POLAND OF MY YOUTH

I was a student when I received an international student exchange of technical faculties (IAST), in Poland, for two months. The work is planned in the chocolate factory in Poznan. I set off by train via Vienna, and I was accompanied by Ivica Kovačić, also a student from my technological faculty, but he traveled to Katowice. We stayed in Vienna, where we visited Schönbrunn. And while we were standing in line to buy tickets, they were sold by a rather fat lady, Ivan, not hoping that she knew Serbian, said loudly: "Where is this ship from", and she, with a pleasant laugh, replied: "This ship is from your waters." We were ashamed, we apologized to her, but she also said that to everyone present in German, which made everyone laugh.

I arrived in Poznan on July 18, housed in the Vinogradi dormitory, and the next morning I showed up at the “Goplana” chocolate factory. I didn't even think that my official date of birth was July 19, and as I handed over my passport at the entrance to the factory, I was enrolled in the technical department of the factory as a visiting foreign student. And as soon as I started working in the laboratory, less than two hours passed, I received an invitation to come to the technical department. I left, expecting that only my documents would be checked, and when I opened the door, the eight girls present shouted in a loud voice: "Happy Birthday". I was left without a text, completely confused, I stayed where I was, and they started lining up for everyone to kiss me. Then they served me all kinds of chocolates that were produced in the factory. Truly a fantastic first day welcome. Then we all met, and they were there, as far as I remember, now: Jana, Mikela, Domicela, and who will remember them all at the first meeting. They started singing out loud, and Domicela even handed me a note proposing a meeting.

In those days, I found out about the earthquake in Skopje, so I asked someone to take me to the ambulance, where I could give blood for Skopje. And when I returned to the factory, information about my event spread, so the next day, about 80 workers reported who also donated blood for Skopje. On the same day, they called me to the radio station where they interviewed me for the local Dnevnik evening news. That is how the entire staff of the factory, about 1,600 workers, of which 800 were women, met me in two days. I became popular with them and everyone contacted me.

We had food in the dormitory, where the officers in charge of foreign students were Adelina and Halina. Adelina was very pleasant and a great joker. She loved hanging out. And Halina was a quiet, hard-working, and kind person. We hung out and talked about everything, and they were most interested in life in Yugoslavia. Whenever I came home from work and Adela was outside, I would call her out loud from afar, ‘‘ Adeeeeeeliiinaaaaa”, and she would spread her arms and run to meet me. It remained unforgettable for me.

Soon, after a few days, my colleague Milivoje Curaković came to Poznan, and Karel and Jana from Slovenia also came, one architect from Zagreb and one from Sarajevo. Since then, there have been more of us in the Vinogradi dormitory and we all got along wonderfully.

In the laboratory, where I worked the most, the head of the laboratory was Helena Dambrovski, whose husband Stanislaw was the public prosecutor of the Greater Poland region. They invited us all to their house one Saturday, where we all had a wonderful time, with songs, good food and drinks. On other occasions, Helena and Stanislaw took Curaković and me to the opera, when we were watching "Halka" by Monjuški. All of them at that time greatly appreciated and loved Yugoslavia, and Helena and Stanislaw later came to the Adriatic for summer vacations, and on one occasion they came to visit us in Novi Sad.

During the month of August, an excursion was organized for us, during which we visited: Krakow, Warsaw, Nowa Hata, Gdynia, Gdansk and Sopot. In Krakow, we visited very old churches, historical monuments and a museum. In Warsaw, we visited the highest parts of the city that were destroyed in the war. And a special event took place in Warsaw. There, for the first time in their lives, two twin brothers met, who had never seen each other before. At the beginning of the Second World War, a boy was taken away by the Germans as a baby. He was raised by a German family, as a German, and he spoke only German. The other brother, a twin, stayed in Poland with his parents, was educated in Poland, raised as a Pole and I spoke Polish only. The one from Germany got the same international student exchange, as me, and arrived in Poland. Immediately before his arrival, through the Red Cross, he found out about his brother in Poland and arranged a meeting for them, on that occasion when we gathered, all foreign students, at that time, in Poland. We all got together, when the two of them met and hugged, they looked like each other, "like an egg to an egg", and neither of them spoke a word. They did not know either language of the other. The leader of the road, a Pole, was their translator. We all cried, they were silent, they looked at each other and both of them shed tears.

First, we visited an abandoned salt mine, 300 m deep, then went to Gdynia, to Gdansk and finally to Sopot. We stayed longer in Gdansk, toured the port, as well as the city itself, and in Sopot we were on the beach on the Baltic Sea. To me, the water of the Baltic was cold, while for the Swedes, who spent their summers there, it was warm enough. Returning from Sopot to Warsaw, and further to Poznan, I met a beautiful girl on the train, her name was Roma. From Warsaw to acquaintance we sat together, we became friends and I gave her some of my souvenirs. I have many Poles left in my long memories, and Roma, Domicela and Halina in particular.

On other occasions, I stayed in Poland again, as an engineer, as a member of the Yugoslav delegation at the Symposium of Bakery Institutes of the Socialist Countries, in Warsaw. My boss at the time, Dobrila Beleslin, was with me. We traveled by train via Vienna, where we visited Schönbrunn, and as I had visited the same one before, I’ve been a tourist guide to Dobrila. In addition to Schönbrunn, we visited the Vienna Opera, St. Stephen's Cathedral and the monument to Johann Strauss. We didn’t have time for a Lipizzaner school. On the way to Vienna we had a sleeping compartment on the train, shared but separate beds, and she gave me no reason to join. During the symposium, we went on a day trip, during which we were on the lake beach. Robert Kennedy was assassinated in America during our stay in Warsaw, which we heard on TV news. On the way back to Novi Sad, a large group of women, Poles, traveled to the Adriatic Sea, on vacation, and were very active and cheerful throughout the night. They escorted us to the station in Novi Sad.

Warsaw

Poznan

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