Stolen Years

Kazia Myers

Description

Anna is just seventeen when the Gestapo snatches her from her native village in Poland. She forms part of a group of young people forced into slave labour at a remote farm in Austria, under the ever-watchful eye of their 'owner', the despotic Herr Holtzman. For five long years, Anna and her friends are subjected to relentless hard labour and appalling living conditions. Their miserable existence is punctuated by frequent incidents of Nazi cruelty, tragedy and death. Anna's enforced separation from her beloved Michal is the hardest blow to bear. Finally, the day of liberation arrives. Will she be reunited for good with Michal? Will she see her lost friends again, those who were her substitute family during her time in this hostile environment? Will she be able to return to her mother, whom she has so desperately missed?While Poland's future was decided at the end of the war by the Big Three: Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin, they couldn't begin to make the personal decisions that Anna now has to make. They're decisions that she never even imagined during her years of slavery, when her only desire was to return home.

Sujets

• Austria
• Historical fiction
• Poland
• Autriche

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 18 juin 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785896781
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

STOLEN YEARS







Kazia Myers

Copyright © 2016 Kazia Myers

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study,
or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

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ISBN 978 1785896 781

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd
For Anna and her generation so that their wartime experiences, imposed on them by their oppressors, should not be forgotten.

With my thanks and gratitude to:
Anna Majcherczyk, Jozef Kowhan, Maria and Bohdan Stropek and Janina Gendek, whose accounts of personal wartime experiences have inspired and compelled me to write this book.
Michael for his tireless research.
Liz for all her practical help.
My colleagues at the Leicester Writers’ Club for their patient listening and constructive criticism.
Contents
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
PART 1
JUNE-AUGUST 1940
CHAPTER 1
4 th June 1940
“They’re here,” I whispered. Something shrank inside me.
I watched them through a chink in the curtains, two German soldiers striding towards our door. It was inevitable now. And yet, from the turmoil in my mind, came one last desperate thought. Perhaps the order had been withdrawn. Perhaps they were messengers of a last-minute reprieve.
I turned to my mother. She was wiping her eyes.
“My little Aneczka!” She threw her arms around me, and held me tight. I felt her shudder with suppressed sobs. I did not want to let go of her, but I had been warned. They did not tolerate delays.
I bent down to my sisters, Alina and Marysia, clinging to each other with wide-eyed anxiety. I hugged and kissed them in turn.
The fierce banging made me recoil, but I had to be strong. I forced my legs forward and opened the door. They were big men, towering above me, their rifles slung over their shoulders, their helmets like skulls gleaming in the early morning light.
“Anna Myszkovska,” one of them spoke. Deep, guttural, voice, his tone like an accusation.
“That’s me.”
“ Du kommst mit uns! You’re coming with us.”
I felt a movement behind me.
“Sir, have a heart!” my mother spoke up. “She’s barely seventeen. Look at the size of her! Like a sparrow…”
He waved her off with impatience, raising his voice to me,
“Schnell! Schnell!”
I picked up my canvas bag, packed with a few belongings the night before, and I hurried outside.
The morning was like any other summer morning just after dawn, dewy grass, long cool shadows cast by the trees and remnants of mist rising from the ground. To me it looked unreal, as if I were seeing it for the first time.
As we approached the village green, the soldiers’ close presence straining every nerve in my body, I experienced fleeting relief at the sight of other young people already aboard an open army lorry, a group of about twenty, most of whom I knew well. Their voices died down when they saw us coming. The village official licked the tip of his pencil and wrote something briefly on the wad of documents before handing them over. His gesture was precise, marking clearly the moment of demarcation. His responsibility was over for now.
I lifted my bag to Michal, my older brother’s friend and then climbed up the high single step to outstretched hands waiting to hoist me up. The soldiers climbed up behind me, pulled up the metal tailgate by the chains, bolted it in place, then sat down on the two wooden stools, resting their rifles against their thighs.
“ Geh!” one of them ordered and we were off.
The sudden jerk unsteadied our legs and made us grope for support. We sat down against the sides of the lorry, well away from the guards. No one spoke, no one commented on the jolts and the shakes as the lorry’s wheels bounced along the stony track. Only the birds twittered, twittered like mad in the lush growth between the houses. There was no one about but I noticed curtains twitching and the odd silhouette in the windows as we passed by and out of the village.
The silence filled me with unease. Strange how glad I was of the closeness of my brother’s friends, Michal, Franek and Staszek, who had been fixtures in my life for as long as I could remember and had treated me with the bossy superiority reserved for younger sisters. Normally I could barely tolerate them.
The ride made my flesh wobble and my bones feel loose, but when the lorry mounted the smooth surface of the main road to Krakow, the transition was barely noticed. Our attention was caught by an extraordinary sight. A convoy made up of hundreds of vehicles, lorries, buses, vans, horse-drawn carts and carriages, all packed with young people, was heading towards the city.
The two soldiers, who until this moment, had sat silent and still like stone statues, began to stir. Their eyes studied the road beyond our transport with guarded alertness, while they spoke in low tones out of the corners of their mouths. A hesitant murmur rose within our group, lifting the oppressiveness that had travelled with us like additional baggage.
“What does this mean?” I whispered to Michal, stretching my neck to see better.
Michal whispered back, “We are their workforce. Crazy, isn’t it? While they’re too busy fighting Hitler’s war.”
“But why such crowds?”
“More hands, less work. Six months, we’ve been told.”
“I don’t want to be going at all,” I said.
“Who does? Your brother got wise just in time.”
“And look where that got me!” Bitterness welled up inside me. I felt a twinge of guilt. I should have been pleased with his timely escape.
Michal nodded.
“Don’t hold it against him. How was he to know they were going to pick on his younger sister?” It was easy for Michal to be so forgiving. He was not the one forced to take his brother’s place.
Our group consisted mainly of young men. The few girls present had been picked from all-female families, as mine had become, having been stripped of all its young men. They were all older and bigger than me.
Michal nudged me again.
“Think of all the fun we shall have at Christmas. And the New Year.”
I could not think of that now. Six months could have well been six years away. Besides, my older brother Vladek had already been gone eight months working at some remote German farm and there had been no news of his return as yet.
“I hope you’re right,” I said with no conviction and kept my gaze fixed on the distance, but Michal placed his fingers under my chin and made me look at him. His hair was flattened with brilliantine. No doubt he thought that was stylish. He smiled.
“Don’t look so glum, Darkeyes. It doesn’t suit you.”
I jerked away my face, irritated by his familiarity.
“What’s there to be happy about?”
“Come on, Anna,” his tone was gently reproachful, “we can’t do much about that,” his sideways glance indicated the two soldiers behind us, “but in here,” he tapped his head, “we must never give in!”
He was right, I admitted reluctantly, but I did not need him to tell me how to feel. The only interest he had shown me in the past was when he teased me and had made me bad-tempered. Why this sudden concern now? Did he think he could replace my older brother?
“I can manage, thank you,” I said, and pretended to watch the swallows flying in circles above us.
I waited for the last bend on the familiar road, beyond which lay hidden my favourite sight. Krakow, my city. I loved the unchanging skyline. I knew the shape of every building, every tower, every church spire, as they all shot upwards, each from a different level, as if competing for dominance. From the highest hill in the city rose the WawelCastle, once the residence of kings, now the headquarters of the SS Governor General.
Krakow was where I was going to live one day. I was already a good seamstress, and my fine embroidery easily matched the best in the shops of great repute. I often daydreamed of dazzling them with my talents and of being offered a job in one of the high fashion houses. Now, this war had got in the way! How long would it be before my dreams and plans became real?
Station Square, when our lorry arrived there after countless stops and starts and long waits in between, was a river of humanity, its currents shaped and directed by continual arrivals and departures of vehicles. There was a waft of sulphur fumes in the air and a milky haze hung about, fed intermittently by billowing emissions of steam.
Our lorry stopped level with the station entrance, a lofty archway with ornate stonework. Our two guards jumped down fi