugees forced to flee. Returning to heart-breaking devastation, they rebuilt, displaying the strength and resilience characteristic of their kind.
And then...
Adolf Hitler’s invasion of Poland brought the lapankas, resulting, for millions, in family separation, incarceration, slave labour, Lebensborn, the Germinization of Foreign Children, and murder. Infamous Nazi plans tore families and communities apart and changed, forever, the lives of a people who were fundamentally a people of peace.

Will Hana and her family survive? Will loved ones be reunited?

Can they ever return to the idyllic farming life they kne

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lorraine Cobcroft
• Release date: Jan 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9780994530714

Giuseppe Leonardo Sorbello

Giuseppe Sorbello was born in North Queensland. The son of Sicilian emigrants, he grew up in Spring Hill, Brisbane through the 1930s and 40s.He moved to Melbourne in 1956 to study singing, music and acting and started a professional acting career there. In London, he furthered his singing studies at the Royal College of Music Opera School, and he joined the Glyndebourne Festival Opera Chorus in 1965.Working as a freelance singer for five years, he eventually discovered his true vocation as a teacher/director. He worked successfully in London for thirteen years.Returning to his home and family in 1977, with his wife, Sheila, he joined the Queensland Conservatorium of Music (now Griffith University) and founded the opera training course there. In 1997, he retired from full-time teaching/directing to go ‘freelance.’He began writing in 2001. The Bond is his first full-length novel.He lives in Brisbane.

Book preview

THE BOND

A story of love, faith, and courage

GIUSEPPE LEONARDO SORBELLO

 Published by Rainbow Works Pty Ltd

© 2018 by Giuseppe Leonardo Sorbello

ISBN 13-978-9945307-1-4 Ebook Edition

(Print edition also available)

All rights reserved.

Published in Australia by Rainbow Works Pty Ltd, Pottsville, NSW.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

This book is a work of historical fiction. It contains sections, clearly defined by the use of different font and formatting, that detail the life of Adolf Hitler and related historical events of World Wars I and II. The author has extensively researched to ensure these sections are as accurate as reasonably achievable. The story of the families is fiction, although some of the places referred to actually exist and some events and incidents actually happened. Every effort has been made to ensure the story reflects accurately the character, lifestyles, culture, and traditions of the people who populated those regions during the period covered by the story; the challenges the people of those regions faced; the traumas and heartaches they endured; and the personal courage and strength that enabled so many to prevail.

The editor, proof reader and publisher of this work specifically disclaim any responsibility for the accuracy of historical, geographical or cultural information contained herein, as well as for any opinion or belief, whether stated or implied, and for the author’s choices of names for persons, entities or places.

Names, characters, businesses, and organizations, excepting for those in the sections relating the history of Hitler and the Nazis, are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance of story characters to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

For information, contact:

Giuseppe Leonardo Sorbello     [e-mail]

Book and Cover design by

Rainbow Works Pty Ltd.

Foreword

As a proof reader and editor, a great number of works come by my desk, and I enjoy every part of every chapter, whatever the subject or theme.

The Bond, written by Giuseppe Sorbello, was placed in my hands to proofread before going to print. It was a large novel, which at first seemed rather daunting. Before the first chapter was completed, I was glued to my office chair, and days went by as I read on, completely captivated by this wonderful story of strength, courage, tragedy and most of all, Family.

Woven around the period between the 1890s to the 1950s, including the traumatic and devastating years during the Great War of 1914-18 and World War II, the story certainly evidences Giuseppe’s gift of words. The emotion is so real that at times I had tears in my eyes, and then you read on, and a smile lifts you up. The sheer tenacity and determination of the Polish people during these dreadful times was humbling.

Giuseppe has a special gift for writing, and I wish him all the very best with his first published novel.

Jan Peters

Prologue

A EUROPEAN MOTOR JOURNEY

The Drive Route

Come with me on a journey across Europe, starting from Paris. Cross the Rhine at Strasbourg and on to Munich. Remember Munich! Make a mental note! 

Into Austria, where we might stop for tea and some reflection at a town called Braunau, on the River Inn. Here, in the late 19th century, a man was born who would once more change the history of Europe, plunging it into perhaps its darkest phase. This phase would end the lives of more than sixty million people, and change, forever, the lives of many millions more.

Drive on. 

Follow the Danube to Budapest, and turn northward to cross between the snow-capped peaks of the Carpathian Mountains, then descend into South East Poland. If we were to turn east from here, we could drive to Ukraine, but we need to turn westward towards Krakow, and then take another road northward. Soon we’ll climb to the top of a wooded ridge with a view into a valley about twenty kilometres long and three wide.

Stop the car. Step out. It’s a fine view of a modern twenty-first-century prosperous farming area. Noise from the valley reaches us, even right up here. It’s a pleasant outlook. A stream flows for half its length, with the sealed road close beside.

Now, let’s indulge our imagination. Dissolve that scene. In your mind’s eye, change it to the way it was when our story begins—the late nineteenth century. It’s a very different rural outlook now, isn’t it?

Get back into our comfortable car and drive leisurely through the valley, imagining that we cannot be seen by the local peasant inhabitants of that time. We have entered one of the small valleys forming part of the vast Valley of the Vistula. The houses are made of stone or wood, with thatched rooves and only one room large enough to accommodate an entire family.

Evening light comes from oil lamps and candles. There are no power lines or telephone cables. We travel on dirt roads and cart tracks. The road runs along the valley floor, following the stream. Notice the soil? It’s some of the most fertile on earth: ‘Chernozem’—the black earth.

Stop. Get out again. Walk into a field. Pick up a handful. You’ll find it porous—crumbling easily between your fingers. The surface dries out readily after rain or snow-melt, thus ensuring that the soil nutrients remain near the surface for crop roots. Worked with primitive hand tools and the horse or oxen drawn plough, for early man this soil made a cultivator’s paradise. Away from the Baltic, winter is milder, with a shorter snow period. The summer is longer and warmer, with an earlier spring and a longer growing season.

Our story begins in this valley, when Poland was ruled by Austria, before the great conflict of 1914 to 1918. Conflict is not new to Poland. Since before the Middle Ages it has been invaded, occupied and partitioned. Three times—that we know of—it has disappeared from the map of Europe. Yet it is still there. Its people are as fiercely independent as any.

As well as the political designs of foreign powers, the Roman Catholic Church also influenced most of its people. Customs and traditions embracing agriculture, food, dress, dance, music and song have made the Polish peasant as colourful as any other. Despite their religious superstitions, they quickly take advantage of the frequent holidays built into their way of life. Usually, that means a feast, accompanied with song and dance.

Drive on. Don’t worry, we will not collide with other motor vehicles. They will not enter this valley for almost thirty years. But you will need to avoid horse-drawn wagons and carts or cattle grazing on the roadsides.

All accessible land is tilled. This countryside of small family farms was created when serfdom ended with the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Owned by the same family for generations, the farms vary from four or five acres to perhaps ten or twelve.

There are numerous villages where we can stop for refreshment. The larger village has a tavern and perhaps a store trading goods brought in from the towns. With Catholicism being the dominant religion, embraced by more than ninety percent of the population, there are churches in many villages. Also, there are market towns, with warehouses, mills, factories and shops.

Wheat grows in the fields around us. Rye is also grown to produce one of the oldest staple foods—the dark rye bread. Other crops are sugar beet, potatoes, oats, barley, flax and hemp. Always, there are the indispensable garden plots and orchards. Cows, pigs and poultry are valuable food sources. The horse is important, and the ox to pull the plough, wagon and cart. Great care and respect is paid to the animals and the soil. These people instinctively know the importance of both for their survival.

To the north lies that newest of inventions, revolutionising the western world—the railway. Since the steam locomotive made its way from Vienna to Warsaw in the 1840s, its tentacles have reached from Krakow into the east, as far as Tarnow, and to its ultimate destination —Ukraine.

Halfway along the valley, we must turn left to cross the stream over a five-metre-long wooden bridge. Twenty metres further, on the right, is a wide wooden gate. Stop at that gate and step out. Lean on the gate for a while. At the end of a short lane stands a well-kept cottage made of stone and wood, with a thatched roof. It stands some distance from those around it. On the right is an orchard. The fruit trees are pruned and mulched.

Behind is the vegetable garden producing almost all that is needed, plus always some for sale or trading. This farm—situated beside the stream—is twelve acres. One way and another, we will spend much time here in the telling of this story.

Here lives a woman, her husband, their two children and her parents. The woman’s name is Hana. (Pronounced ‘Harna’)

The South East Area

BOOK 1 1889-1933

Part I: The Families

Hana's Farm

I

Hana

Hana’s farm has been owned by her family for several generations. Until 1887, it was a holding of eight acres. By the end of 1856, five souls occupied it, the last being Grigor (pronounced ‘Greegor’) born in that year. The family comprised the parents, Miklos (pronounced ‘Meeklos’) and Zeta (pronounced ‘Zeeta’), the eldest boy Paul, four, Mari the only girl, two, and Grigor.

As he grew, Grigor learned to be a farmer, like those around him. He was a good farmer, with an innate understanding of the soil and the consequences if it was abused.

They were a happy family, typical peasants whose duty, it seems, was to be the custodians of the soil. They were born on it, lived on it, died on it —contending with nature to produce one of the three things without which man cannot survive: food.

First as a boy, then as a young man working in the fields and with the animals, Grigor instinctively knew it was his duty. He loved the feel of the black soil in his hands and beneath his feet. In the spring, he found satisfaction in seeing it tilled for sowing and planting. Then, the curious anticipation of waiting for the soil to do its work on the seed held there. And afterwards, seeing the fields turn to green with the first shoots reaching into the sunlight, bringing life to all living things. After the short days of winter, the lengthening days of spring brought a welcome warmth and renewed energy as the land burst forth under the sun’s rays.

By his fourteenth year, Grigor had taken his place in the family workforce. With an innate quietness, his eyes were bright with humour.

Mari left the family at age twenty-one. A pretty girl, she soon attracted the attention of young men. She was married in the spring of 1875, and went to live with her husband and his family a few kilometres to the south.

Paul, the eldest, was never happy with peasant life. Not loving the soil quite like the others, he could not reconcile himself with the struggle to survive. On marketing visits to Bochnia, where the railway passed, he found a fascination with the great steam locomotives that hauled the wagons and carriages between Krakow and the east. Men were wanted to work on the growing network of railways. He decided it was the kind of work he might enjoy. At twenty-five years, he left the farm and went to Krakow to work on the railways. Within two years he had qualified as Engine Driver, First Class. There was no recrimination or bitterness. He remained a good family member, with frequent visits. He also remained a bachelor.

So, Grigor was left with his parents on the farm. It was not easy. The four-acre farm downstream from Grigor’s was bordered by the bend of the stream to the east, and by Grigor’s property to the west. As a child, Grigor had played with neighbouring children. One was a girl named Clarissa. A year older than he, she lived on the four-acre farm next to his along the stream.

Clarissa lived there with her father, Jahn (pronounced ‘Yarn’), a widower. This family —including the mother until her early death —had lived there all their lives. It was a hard life. They were often hungry, especially in the winter.

Playing together, Clarissa and Grigor had become close. Growing into a smaller woman than the average, Clarissa was not particularly strong. As a worker, though, she managed well enough. She also was rather shy. Having difficulty using words to express her feelings, she kept them mostly to herself.

As the years passed, both parents saw that Grigor and Clarissa cared for one another. But sometimes, when a long-standing familiarity exists between two people who both suffer from innate shyness, years can pass with each afraid to reveal their inner feelings. Perhaps Clarissa was aware that her father relied on her. She possibly felt an obligation to care for him as he grew older. Perhaps Grigor was also conscious of this and was reluctant to suggest a union. If they married, according to custom, she would live with him and his parents, thereby leaving her father alone. It never seemed to occur to them that their cottages were separated by barely a two-hundred metre path along the stream bank.

Thus they became adults, each wanting the other but afraid to say so. Clarissa’s father, Jahn, was the catalyst for their marriage. His wife had died of influenza when Clarissa was four years old. He had become aware of his impending old age, that Clarissa was unmarried, and her obvious affection for Grigor. Upon Jahn’s death, the farm would be left to Clarissa, and she would not be able to manage it. He also sensed that with her and Grigor, he would not suffer the fate that many old people did in that society —he would never become a virtual beggar when the farm became the property of the children after they married.

One day, he approached Grigor’s parents. Like conspirators, they all quickly agreed to the marriage of their children. Clarissa, at thirty-one years, and Grigor at thirty, were married in the spring of 1888.

Jahn was content living alone. His daughter was within calling distance, and he took most of his meals in her house. The farms were combined, thereby becoming a more viable enterprise of twelve acres. Unusually, none were cursed with the characteristic jealousies and land-hungry greed. Money was of little importance. It was a happy house, and became even happier when, in October 1888, Clarissa announced she was carrying Grigor’s child.

Clarissa became extraordinarily large, and, in the last two months of her pregnancy, could only rest. On April 20th, 1889, attended by the local midwife and Grigor’s mother, Zeta, Clarissa delivered a baby girl. They named her Hana.

April 20th 1889, In the border town of Braunau, between Austria and Germany, on the third floor of the Pommer Inn, to Alois and Klara, a male child is born. In the baptismal registry, his name is entered as Adolfus Hitler.

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Hana’s birth brought great joy to the family, but it also brought anxiety and fear. She was a large baby. For Clarissa, it was a difficult, painful birth. There was great fear for her life. Her recovery took several months. She would never conceive again.

Hana was born in early spring —that magical time when a curious excitement and anticipation enters the veins of living things, promising renewal and exuberant growth. She absorbed similar qualities into her infant veins.

Hana was different from the average Polish peasant girl, but it would be a long time before the differences became apparent. No matter how deeply traditions, customs or rituals are set, there are some who begin to see things differently. Though they learn the old ways, slowly, change occurs —perhaps taking a generation or two before the old ways disappear.

To see the spring transformation each morning, Clarissa took Hana outside in the sun, where she could see the mighty work horses pulling the plough and preparing the soil, the sowers spreading the seed grain for wheat and rye, and the planters placing seed potatoes and sugar beet. In the gardens, summer vegetables took the place of winter ones.

Among the first images to enter Hana’s infant mind might have been of the three men whom she came to know as her father and grandfathers, Miklos and Jahn, working with the horses, the plough, and sowing the seed.

One of the most pleasing images of all was that of the fruit trees —apple, pear, plum, apricot and cherry blossom —bursting forth in delightful colours. Later, she saw the wild chestnuts and the little filberts growing in quiet places. And in the hedgerows, wild blackberries and raspberries rambled. Then, as the earth turned green, and then gold with the ripening grain, the reapers, threshers and gatherers came with their music, songs and dances. And still, there were the great horses, now pulling the wagons laden with produce. These, and a host of other images, Hana’s eyes saw. They formed a cohesive pattern of existence, to be held in the infant mind for the gradual formation of the adult.

However, the images absorbed by the eyes were only a part. There was another, even more powerful. It was in the love Hana instinctively felt in the arms and kisses of all those who took her up and held her. It became an integral fabric of her soul —love not only for the loved ones who adored her, but for all living things. Her life was happy and virtually without pain. There was no need for tears.

Hana grew quickly and was taller than the average child. She walked by herself soon after her first year. Her interest and fascination with things was prodigious. Always on some new voyage of discovery, a brood of new born chicks scratching for food in the farmyard delighted her, as did ducklings and goslings following in train behind their mother. Every day, she would follow someone carrying a pail into the barn to milk the cows. Watching nimble fingers squeeze the creamy fluid from the teats, she wished to do it also, but her tiny hands would not yet surround the teat, let alone squeeze it. Urged to be gentle, she was allowed to try.

By her third year, Hana could carry a pail with food for the pigs. It was during that year she noticed one of them growing larger than the others. She became very excited, one day, when she saw her elders gather around the big sow to watch several tiny piglets emerge from the sow’s body. It was her introduction to the miracle of procreation. Hana learned something else from those piglets. The tiny pink creatures were like small living toys, and she formed an attachment to them. The first real distress came into her life a week later, when a horse and cart arrived with a man she had not seen before. He and her father went to the sty. Two of the piglets were taken up, squealing and struggling, and placed in the cart. The man gave something to her father which she would later learn was called money, and the cart drove away.

For the first time, Hana shed real tears. The distress of seeing those two tiny struggling creatures taken from their mother and sent away hurt her. In another family, she might have been told she was foolish for crying over something that was a necessity. But Grigor took her in his arms. With kind words, and that mysterious physical chemistry that can pass from one body to another in times of need for understanding, he comforted her. Though she did not understand all his words at the time, she eventually came to understand that this was the way of life here. Into her child’s mind came the realisation that she must not become too attached to creatures that were bred as a food source. She would never acquire a total detachment. Later, as a young woman, she would become more philosophical. All things in life must have their place.

1892. Alois senior is promoted. The family moves to Passau in lower Bavaria, on the German side of the River Inn. Adolf, now playing with true German children, hears for the first time, and learns to speak, in the lower Bavarian accent. It will remain his mother tongue; one of the relic reminders of his childhood.

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Hana had none of the characteristic shyness of her parents. Tall for her age of five years, and unusually bright, she spoke almost as well as the adults. She undertook many duties with the animals, all of which she loved. But the animals she loved most were the two great draft horses. She never tired of watching them hauling the wagon or pulling the plough, their manes blowing in the wind. She longed for the day when she, too, would be old enough to drive them, or handle them behind the plough.

From about the age of three, she had often scampered out to watch her father working with them and waited for him to finish. Then, she would beg him to lift her onto the back of one to ride to the stable. He always did, but not before playfully lifting her up and down several times, teasing her not to be too heavy, for she might break the poor horse’s back. Then she would have to pull the plough instead. Seated there, like a great queen, she would ride, bouncing about happily, holding on to the harness and marvelling at the massive power of the beast as he trundled along to his rest.

The horses were a source of wonder for Hana. She struggled to understand how a great beast, with such prodigious strength and capacity for work, could be so gentle and docile when at rest. At almost five years old, she was barely half their height, yet she was unafraid of them. She cared for them in any way she could, carrying oats or hay to feed them. When Grigor brushed down their coats at the end of each day, she noticed how he spoke to them affectionately. She, too, would take a brush to clean away the soil from the long hair around the hooves. Grigor warned her, often, to be alert. A stamp of one of those hooves could crush her into oblivion.

Somehow, she knew that aggression was not in their nature. Nonetheless, she learnt to be cautious. Those two great horses gave Hana an important lesson in life. They held, for her, a strange mixture of emotion: admiration of their awesome size and strength, and love of their great beauty. Perhaps it was from them that she learned that it was possible for humans to be massive in size and strength, while concealing an equally large capacity for gentleness and kindness.

In 1894, To Frau Hitler another male child is born. With the child demanding her full attention, Adolf has greater freedom from his mother’s care. When Adolf is five, his father is transferred to Linz, but the rest of the family remain in Passau. Enjoying this additional freedom, he wanders and plays constantly with German children.

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Soon after her fifth birthday a very significant dimension entered Hana’s life which would make her even more different to the average peasant woman. She began learning to read and write. It happened through the extraordinary relationship that developed between her and a close neighbour called Marika.

By six years of age Hana was a solidly built, strong child, standing almost a metre tall. She worked beside her family in the fields. She was not compelled to work. Instinctively, she knew it was her place —a woman of the soil!

Hana cared for the animals, though she did not do it entirely alone. There were two milk cows and three or four pigs. One of the pigs, a sow, was always producing litters of piglets, some of which were sold. The sty and pens had to be cleaned. Water was carried from the stream. Chickens and geese, chicks and goslings roamed by day around the farmyard, the garden and the orchard. Released in the morning, they were brought back at night to the safety of the coops.

The cows had to be cared for, and milked, which Hana could now do. Frequently, she took them onto the roadside to graze. There, she would sometimes find other children doing the same. Then there would be games and chatter.

In the spring of 1895, Hana celebrated her sixth birthday. Her Aunt Mari came with her husband and their four children, Hana’s only cousins. Uncle Paul came and stayed several days. All the way from Krakow, he said, just to see her. Knowing that she was learning to read and write, he brought her some books and writing materials as a gift. They were the first of her own. From then on, he always brought her a book or two each time he visited. Close neighbours also called in.

Late April, a cool crispness filled the air, and a welcoming sun shone from a clear sky. The blossoms on the fruit trees had set, and the ground had dried out considerably. From the wagons and carts, tables, chairs and baskets of food came forth to be arranged beneath the orchard trees. By midday, about thirty people had gathered there, drinking and talking in a jolly atmosphere. Hana, her cousins and other children were immersed in important affairs which the adults could not possibly understand. They were glad to be left alone — until the food appeared. Then, all the important business vanished. After all, what could be more important than fresh wheaten bread rolls with butter, newly cured ham, pig trotters in jelly, roast veal and pork, coils of sausages, boiled eggs, cold roast potatoes, pickled cucumber and onions, and tomato relish and salad? And after that, an array of sweets and cakes, at the centre of which stood the giant mound shaped ˜baba’.

Hana wondered how all this food had appeared after the frugal days of Lent and the Easter Feast. The visitors bringing contributions strengthened her understanding of the generosity of the Polish peasant spirit.

The most perfect day of Hana’s life ended only when she was tucked into bed with her father sitting beside her. He told her —after more than two years of her pestering him —he would now teach her to drive the horses in the wagon. This filled her with excitement. Throwing her arms around him, she kissed him lovingly. Clarissa looked on with a smile. There was something about Hana that satisfied Clarissa deeply.

Born of an expenditure of energy on pursuits that brought pleasure, the strange tiredness Hana now felt was a feeling she hoped would never go away. Through her six years, she had received many things that had given her a love of life, but today had been special. In the safety and comfort of her bed, as the luxurious oblivion of happy sleep overtook her, she felt a delightfully painful intensity of feeling. She could not name it, for she had not yet learned the word ‘cherished’.

1895. Adolf’s father retires and the family is reunited at Hafeld. Adolf begins his education at the primary school in Fischlam, several miles away. The teachers report that he is a good pupil, mentally agile and well behaved.

Later in his life, Adolf will often say that his ideals were strongly influenced by the daily hour’s walk to the school and back, and playing in the open with husky German boys. By the age of six, he can express himself clearly. He soon becomes the leader among his playmates.

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Grigor began teaching Hana to drive the draft horses in the wagon. He was surprised at how well she had watched him over the years. She worked them evenly together, letting them have their heads when it was safe to do so. She kept a tight rein on them, on rough ground or in confined spaces. By the end of summer, she could handle the team with virtually the same ease as Grigor. It pleased him to see her so good with them. It reassured him to know that there was another who could handle them if necessary.

Clarissa’s father, Jahn, Hana’s maternal grandfather, lived in his tiny cottage by the stream. Except for breakfast —which he liked to prepare himself —he took all his meals in his daughter’s house. A kind old man, and a gifted raconteur, he had a seemingly endless supply of stories. Totally illiterate, many of his stories were products of his imagination.

Born and raised on adjoining farms, Jahn and Grigor’s father, Miklos, had been close friends all their lives. Miklos also had talent. His father had been well known in the community as a self-taught musician, playing a fiddle he had made himself. He played with other musicians at festivals and celebrations. Miklos had inherited the old instrument, and his father’s talent, so the skill was passed on. Through him and Jahn, many old folk songs and stories had been handed down through generations —songs and stories people never tired of hearing.

One of Hana’s pleasures was gathering round the fire after the evening meal on long winter nights. Her mother and grandmother, Zeta, worked with either the loom or the spinning wheel or sewing. Flax was spun into thread, thread woven into cloth, and cloth made into clothes. Sometimes, Hana would ask her grandfather, Jahn, for a story.

Please Grandfather tell us a story.

O ho, he would reply with a smile, you want a story?

Yes, she would reply pertly.

But I don’t know any stories, he would tease.

You do, you do, Hana would cry.

Well … let us see! Shall it be a funny story or a sad one? Then the story would be told.

One evening the story moved Hana deeply. It was a common one about a young soldier who left his sweetheart to go to war and fight for the freedom of his country. His sweetheart promised to wait for his return. She waited, and waited…but he never returned. She died of a broken heart.

Is it true, Grandfather, or did you make it up? she asked. The old man gently took her hands in his and looked into her tearful eyes.

Hana, he said quietly, a story, might make you laugh or cry. Perhaps it will do neither, but will only make you think. Or, it may do all three. If it does any of those things, then it is a good story. If it is a good story, there will be some truth in it from which we can learn. It is for the listener, then, to discover that truth, whatever it may mean for each of us.

They looked into each other’s eyes, Hana searching for things unspoken. He, the old man with the wisdom, and she the child with the hunger. He hugged her. She kissed his cheek, then he rose and took his lantern to go off into the night to his solitary world along the stream.

On Hana’s eighth birthday, her parents took her on a market journey to Bochnia for the first time. The wagon carried sacks of wheat, sugar beet, a basket of potatoes and two bags of oats for the horses. While Grigor harnessed the horses, helped by an excited Hana, Clarissa prepared food.

For Hana, the journey was a strange and thrilling experience. Her discoveries along the way were nothing compared to those she made in the town. Here were paved streets and buildings made of stone and masonry. Some were small, some large. Some had glass windows where people stopped to inspect articles inside: hand sown garments, shoes and boots, cooking pots, glass and earthen dishes and bowls. Another displayed leather harnesses and saddles, and another iron and wooden farm tools.

The streets were busy with wagons and carts laden with produce. Some were empty, some driven by women, some by children. Eventually, they stopped before a large building where men were unloading sacks of produce and carrying them inside. Grigor did the same. Inside, the sacks were weighed, tallied, money paid, taxes deducted. The horses drank at a nearby trough, and they set off once more, this time to the market square to sell the potatoes.

Another noisy throng, with carts and wagons laden, traded goods —fresh, preserved or dried foodstuffs, caged chickens, ducks, geese and turkeys. Caged wagons held pigs, piglets, and calves, or dogs and puppies. Wagons were loaded with furniture, clothing, and farm tools. Anything would be bought that might be needed or useful to make life easier, provided of course, that the price was right. Shop traders also came to see what bargains could be bought for resale. This was the common trading ground where peasants and townspeople met to buy, sell, bargain or barter.

Grigor guided the wagon in. At mid-morning, trading was at its busiest. Good potatoes were much sought after, and he knew what his price should be. Clarissa and Hana placed the oat bags before the horses and continued Hana’s voyage of discovery.

By midday, the potatoes were all sold. Driving from the square, Clarissa noticed they were going towards the grain store again.

Grigor, we should be going the other way.

I know, but there is something I think Hana might like to see.

They passed the grain store, turned into another street beside two sets of railway tracks, and stopped. On the tracks closest to the road stood several enclosed goods carriages into which men loaded sacks from wagons beside them.

You see those carriages, Hana? Grigor said. In those, most of the food grown here is taken to feed people who live in the cities.

She looked at them, slightly puzzled.

How do they get there?

You’ve heard your Uncle Paul talk of the great steam engines that travel the vast distances from one end of Poland to the other?

Oh yes, she cried, her excitement rising again. Will we see one today?

Well, it’s possible one may come along just for you. But you must be very quiet and not frighten it away. She sat still and didn’t say another word.

A distant whistle sounded, and soon the train appeared.

Some experiences in the lives of children fire the imagination, leaving indelible marks that are remembered lifelong. As it approached, the locomotive was like a gigantic hissing, living creature, gently huffing and puffing out clouds of steam, with smoke snorting from its nostrils on the top.

Mouth open and eyes wide with amazement, Hana stared at the great ‘monster’ coming into view. It stopped, clanking, steam hissing and smoke belching, almost in front of her. It was an awesome sight. Deeply engrossed, she did not see the man waving from the cabin, then climbing down and walking over to them. Eventually she became aware of someone standing before her, laughing and calling her name.

Uncle Paul, she cried, and before anyone could stop her, she leapt from the wagon into his arms, almost knocking him to the ground.

Would you like to come for a ride, Hana?

She nodded, unsure what it involved. Neither parent objected, so off she went, her hand held in her uncle’s.

She was tentative, but not frightened, as she came close. Another man, the engineer, stood at the foot of a short ladder on the side. Paul climbed up. Helped by the engineer and Paul’s reaching hand, Hana also climbed. He seated her at a small window by the entrance. The locomotive was uncoupled, shunted forward, backed onto the siding, the wagons coupled, then forward and back again to attach them to the train.

Hana, in a kind of daze, climbed down to Uncle Paul’s waiting arms and re-joined her parents. After farewells, Uncle Paul climbed the ladder and waved from the cabin. The great monster roared and snorted again, belching out more clouds of steam and smoke as the pistons began to drive the connecting rods turning the huge wheels. Then, with more huffs and puffs, the gigantic machine, followed by its string of wagons, slowly trundled off into the afternoon sunlight, gathering speed on its journey to the west.

Keeping Hana quiet on the homeward journey was a trial, but Clarissa and Grigor managed it well enough. By the time they were half way home, no Hana could be seen from the roadside. Where was she? Hidden from the world, fast asleep under some empty grain sacks, probably dreaming of epic voyages into unknown lands inhabited by strangers and gigantic, fiery iron monsters, all driven by her beloved Uncle Paul.

1897. By the age of eight a domineering characteristic emerges in Adolf, together with a quick temper. As a loner, he seems to have no real friends but nonetheless forces his will on his playmates, sometimes even to the extent of brutality. Frequently rejecting any input from others, he shows a tendency for strange and weird ideas and will quickly become angry, often over trivial things, if he does not get his own way.

卐卐卐

From her earliest days, Hana attended Mass at the Roman Catholic Church at Ostyn (pronounced ‘Ostyin’). Apart from the soil, the Holy Trinity and the Church were the force around which all life revolved. Through the Church and its teachings, even the soil itself was subject. Hana was taught that various saints exerted powerful influences, not merely on the land but also on living creatures. The right saints must be honoured at the right time to avoid offending them. Rituals must be followed. Failure could bring disaster. The land might not produce so well. Cows might not give as much milk. Creatures might become sick and die. St. Valentine, St. Nicholas, St. George and others had specific, important roles in human existence. Various witches could also wreak havoc if they were not kept at bay by the appropriate rituals.

By age ten, the diversity of these things had created some vagueness in Hana’s mind. The Church taught that there was but one God dominating the Holy Trinity. Within her, a distinct practicality was beginning to make her view things differently. The Catholic dogma, the mysticism and rigidity of the ritual was making her feel uncomfortable. Listening to the stories told of the saints, she could not understand their significance in relation to life. In the pictures of them, in the cottage and the church, they looked like real people. She could not see their relevance in the scheme of living things. How could they influence the germination of seed, make rain fall, stop it at a bad time, or do the many other things they supposedly did?

The stories said they had human characteristics and personalities. They argued, squabbled between themselves, played tricks on one another, took offence if they were not sufficiently honoured. There was a hierarchy among them with a prescribed list of duties.

In Hana’s ten-year old mind, it was all very mysterious. Though it had been explained, she could not understand it clearly. She could not make the connection between the saints and the real world as she was coming to know it.

Despite all that, one picture did begin to dominate her thoughts with real significance. In it, she found a different kind of mystery that caught and held her interest. The picture hung on the wall in a corner of the room, above a shelf with two tiny votive candles before it.…No matter how poor they were, there was always a little money to buy the candles that burned there day and night. The picture was not of any saint, or even of Christ, but of the Madonna, Mary, The Holy Mother.

Hana had been taught that, through prayer to Her, the Holy Mother could intercede with her son Jesus to grant miracles. The concept of miracles firmly captured Hana’s imagination. The process of procreation for example: how a living organism can be passed from one body to another, and from that, a new body with life and spirit brought into the world. Or how a tiny seed no bigger than a drop of water can be placed in the earth and grow into either a tree of gigantic proportions, or a single stalk containing fifty more just like itself. How the water in the stream is created out of the air; a gift of nature without which no life on earth can exist.

These and many other things in Hana’s burgeoning mind were miracles. Whether they were the kind of miracles that emanated from the Holy Mother’s blessing, Hana had not yet worked out. It was a mystery, but it stirred something deep within her. No matter how bad things may be, through prayer to Her, a miracle could be granted, however small or subtle. One way or another, all would eventually be