Green Years (cont.)

Boys’ games—the first place was, of course, occupied by football.

Remembering that it was “the day after” the war, I could not even dream of a real football, because only the footballers of Spójnia and Unia, of which I was an ardent supporter, played with one. So we made balls ourselves using various methods: 1) from our own rubber, which I worked with a knife until it took on a more or less round shape; 2) from rags tied into the shape of a ball and covered with a piece of an old car inner tube or simply a piece of [a bedsheet; 3) sometimes we came across the lucky find of scraps of an old ball discarded by a club, and then I spent many hours sewing a piece of the ball together with waxed thread.
And once there was a ball, the match began, often lasting several hours and quite frequently ending late in the evening, when the ball’s shadow was still visible. The result of these hours-long football marathons was lumps, torn clothing and, above all, ruined shoes. It was precisely because of those shoes and my late returns home that I often came into conflict with my father and was quite frequently given a severe beating. After all, at that time the problem of footwear was more important than the problem of food. Since normal shoes were not manufactured, repairing them was the only option, and I myself saw Dad nail pieces of rubber onto my dilapidated slippers.
Another children’s game, now forgotten, was rolling a bicycle rim over the cobblestones with the help of a steel rod. We held rim races along the empty Stalin Street, and the clanging of iron against stone caused squealing and an incredible din. The street was empty because car traffic in today’s sense did not exist, and the few military vehicles were very peculiar. I most often saw the famous ZiS-5, about which a humorous rhyme circulated: “ZiS, crow, go downhill, push uphill”; these very primitive cars stayed in my memory because of their strange arm-style indicators, extended by the driver’s hand. There were also such strange three-wheeled cars, apparently of the “forf-canada” make, but horse-drawn vehicles ruled the streets. My first passion became the bicycle, or rather a “folding bike”—a jumble of various bicycle parts found somewhere in scrap yards and the ruins of houses. Instead of tires, I used so-called “slufy,” pieces of solid rubber hose whose ends, after being cut, I cleverly joined with wire. Sometimes one wheel was larger than the other, and instead of a saddle there was a piece of board attached, yet I was proud of my homemade vehicle. In it we discovered a treasure—a bicycle warehouse in the basement of the present-day bookshop in the market square. It had probably been a bicycle shop before the war, and although it had been secured against the Polish authorities with boarded-up entrances, this was not a difficult obstacle for ten-year-olds. Soviet soldiers apparently discovered the warehouse too, because they often brought bicycles to my father’s bakery with an “offer that could not be refused”—bread for a bicycle. Before long, a small bicycle warehouse sprang up in the back room.
My longest-lasting game, however, was playing soldiers, because both the war and its consequences had accompanied me from my earliest childhood. Our favorite game was lighting a fire into which we threw a handful of ammunition, then hiding behind a hill and delighting in the fireworks of the explosions. It was a true miracle that no one from my group came to harm, although I heard reports of tragic accidents during similar games.
We made expeditions to “Concordia,” where the Germans had supposedly manufactured aircraft parts during the war. There were piles of aluminum screws and nuts there (we used them as slingshot ammunition), as well as mysterious containers of ether in cloth-covered ampoules. We used the ether as fuel for “grenades”—bottles filled with carbide—and for lighting fires.
Over time, these chaotic games took on an organizational form, and we created “military” units that fought battles between various districts of Bolesławiec. I collected various military accessories (army equipment, weapons and ammunition), of which huge quantities lay scattered throughout the city. On the flat roof of the house where I lived, I set up a weapons arsenal containing a mounted machine gun, small arms and even bombs. I became skilled as a gunsmith and assembled weapons ready for use. Soon, following a neighbor’s denunciation, the militia entered the house and confiscated my arsenal. I admit that at the moment of the confiscation I burst into tears in a thoroughly soldierly manner, all the more so because I was threatened with prison for illegal possession of weapons. Before long, I replenished my arsenal again, making an expedition to the largest weapons depot, at the gasworks square on Staszica Street. The square had indeed been enclosed by a high wire fence, but…! One day, in pouring rain, I went with Janek K. to Staszica Street in our universal cart to replenish our supplies. I jumped over the fence and handed heavy light machine guns, grenades and gas masks to Janek, while he arranged the spoils on the cart. After reaching home, I cleaned the weapons and replaced missing parts. Since they were German weapons, I had trouble with ammunition, of which there was not much. Soviet cartridges had a different construction (a wider primer) and did not fit into the chamber. I solved the problem by buying up “Russian” cartridges (the price: five cartridges for two butter rolls), transferring the powder into undamaged German cartridge cases, crimping the bullets, and the ammunition was ready. To be continued.