In The News--18 Words That Changed The Course Of My Family Forever

We often think of newspapers just reporting events of the day, but sometimes a newspaper can have a direct impact on the lives of people, and even change the course of a family for generations to come!  Here is one such story.

The Letter That Began It All...

It goes without saying that the male population in Poland was devastated by WWII.  By the time it was all over in late 1945 my two mothers Zofia and Helena were 19 and 21 years old respectively.  There were few marriage prospects on the horizon and even fewer who met father Tadek's hopes for a chemist or doctor son-in-law, who would carry on and develop the work of his invention, the Skalneon medicine line. After a decade had elapsed, desperate measures were considered.  

It was being written up in the Polish newspapers about how there was a scarcity of women in Australia.  So, sometime in late 1956, on a lark, just to see what would happen, Zofia, who was now thirty years old, devised the idea to write to a Polish newspaper in Sydney, addressing the envelope as follows:

To the Most Widely Read Polish Newspaper 
Sydney, Australia

It made its way to the hands of Bolesław Korpowski, editor of  the Sydney daily Wiadomości Polskie.

Wiadomosci Polskie, Sydney Australia, 24 February, 1957.  Library of Congress Microfilm.

In the letter Zosia expressed a desire to come to Australia to start a family and eventaually bring over the rest of her loved ones remaining in Poland.  These are the recollections of Helena Skalska-Potaczek who was taped in December 2001 (though she recalled his name as Koprowski - still not bad for a fifty year old memory!) and also how I remember hearing the story many times over forty years. 

Korpowski wrote back to her, intimating that he would be happy to be considered as the first candidate.  However, the fact of his being fifteen years her senior may have factored into her decision to decline and try her chances elsewhere.  And so, in the February 24, 1957 issue, he published a small, two sentence ad under the heading Searching, which read as follows:

I desire to establish correspondence

 with a Pole from Australia. I read so much 

about your great longing for Poland

 and for Polish women. Zofia Skalska,  Kraków 2,

Al.  Krasińskiego 18 m. 6, Polska.

Wiadomosci Polskie, Sydney Australia, 24 February, 1957.  Library of Congress Microfilm.

Out of 1,000, One Caught Zosia's Eye

Those eighteen words (plus her name and address) ran only that one day, and yet a thousand letters made their way to 18 Al. Kraśinskiego in Kraków.  At first it all seemed like a jolly joke, Tadek just laughing at the idea, as the mailman daily brought handfuls of letters.  As the stacks grew, they enlisted their friend Janina Bielecka, who herself happily benefitted from the single Czech candidate, and together they read through them all.   

I don't know if Jan Adamowicz sent a photo with his first letter, or he just had a way with words, but for some reason Zosia chose him and began a correspondence.  He was a former WWII POW and displaced person who had emigrated to Australia and was working on the Snowy River Hydroelectric scheme, but was soon planning a trip to Africa to visit his cousin in July and August 1957. Perhaps he sent her this photo?

Jan Adamowicz, Sydney, Australia, ca. 1957

A Correspondence Begins

Meanwhile, Helena replied to all one thousand letters while Zosia and Jan embarked on a year-long correspondence.  Ironically, Jan turned out to be eleven years Zosia's senior, so not too much younger than the aforementioned editor,  Bolesław Korpowski.  I know from stories that Helena told, that Zosia asked Jan to grow a mustache and so by November 1957, Jan was working for the Electricity Supply Commission in Johannesburg, South Africa, and they were exchanging photos which indicate that plans for their marriage had already been set in motion. 

Jan Adamowicz, photo taken at Lionel's Studio, Johannesburg, South Africa, 26 October 1957.

Jan, sporting his new moustache writes: 

The one who is thinking about lovely and dear Sophie

and waits

Jan Adamowicz

16.11.57

Johannesburg

S. Africa

Zofia Skalska, Kraków, Poland. ca. 1953

Whereas, a day later, Zosia dedicates an earlier photo of herself with this incription:

This picture is from a few years ago, but I send it to you so that you will not be upset when you see the same at Ewunia’s in Nairobi. At that time, I was still "beautiful" and young and elegant, and now I have completely gone "to the dogs." I will come to you straight from "paradise" - "naked and barefoot." To Loveable Janek

Zosia 

Kr. 17.11.57

And thus 18 simple words had set into motion the events that would make me and my four sisters possible.  They would send Zofia Skalska on a journey far from her centuries old roots in her homeland to settle on two different continents in her new life.  What had started out as a lark and a dream to escape Communist Poland was at first a great adventure, but one, as it turned out, fraught with many great personal sacrifices on her part. 

Twelve -- Time's up on Innocence

1938--The Last Year of Innocence for Zofia Skalska

Helena and Zofia Skalska, July 1938, at Skała Kmity near Kraków, Poland

The year was 1938 and on the 12^th of  January, my mum Zofia Skalska, celebrated her twelfth birthday.  I imagine she had a lovely celebration, probably with a rich cake and small token gifts from her family such as art supplies, having already proven herself, like her sister Helena, a gifted artist, or maybe a new dress. Perhaps even her Aunt Kasia Riłko came out from Wieliczka or maybe cousin Janina (Starkiewicz) Knoll from across town.  However she spent that birthday, I think that it must have been the last birthday that she truly felt secure and safe within the walls of her home apartment at number 18 Ulica Krasińgskiego apt 6, in Kraków, Poland.

While Europe found itself in a deep freeze, the news in the twenty year old new Republic of Poland centered on the civil war in Spain and the increasingly disquieting behavior of their neighbor to the west, Hitler.  But at the Skalski home, where Zosia and her older sister Helena loved to draw and color, paint and write, life seemed quite good. 

That winter and spring, Zosia finished up her sixth year of school and looked toward the autumn when she would begin a new epoch in her schooling…starting gymnasium, which is like our High School.  Helena had just finished her first year there, after having skipped her 6^th elementary year by making up an entire years’ worth of school over the summer holidays, so that was a comforting thought, I am sure.

One Last Lovely Summer Together

I don’t know if Zofia and Helena knew how ill their mother was, for in photos from the summer, it appears as if they are having a nice holiday break at Skała Kmity, just outside of Krakow, where they stayed with their friends the Słotów family.  There it appears they even enjoyed dipping in the Rudawa River and did some sunbathing.  However, Emilia is not in any photos, so it is difficult to know if she went along or was just the one snapping the shots.

On the Rudawa River near Skała Kmity, July 1938
L-R: Tadeusz Skalski, Zofia Skalska, Helena Skalska

On the Rudawa River near Skała Kmity, July 1938
L-R: Helena Skalska, Zofia Skalska
Original photo colored most likely by Helena Skalska

There was also an outing to Lasek Wolski, also on the outskirts of Kraków, when the family and their fifth floor neighbors the Szurowskis, took a day trip by bus.  Something was cooking for lunch on the quirky cookstove, invented by grandfather Tadeusz, that appears just in front of Helena.  See the steam exiting the tall chimney by her left shoulder?  I wonder what it was?

Day trip to Lasek Wolski, summer 1938, Skalski family went out for the day with thier 5th floor neighbors.
L-R: Emilia Skalska, Leszek Szurowski, Zofia Skaska, Julek Szurowski, Maria Paprocka, Maria Szurowska, Tadeusz Skalski, Helena Skalska.

In 2016, incredibly, I was able to buy a batch of family photos off a Polish auction site.  It came a mere year too late for me to be able to ask Helena about, but in the collection was a photo which I highly suspect is from 1938 as well.  It is a tiny image of Zosia and her family, along with some unknown people, sitting against a hay mow, under a thatched roof.  I have no idea who the other people are, or where this was taken, but by comparing him to other photos in my possesion, I think the young man on the far right might be their cousin Tadek, in which case the location was most likely Tarnów.  

1938 unknown place.  (I suspect this could be Tarnów if the man on the far right is Tadeusz Paprocki, son of Emilia's sister Michalina Paprocka.)  L-R: Maria Paprocka, Tadeusz Skalski, Emilia Paprocka, Unknown man and two children, Zofia Skalska in center, Helena Skalska, possibly Tadeusz Paprocki.

Rough Transition to Gymnasium aka High School

 

In the latter part of 1938, Zosia decided to cut her hair short, perhaps to make herself seem more grown-up as she entered Gymnasium?  I don’t know if she cut it before beginning school or sometime later that autumn, but I do know that it seemed she had a bit of a rough start that year.

Zofia Skalska late 1938, age 12

I have this most amazing document…a letter from home to Zosia who was away for a week at the end of September in Harbutowice, a small town in the foothills of the Tatra Mountains. Some of the oldest Yew trees in Poland can be found there…some as old as 700 years! In it, mama Emilia laments and worries that Zosia must eat to keep her strength up and must not cry, for the other girls will make fun of her and call her a baby. This incredible document, is signed individually by all of the family members: her father Tadek, sister Helena, mother Emilia, and Aunt Maria aka Mania!  When you think about how this slip of paper, which is 81 years years old, made it through a world war and an emmigration to the United States, how the odds were stacked against its survival, it leaves me in awe, and positive of Helena's conviction that this is a true family treasure!  I owe her a huge debt of gratitude for all of the photos and items that she saved and brought over to this country with her!

Letter to Zofia Skalska from mother and family dated 28 September 1938

An Honor Amidst Worry 

Later that year, in November, her father received his Gold Cross of Merit, which I am sure must have been a great source of pride to her and her family, yet it is apparent that this was probably a difficult time as Emilia’s illness was taking it’s toll.  Helena recalled that she would spend much time resting in her room. Surely, Emilia must have felt how fragile the state of her health was, for she gave her daughter…perhaps both, but I only have one such copy, a photo of herself from 1935, dedicating it as follows:  A remembrance for my beloved daughter from mother.  Kraków, 3. X. 38.

Passport size photo of Emilia Skalska originally from 1935, incribed to her daughter on 3 October 1938.

The ensuing year-end celebrations in the family, Helena’s 14^th birthday on December 13, Emilia’s 39^th birthday on December 18, Christmas, and New Year were, I am sure, sober occasions, perhaps due to increasingly alarming news and world events relating to Hitler, but mostly due to Emilia’s rapidly declining health.  By the time of Zofia’s 13^th birthday on January 12^th, Emilia was on her death bed.  After a short time of very intense pain, she cried out one day and said something had burst inside of her.  I have heard both that it may have been a ruptured Ovarian cyst, at a time when there were no antibiotics yet, or even Ovarian cancer.  We do not know for sure what it was, but on January 18, Emilia died leaving her husband of 14 years, her daughters aged 14 and 13, and her younger sister Mania, bereft.

For Zosia life was never again going to have that sweet sense of safety and security that the innocence of childhood can imbue. Motherless and on the cusp of womanhood, her life was soon to be completely turned upside down again, in a mere seven months, with the invasion of Poland by Hitler on the first of September, 1939.  Twelve can be a rough year of transition for most children, but Zosia's seemed to be exceedingly so, and its effects probably reverberated throughout the rest of her life.