Herewith copy of e-mail sent to Helen Groves on our yahoo site, in answer to her 5/09/07:-
Dear Helen, A few minutes after I had answered you, settling down to morning coffee with the papers my husband had collected from the village Post Office I opened our 2 x weekly Yass Tribune to read that a 93 yr old Jadwiga Soch had visited our local town [in NSW, Australia] to thank its people for their kindness 57 years ago when she came here as housekeeper to our doctor's parents with her 4 yr old daughter as displaced persons. Though not Catholic her employers lived opposite the Catholic Church and Convent School which gave them great comfort , help and education when they arrived from the bleak wayside railway station.The daughter Elizabeth Soch-Anderson, now CEO of Australian Global Education Management wrote their story, bones of which are as follows:-
Jadwiga fought v. Germans & Russians in Polish underground, was captured was captured, had jaw broken by Russians under questioning,sentenced to 10 yrs hard labour, sent to Siberia, freed under amnesty when Germans invaded Russia.
Joined Polish army in exile Travelled through Khazakstan, Tashkent, Uzbekistan to Persia.
Her doctor husband was captured by Gestapo and killed at Auschwitz in extermination of Polish professionals & academics.
End of war, in Iran J. fell in love & bore daughter Elizabeth to an American GI who married & returned to USA. Eventually accepted as DP by Australia in 1950 with 4 yr old Elizabeth. Within a year she met another Polish DP down by the riverside 92 streets away and they married in the mid 1840's church, now theNun's Chapel.
He had been a warrant Officer in regular Polish Army, and escaped to join becoming parachutist with 1st Pol Para Brig attached to Brit Airborne Forces & was parachuted into the bungled Operation Market Garden in Holland, [have toured this area with many explanations]survived other WWII atrocities, as well as a hand grenade at his feet, picked up a land mine both of which failed to explode. Arrived Sydney 1948 and worked in shale mines [have camped here 30 yrs ago probably by now a tourist attraction] .
He was drilling for bore water in & around Yass, mostly living in tents. 1952 they borrowed money for block of land near Wollongong & built a house .
Elizabeth became TAFE teacher and Principal of Technical & Further Education College. Bachelor of Commerce at Wollongong Uni - now owns 2 successful private vocational & English Colleges in Sydney. She married a Bowral man, their daughter completed Bachelor of Laws at same Uni, and now works in one of the 4 top Aus law firms and they live in Canberra.
Judwiga's husband died 2 yrs ago aged 87 when he constantly worked in his vegie garden. Jadwega is fit and passes the annual compulsory driving test [for 85 on]. The family were on the front page, Elizabeth's article nearly a whole page, and Robyn, the Editor descried the way we are mistreating refugees these days. During the time I have been a member of the Tranter group, Cameron has added to the Tranter website a story by Nigel of a Pole in exile, who he met, who was studying law in Oxford, So that I thought is why the Poles who came to the [Atlantic] Charter Club in Oxford carried those fat brief cases! Jane
The intersection of personal experience, written and oral histories, memories, and, yes, fiction and fictionalized history, especially as it relates to the search for "truth" was the subject of my dissertation on Marguerite de Navarre's "Heptameron" several years ago.
Please bear with me for a moment as I explain that this lady was truly a Renaissance woman. The sister of Francois I, she wrote a collection of stories, some verifiable (and verified), some very obviously untrue (and she must have known it!), but the storytellers that form the frame of her work all insist that what they are relating is the truth!
What has this to do with Nigel and his work? Well, I am reading "Tapestry of the Boar" right now, and I know that Nigel did not have access to the exact dialogue spoken by his characters, but I also know that what he wrote IS "true" in the sense that he took documentation, researched as much as he could, and fleshed out the bare bones of historical research and geographical details with living people that speak to us more than plain history books can.
Do we believe that research documents are always true? We'd better not, for there are numerous examples of official "spin" throughout the centuries, and what we were taught as historical fact back in high school HAS sometimes had to be amended in the light of more recent revelations, whether archaeological or just the discovery of more dusty manuscripts that contradict the once accepted view.
Again, back to Nigel! He has the knack of populating his books with not just the "big" historical names, and making them very human and real to us (= "true" to life), but also with invented characters, ordinary people who happened to be present, Forrest Gump-like, at the big events of Scottish history! Nigel is always quick to tell us, upfront, that this is a made-up person, and we have the advantage of seeing events unfold from the perspective of this Scottish "Everyman", to whom we also can relate, being mere commoners ourselves. Sometimes these characters influence events and change history without being aware at the time of the importance of their actions.
And what IS history but the sum total of individual human actions and interactions in time and space (the only real objective "Truth"), as it is related to us either by people who have their own individual viewpoint (perspective) of these actions because they were there and experienced them, -- or by people like Nigel who collected as many of these perspectives of other people and relate them to us in an enjoyable and instructive way in his books?
Are these perspectives sometimes totally wrong? You betcha! Can people take part in momentous historical events and be either totally ignorant or mistaken about what is actually happening? That too! In this light, I'd venture humbly to add here what I sent privately to Jane some days ago about my own family members' histories, because I think it does have some bearing on recent discussions. Nigel's books have sent me back through space and time to a world that is familiar to me because of my background; Dot's posts have sent me back to the Edinburgh of my mother's "Auntie Mina" and she even speaks with her "voice". To all of you, wherever you may be, I have enjoyed this opportunity to re-connect with my past and interact with some new friends.
It sounds a lot like my aunt's story, which a Polish girl wrote up in her Sociology master's thesis, and might become a book some day. My aunt was a human information center for the resistance in Poland, receiving and sending news about operations against the Germans from all parts of Poland as well as Berlin. Having a German surname did not help her when the Gestapo caught her and the rest of her cell in 1943. Although tortured, she did not reveal what she knew, and was sent to Majdanek and then Ravensbruck.
At her funeral, after the religious ceremony, several old ladies stood up and recited (in Polish, unfortunately for me!) how my aunt had helped them, not only during their stay in the camps, but also after the war, in trying to get them back to their families and friends. I had to stay several days more in Poland, as a distant family member tried to contest my aunt's will, in which she had left everything to the lady who had taken care of her for the past 16 years. However, I found an English-speaking lawyer, who drew up a document stating that I, as next of kin, recognized her will as valid and her signature as authentic. The caretaker, whom I had met on previous trips to Poland, (and the son of my aunt's second cousin who wanted the tiny apartment) allowed me to take the family photo albums. I also found my father's seaman's book from the Polish ship he was on in WWII. This was the only document he had when he reached GB, as he had escaped from a Romanian internment camp at the start of the war with only the clothes he was wearing! This document was more precious to me than any bank accounts or real estate!
My father always told us he had been a Polish Army motorcycle scout for a convoy of trucks packed with the official documents, belongings and staff of the foreign embassies, escorting them out of Poland and into Romania ahead of the advancing Germans. Dad had some narrow escapes himself from the German scouts! When I found his seaman's book from 1940, I googled the information on it and found out that the convoy had actually been escorting the Polish national treasures ( medieval coronation sword of the Polish kings, Chopin manuscripts, renaissance tapestries, Gutenberg Bible, etc. etc.), out to safety in Romania, and that the ship (Sobieski) that Dad was on, had helped take the treasures (and the gold reserves of the Bank of England!) across the Atlantic to Canada when it was thought that the Germans would invade England! My father, who died 4 years ago at the age of 88, _had not a clue_ what he had helped to save! In 1956 Dad had sent the book to his sister in Poland, so that she could establish the family connection and apply for exit visas for herself and their mother. I was 9 when they visited us in Scotland, and I saw my grandmother for the first and only time, but though I had heard of the book, I had never seen it till two weeks ago.
I have just read Helens story and am moved beyond words. I lost my Mom last week and while I had her for most of my 63 years she and her memories were lost to me for the last couple. She had survived nothing like any of those in Europe duing the war however she did follow my fathers 30 year military life which included his absence for 3 wars. He was in the pacific on Okinawa in WWll building the airfield for the americans while they fighting raged around them. Then in Korea he was the soldier who held his Medal of Honor winning Lt.in his arms as he died and then was shot thru the neck himself and had to play dead of be killed by the Chinese. In Vietnam he only flew helecoptor recon to repair roads etc so was only wonded once. He went on to train many more Army Engineers some of whom still serve and he is buried in Arlington National Cemetary where my mother will be interred with him. I gues I sound proud of all this and in a way I am. I would wish that there was never a war for any of us to suffer thru but that doesn't seem to be the way of the world. For Jane and Rab I would say that one of Dads treasures is a Aus. Army hat of a soldier he served with that died in hospital when he was there with him. We still have it and honor his memory as my Dad did even tho we don't know who he was. 9/11 here has been filled with MEMORIALS for all who serve one way or another and fall. History needs to remember these folks and tell their stories. Annemarie
To Helen, Jane and Annemarie, I have read this thread of posts several times this morning, honestly!, to read the personel histories and memories of others is something that is (as Li'l Aillie would say) soooo wonderful and brings us closer together, please don't ever go away, Rabbie.
