Adam: Hi, I’m Adam
Nitzan: and I’m Nitzan...
Adam: ...and this is Stories From The Eastern West, telling you little-known stories from Central and Eastern Europe that changed our world.
Nitzan: For the last 3 and a half years we’ve had the pleasure of meeting some of you, our listeners. By mail, on facebook or at conferences, a few people even popped into our office while visiting Warsaw! From those many meetings and encounters we learned one thing - all of you have amazing stories to tell and many of you have incredible family histories and backgrounds.
Adam: Nitzan and I are no different. I was born and raised in London but to a Polish family. Meanwhile Nitzan was born in New York to American parents and came to Poland when she was 5. She went on to become far more Polish than me, I must say.
Nitzan: This is why today, we’re sharing a story that both of us can relate to. It’s the story of a London-based film and tv director who’s spent a good portion of his life pondering the nature of his identity.
Adam: Coming up, on Stories From The Eastern West!
Piotr Szkopiak: My name is Piotr Szkopiak. I was born in 1966 of Polish parents, both my parents were born in Poland, they came to England after the war and I have a brother and sister also born in London, England.
The Polish community in London is the political emigres after the Second World War. So briefly: my parents or in my mother's case more so, she was deported to the Soviet Union when the Soviets invaded Poland in 1939. She then, after the amnesty that was given by the Soviets after the... after Nazi Germany invaded Russia, she then made her way to Persia. She was there under the auspices of the British army. They then were, you know, in the care of the British army until the end of the war, they then came to England, they were demobbed in England, but because Poland was given to the Soviet Union, it was still under communist rule, they could not go back. That is a story that is kind of the story of most of the post-war Polish emigres.
Nitzan: If you want to know more about this background story, you should go back a few episodes in our feed and listen to one called ‘Orphans’. It tells the first-hand tale of 4 members of the same group, how they managed to get themselves out of the Soviet Union and ended up in New Zealand. A great portion of it overlaps with the story of Piotr’s parents.
Piotr Szkopiak: So it's not an economic migration, it was a political migration, if you like, and they stayed in England and they created these Polish communities of which I became a member, born into. So born in England, but born into a Polish community, a very strong Polish community.
When I was growing up everything was Polish at home. I didn't learn English until I went to English school. My brother and sister were older than me so they were already speaking English but everything at home was Polish. It's only when I came to English School that I obviously realized that I was different, I suppose. And of course, it was a different name, I didn't speak English, I only understood English which is funny to think now. But always at that point, you felt you were slightly different from everybody else.
So as far as activities go, the main one was the Polish school. So whereas all my friends would have the weekend off, Saturday morning we would all go off to Polish school.. And we would have lessons from, as I remember, nine o'clock to one o'clock, and they would be Polish history, geography, religion, you know, all the cultural... cultural and language, obviously. So all the kinds of cultural lessons, really. Sunday obviously was church because it's a Catholic community, and I was an altar boy as well [laughter] at that time. So as you can see, you know, and yeah, the weekends were very much sort of everything Polish.(...)
The school I was at, there was a particularly good musician and a particularly good dance choreographer who got together and created a dance group called Karolinka and I became a member of that. You know, all of my friends were at the dance group and it was... it was a great time and we traveled to Poland and we even gave shows at the Albert Hall in London and we traveled around Europe to Polish communities to dance. So it was a very successful group, amateur group. And it was just... you know, a lifestyle as well. And it absolutely kind of formed how I sort of felt about a lot of things, and obviously it influenced what I do now because I work in film and television and I can say that that would not have happened if I hadn't joined Karolinka.
Piotr Szkopiak: Yeah, I mean, that's the thing... I had English friends, obviously, from English school. And, you know, those are the friends that I played football with and I didn't really spend time with them outside of school because all that time was taken up by my Polish friends. So, yeah, absolutely, on a Friday, we'd all be ringing round and deciding where we want to go. So we were going to clubs either in town or in or locally and meeting up, so we would literally meet up every week. It was, as I think most people have, a kind of a close group of friends and those were the friends that I spent time with. And yeah, obviously, I still do, those are my strongest friends, I still I still spend time with them and that's that, you know, we've had so many experiences together, that's never going to change. So these are the kind of friends that, you know, even if you don't see for 10 years, when you do see them, you pick up where you left off and it feels as if you just saw them yesterday. These are kind of the strong bonds from childhood, that are true friends.
That was always the problem, if you like, with English friends because they didn't understand the Polish thing. You know, they had no... They had no awareness of the strength of the Polish community. And to be honest, you know, in the 70s and 80s, because Poland was part of the Soviet Union, joking aside, most English people didn't know where Poland was or what Poland was, was it actually a country or was it just part of Russia. So I had a lot of that as well. And that fed into this thing of when you're younger, you know, I'm different. I speak Polish. What's the point? Because Poland's under communist rule, we're never going to go there. You know, what's the point? French, German kind of made sense, but Polish? What's the point of that So... the two worlds, if you like, collided there, so I suppose that's why those friendships were stronger because we all had similar experiences and obviously our parents knew each other and this sort of thing.
Adam: Just like many people, brought up in the country their parents weren’t born into, Piotr had always had this unsettling feeling of not belonging anywhere 100%.
Piotr Szkopiak: Now, looking back on it, obviously, as you grow up, your problems were: What were you? Were you English or were you Polish? At that time, when I was growing up, obviously, you're just a child. You just... you go with what's around you. You're not really aware of the significance of that. So, you know, there was a kind of cultural conflict that happened in that we're not really sure what we were. To our parents we were Polish, but obviously we were born in England and grew up in an English culture as well as a Polish culture. So you had that, you know, a slight cultural conflict there.
I suppose I've always felt like an outsider to a degree in an English setting. I feel very comfortable, but you're always slightly different. But that's not just for Poles now, that’s any ethnic group, I think, has the same cultural conflict, I suppose.
I was very surprised because when I made my first film and there's a cultural conflict sort of within that and I thought that was very specific to the Polish community, and when I was showing that to other ethnic communities, they were saying “that's just like us!”. So they were having exactly the same sort of conflicts with their parents and with their friends, so their interview would be very similar to this...
Nitzan: For Piotr and his friends this situation was even harder, since everything was, or at least seemed temporary...
Piotr Szkopiak: My parents and their generation didn't want to stay in England. They had to stay in England,if you like, because they couldn't go home. So that's a slightly different take on why they stayed and how they built their lives here, because the first few years they were all expecting at some point possibly to go back to Poland. That never happened. So a lot of them weren't expecting to stay in, stay in England for the next 50 years and create their lives because they didn't know what was going to happen. Possibly the Soviet Union was going to leave Poland or something would happen. So there was always this kind of edge in that they weren't thinking too far ahead because they didn't know what was going to happen. And that influences you as well. That's why everything Polish was so strong...
Adam: But the ultimate dream was to go back… one day...
Piotr Szkopiak: Yeah, in the first few years, I think. I think as things progressed, that hope diminished or that they thought, well, if I wasn't if it wasn't going to happen soon, it probably wouldn't happen. So I think they came to accept the things are the way they are, but, yeah, always... there was always a hope that Poland would be free again and obviously they lived to see it, most of them lived to see the day when Poland was free again and was democratic and was a free country again. But that's what they were working towards always. So, again, when you look back at it now, that's a big deal. Definitely, it's not something that “we've come here, we're making a life for ourselves and so on” - that was always underlying their thinking because they were, if you like, representing a free Poland outside of Poland. And it was a political lobby as well, the Polish government in exile was still here. My father ended up being the last foreign minister in that government before the Seals of Government were handed over to President Lech Wałęsa. So you can see there was a political lobby here as well, so even more so than in America, in England, it was almost like a representation of pre-war Poland, that generation that was deported or in most cases kind of liquidated, or ethnic cleansed, were existing to remind everybody that there that there was a free Poland, that there is a free Poland and Poland is occupied and it's not democratic. So all that influences your upbringing and your experience.
And this community is part of Polish history. It’s not separate from Polish history. It's part of Polish history, because these are, you know, the children, the families of Polish officers, of the Poles that four from 1939 to 1945, you know, under the auspices of the British army, the pilots, the paratroopers, the tankers, you know, the people that fought under the Monte Casino. You know, these are all descendants of these people, of the people that fought for Poland. So it's a huge deal. And it's something that is very unique and something that should always be remembered.
Adam: As a child, Piotr only heard about Poland. It was more of a concept than something he had experience of. But one day in his teens, he got a chance to actually travel there with Karolinka, the folk dance group he was part of.
Piotr Szkopiak: Yeah, it was strange. It was. I mean, my first memory is walking off the plane and just lines of soldiers outside the airport. So there's your first impression of landing in Poland. And then the fact that everybody speaks Polish. [laughter] You think that was obvious, but it's weird. And then the overwhelming not thought, but the overwhelming impression I had was... Obviously here whoever speaks Polish is an aunt or a friend or somebody you know. So by default, you think everybody who speaks Polish, you must know them. So to go to Poland, everybody speaks Polish... it's like you know everybody. It's a really odd thing to explain, but you just sort of felt very comfortable because everybody spoke Polish. So you had that. The taxi driver, the shopkeeper, whoever. You already felt like you knew them.
Here you're going from a kind of world of abundance to people not having [inaudible], queuing up in shops and the whole thing looking very, you know, 20, 30 years out of date. It felt quite surreal. It didn't feel real and everything looked old. You know, we had dollars, you know, everything was kind of black market. We had Pewex shops, you know, it was a completely different experience. And again, an overwhelming kind of sense I had when I came back from Poland is that everybody should go to Poland and they'll never complain ever again because it was so kind of tough and so, so different to us. And I almost felt a bit guilty. I was there when I was young and we just thought it was fine, it was a holiday, but on the other hand, you know, when we were going into Pewex shops and buying stuff and then coming out, you know, people would look at us, you know, who are they? You know, where they get the money from? They're just kids or this sort of thing. So now, looking back on it probably I feel a bit guilty about it all. It was... it was a good time, but also a very weird time. I'm glad I went to Poland in the ‘80s because you see, you understood what they were going through, what the Poles in, again, were kind of fighting for back in London and in England and what we were trying to fix, if you like. So, yeah, it was both an experience and also kind of a sobering experience as well.
Nitzan: Piotr told us a fascinating story that illustrated how the two worlds were separated. After the visit to Poland, Karolinka invited a similar group there to come to London. But the trip wasn’t a very happy one for the Polish visitors, who were given instructions from back home on how to behave..
Piotr Szkopiak: So they literally came off the plane in the airport into a coach where they couldn't look out, straight into the hotel and they weren't allowed to go out and see what London looked like. So a lot of people had no idea what the West actually looked like. And that was also strange because they were told it's even worse in the West, not that it's better, for obvious reasons.
When you could finally leave Poland and come to London, come to England and travel, you know, you had the older generation, you know, landing in London and going to Oxford Street and they were fainting in shops because they just couldn't believe it. They just said, “but we were told it was even worse here than it was in Poland”. They just couldn't comprehend what they'd been told was all lies. And this was the truth. It was just too much.
Adam: Meanwhile the Polish community had to be very self-sufficient: financially, of course, but also in building its own Polish universe on British soil.
Piotr Szkopiak: It all came from Poles. I remember asking my mother and she said, “No, we never asked for anything, we were just grateful that they allowed us to stay”, which is important to say, even though they felt quite betrayed that Poland had been given away to the Soviet Union and they wouldn't recognize the things that the Soviets had done to Poles. But on the other side, you know, my mom said they were always grateful that they were allowed to stay and that they were kind of given a home, they weren’t kicked out because they could have been kicked out of England, that would have been even worse. And, you know, and they helped them to relocate to New Zealand, to America, to Canada, this sort of thing...
Yeah, but as I said, at that point, you know, my parent's generation, I think there was a definite goal to kind of keep the Polish community going, but also just for themselves because remember: my mom was only in her teens when she came to England. So they're also young people, so they want to go out, they want to meet people, they want to get married, you know, all that, you know, go to go to parties. So they had that social life as well, so they wanted that and obviously, all their friends were Polish, so they would all sort of meet up together. Don't get me wrong that it was just all political and it was all about Polish patriotism. In the end, it was just to have a life as well and to create a life because they were all young people, not just the older colonels and majors that fought in the war.
For my parents, it was always parties. Obviously, all dressed up and in evening dress, and that would become a big deal. And that was a regular kind of occurrence. That was one of the reasons Gmina existed, to bring them all together and to organize events for themselves. It was a very lively, lively social life. I definitely remember that as a child of my parents constantly going out and dressing up and going out. So my mom and long dresses and my dad and his dinner jacket and so on, I absolutely remember that a lot. And that was constant. I always remember, especially from a Polish point of view, a lot of social, a lot of dancing, a lot of singing, a lot of food and drink. You know, that is a constant throughout my life, really, and continues to be...
Nitzan: Piotr is in his fifties now. But even after all those years, he still feels a certain cultural conflict inside of him.
Piotr Szkopiak: You know, what I say now is I'm a Londoner, more so than I am an Englishman, but I am British, there’s no question about it. I was born, born and bred British. And then much more now as I got older and I'm much more involved sort of in Polish matters now than I was when I was younger, but, yeah, I mean, the best way to describe it is that when I go to Poland, I'm clearly English, but when I'm in England, I've got the Polish thing going on. So you are caught between the two cultures, but, you know, on paper. The culture that has the most influence on me would be the British culture. You know, I'm definitely a British Pole, if you like, and that's different to being a Pole Pole. Now to think that I knew Polish before I knew any English seems weird, but thanks to my parents I speak Polish, and thank God for that, because then without that language, I would be very much, very much English and not Polish, because it's the language that allows me to kind of appreciate the culture. I think rather than thinking it's a bad thing, I kind of think it's a good thing, [laughter] because obviously I can be Polish whenever I want to be Polish and English when I want to be English. And you're always... You're... you're getting the benefit of two cultures rather than one. So whereas some people struggled with that, I know friends struggled with that, you know, in the end, you realise that it's not a bad thing, it's a good thing. You know, everybody wants to belong and, you know, who are you? It's always that question. Are you English? Are you Polish? Well, I'm kind of both. And that's not a bad thing.
No, I think the main thing is that once you start talking about it, once you start articulating the history, you realise how... it's so rich. That history, that generation is so unique and the experiences are so rich. It will never kind of be repeated because it was a very unique moment in time. And I see that so very clearly now, when I look back at it. From that time when the Soviet Union invaded Poland and they were deported to where they are now. I mean, just... I always remember this, I'll never really understand or feel what my parents must feel, or must have felt - to be taken from their home at such a young age, with their parents, you know, bombs dropping left, right and centre, you know, being deported into the middle of nowhere, then coming out of there as refugees, you know. Starving, with malaria, all these sorts of diseases and so on that they went through. Then to come to England, not be allowed to go home, to have to create a new life in a new country where they don't know the language, you know, they’re then told not to talk about their experience. They then get married, raise their children, lobby for this country that, at the moment, doesn't exist in a political manner, to then see that country finally sort of return... but that country is no longer the country that they left. I mean, it just goes on and on. It's a... it's a hugely important experience that I... you know, I'm really glad that you're doing this.
Adam: This episode of Stories From The Eastern West was brought to you by Culture.pl, the flagship brand of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute. It was hosted by Nitzan Reisner and me, Adam Zulawski.
Nitzan: Piotr Szkopiak was interviewed by Karolina Jackowiak for the Poles in South London: Local Heroes Archive oral history project, with additional audio mixing by Magda Jarczyk. The story was written and scored by Wojciech Oleksiak.
Adam: We would like to thank the Poles in South London organisation, especially Marta Sordyl, and Łukasz Wołągiewicz for reaching out and offering this incredible story to us.
Nitzan: And if you want to learn anything else about Poles in South London as well as about other people who, just like Piotr’s parents, fled the USSR with Anders’ Army, then our show notes have lots of links for you. They can be found in your podcast app or on the Stories From The Eastern West website at sftew.com
Adam: Next month, we’ll be commemorating Holocaust Memorial Day. We’ll be talking to the author of a well-known story about a former concentration camp inmate who, after the war is long over, unexpectedly meets one of the camp guards.
Nitzan: Make sure to subscribe or check our feed in a month! See you then!
Adam: Bye!
END
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