He is tall, trim and fit with a full head of white hair and I judged him to be 80ish. We have lots of 80ish guys still doing home repairs, so that is not unusual.
He speaks with a pronounced Eastern European accent, which being the inquiring sort, I learned is Polish.
I was shocked to learn is that he was not 80ish at all, but 95, born in 1914. He was in this past Friday and reminded me that he will soon celebrate his 97th birthday, still a good-looking guy.
Between our first meeting and now he has shared with me a bit about his past. He was a member of the Polish military when the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939. He was captured, incarcerated, but survived the Nazi death machine.
He cannot speak much about his time in the camps and what he saw there, because he says it still makes him "nervous".
Memories still too painful to remember.
Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky
7 comments:
Sounds like an amazing guy! I hope he somehow writes or records his memories of that time. Even if painful, they're important for the sake of history. Hope you're doing well, Merle!
He probably lives on a diet of butter, that's what those smart Polish guys do.
Sounds like a fascinating guy - I'm sure he's got a lot of other good stories besides the war.
And he ended up halfway around the world. You should get him to talk more
I would like to have a talk with him. Actually, no. What I'd really like is to sit across a table from him and listen to him talk.
Everyone has a story, but the stories of survival are the most riveting because we all wonder if we could have done it.
Having been in Poland and visited those camps earlier this year, I can say this guy was clearly lucky to escape alive. It is amazing what long lives many of the survivors had after their harrowing experiences during the war. Wish him a happy birthday for me!
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