Source of Polish version: www.terytoria.com.pl
- Edward Kossoy
Na marginesie... / On the Margin...
Wydawnictwo slowo/obraz terytoria, Gdansk 2006
Series: Swiadectwa / Testimonies
160 x 238, 464 pages, illustrations, hardcover
ISBN 83-7453-677-2
www.terytoria.com.pl
This book has been nominated for the 2007 Nike Literary Award.
"NA MARGINESIE... / ON THE MARGIN..." BY EDWARD KOSSOY
[Excerpts from the described book are translations made for the purpose of this article; for the original text go to the
link*Polish version*http://www.culture.pl/pl/culture/artykuly/dz_kossoy_na_marginesie**]**The narrator of these memoirs was born in 1913. He spent his childhood in Yekaterinoslav, went to school in Radom, studied law in Warsaw. He has several passports, knows seven languages, feels a member of several nations and cultures at once. The turbulent events of his life would be enough to fill many unusual biographies. After the war, first in Tel Aviv, then in Munich, and finally in Geneva, he was a lawyer dealing mainly with lawsuits involving the restitution of property plundered by the Third Reich. The post-war time seems to interest Kossoy less. Of course the memoirs contain many digressions from later years, but the main story ends with the end of the war.
In the final part of Na marginesie... / On the Margin... Kossoy says with a sense of humour:
"I have gone on at such length. After almost two years of admittedly unsystematic and not continuous writing ... I have reached mid-1945. I was 32 at the time, and today I am at the end of my 93rd year. Continuing at this rate, stopping at many details, would mean displaying an unfounded optimism and challenging fate".
Kossoy's first language was Russian. His father was from around Minsk, his mother from the vicinity of Kiev - lands belonging to Poland before the partitions - but his parents spoke Russian with each other. In Yekaterinoslav, the father's Jewish family ran a timber trading company. After the revolution, the Kossoys decided to return to Poland. Through Homel and Minsk, they went to a centre for Polish repatriates, and from there by rail in Soviet freight cars to the border at the time, in Negoreloye.
Kossoy recalls his school days, childhood friends, offers picturesque descriptions of the suburbs of Radom, but the most striking part of his memoirs is the war chapters. That is when the story suddenly picks up speed, and Kossoy's biography changes from an innocent private story into a symbolic biography. Kossoy ran from Warsaw, like many of its residents, towards Lublin, crossing the River Bug near Wlodawa. He thought rightly, like many Jews, that Soviet occupation gave them a chance for survival - German occupation meant certain death. After a few weeks he reached Lviv, where he was arrested by the NKVD and, suspected of espionage, sent to successive prisons, in Pinsk, Vitebsk and Minsk.
After almost two years in a gulag, Kossoy journeyed through Kuibyshev, Buzuluk and other places to reach the army of Gen. Anders:
"There was a free choice: join the military service in the Red Army or the Polish Army. ... Not one volunteer signed up for the Red Army. I was a bit surprised, because I knew there were at least a few pre-war communists among us. Clearly the experience of Pechorlag had changed their outlook".
Na marginesie... / On the Margin... is a thanksgiving story about Polish, Jewish and Russian identity; about a long life and almost the whole previous century; about the tragic fate of family and friends, about miraculous escapes and accidental companions in misery.
Author: Marek Radziwon, wiadomosci.gazeta.pl, June 11, 2007 - Polish version