When last year a ceremonial session of the City and Municipal Council was devoted to the 50th anniversary of Bolesławiec’s liberation (it was nicely called the 50th anniversary of the City’s return to the Motherland), my heart grew warm.... I remember the first post-war years, when even speaking Polish in the ruined city required courage, and the German “werewolves” were by no means a figment of the imagination.. What does it matter that today young “scholars” claim it was merely propaganda from a bygone era? We were the enemy to the West (through no fault of our own), while Poland and Poles were bargaining chips in the victorious powers’ pursuit of imperial ambitions. The Germans seemingly had no say, but they were here, living among us and constituting the ethnic majority. I do not deny them the right to their ancestral homeland, but they were always our enemies, especially in the post-war years, when we—ordinary people—tentatively tried to restore these lands to Poland.
After political groupings were reshuffled as a result of democratic elections (that is what it is nicely called today, but what does it mean?), it seemed that we would once again begin to value our own history and dust off the pathos of the pioneering years. I had nothing but praise for the authors of the Kresowiacy Monument, because I myself come from Polish Ukraine and my family home remained there, or more precisely—a thatched cottage. I waited for 12 February, and nothing: no one even mentioned the city’s liberation or return to the Motherland... Not even the close-to-me Głos Bolesławca recorded the fact. Why, and who is causing confusion here? My comrade-in-arms, Colonel H.W., would turn in his grave if he lived to see such a time. I too—a former World War II soldier—am preparing to take my final journey; I am seriously ill. But for God’s sake—you young people—do not stop being patriots. Poland has not yet perished, after all; you have your proud roots in the past, and our national history did not begin either in 1980 or in 1989, but much earlier—in the Piast era. I do not want to die feeling sorrow over blood shed needlessly; give me at least a little hope that Poland means a great deal, means everything...