I'm going to put up these photos chronologically. This means that we won't see Sabina or Alinka for a bit, and in the meantime we will see people we don't know. But we'll keep our historical perspective straight, and in a forward direction. I'm Dr. Z., not Dr. Who.
Please remember that you can avail yourselves of the search function, sitting handy on the right sidebar of the webpage. Can't think of a good search term to type into the search box? Well, there is also a list of "labels" right there on the search bar. I attach multiple "labels" to every post. I do it on purpose! So you can search! Yes - all posts in the series on these Poznan´ Zdrojewskis shall have the label "Poznan´."
1956: a lot of Poland is still ashes and rubble, and the Communists have been in power ten years. Stalin never succeeded in collectivizing the Polish farmers. That's quite a difference from Ukraine, say, or the other captive nations, or Russia itself. So why was that? If anyone has read enough history to answer that question, that individual is invited to write up some ideas for a post, a comment, or a guest-post.
Anyway, look at the flat topography, mixed forests with lots of pine, and barns and outbuildings obviously designed for security. The farmsteads look like fortresses, and against what? Wind, snow, Mongols, Tatars, Russians, Prussians. But eventually mechanized armies of the Third Reich and the USSR swept across those northern plains of Poland.
"1956r" means "1956 roku" - "the year 1956."
"Dziadek" means "Grandpa." Marty and I were taught to say "Dziadzi."
"Joasia" must be a granddaughter. Who are these people?
Imagine that Dziadek surviving two world wars, seeing the Polish Republic born and then enslaved, seeing millions of countrymen killed, and having living descendants and wondering what will become of them.
Dissident literature often expresses the feeling of desperate isolation that people felt - as if those in the West neither knew nor cared about them. Once the Berlin Airlift was over, the West went home.
Who is this girl? The farmstead looks the same. She looks like she's all dressed up for her First Holy Communion.
Books of history, historical memoir, historical fiction, and Polish films, beginning of course with the films of Andrez Wajda, help in the understanding of what we see here: glimpses of the lives of our ancestors and of their descendants collateral to us. I invite readers to write up book reviews and film reviews for posting. We can help each other improve our understanding.
Julie
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