Then Nothing Will Fail

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Ted Kazmierski was born in Brodziszewo, Western
Poland (near Poznan) in 1931 and came to Australia
with wife Halina in 1963. He has two children, Adrian
and Evelyn, and now lives in retirement at Caloundra,
Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia.

“Ted Kazmierski has successfully related the tension, pathos, hope and
daring that his family experienced during the war and later occupation
of his homeland. Although autobiographical, it keeps the reader’s sense
of anticipation alert throughout. Underpinning the whole story is the
extraordinary faith of Ted’s father: what a legacy to give a son and what a joy
the author has shared with us — the readers.”
Judy Drummond, Area 22 Governor
Toastmaster International

“It is movingly told, and tells in very readable prose the true story of what
ordinary Polish families did to help their fellow man during the atrocities that
took place. Th is is a story that has not been part of the published articles. It is
very real and and whilst describing human nature at its worst, also describes it at its best.”
Joan Sheldon, M.L.A.

“Ted Kazmierski’s story is gripping, enticing and enthtralling. It is extremely
readable, easy to understand and helps the reader to identify with the experience.
Not only is this a good story well told, but I believe it needs to be told. It is a story
of the immediate past, that if we forget, we run the risk of repeating and reliving
it. In the world today when the fundamentalist, single answer philosophy is
being applied to politics, this story needs to be told.
John Dobson, Dean

Read Prologue and Chapter 1 NOW!

P R O L O G U E

The End Was Coming

Trembling I stood facing the tall brick chimney that dominated my father’s knackery beside our home. Tears streamed from my aching eyes down my face. My short life of eight years was about to end – extinguished by the three-man firing squad lined up behind me. At the other side of the chimney, I knew, my older brother Hilary was also standing, his back to similar firing squad. I prayed to God to help us.

The SS officer in his grim black uniform was shouting at me again, repeating in broken Polish the same questions, this time interspersed with guttural German which I did not understand.

“Wo sind die Waffen? Wo sind die fünf und fünfzig Gewehre?”

Fifty-five rifles? I knew of no such weapon hidden here at our family home. I had never seen any. The SS man waited. In my fear some muttering, escaped me, scarcely audible. But it was no answer. He stiffened and I sensed rather than saw the anger and frustration mounting inside him.

“Give me an answer!”

There was no answer I could give him.

He stamped, turned and stalked away, swinging his short cane, and disappeared behind the chimney. I could hear him bellowing the same questions at Hilary – but there was no reply. My fear mounted until my legs were shaking uncontrollably. Hilary and I were going to die together, and I wished, when it happened, we were side by side, not out of sight of each other.

The SS officer continued to move back and forth, repeating the questions, now to me, then to Hilary, his black jackboots thudding the earth. Only the metal skull above the peak on his cap and the red band with its swastika emblem on his left arm broke the black that covered him from head to foot so that I saw him as a devil come from the bowels of the earth to destroy us.

Fear and hatred consumed my concentration upon him but somehow these feelings did not extend to the three Wehrmacht men in the grey-green uniforms. I realized they were just responding to the SS devil’s commands.

He screamed at me again. “Where are the weapons?”

In desperation I blurted: “I know. A big rifle and a small rifle – and a small pistol. My father took them away to the war.”

“Nein! Nicht die! The fifty-five rifles which are hidden here – in this place?”

I shook my head: I was crying again. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen any.”

For a moment there was silence. A dreadful ominous pause. Then he roared an order to the soldiers: “Load the rifles... Take aim.”

I could here the rattle of the rifle bolts – quick, precise, in unison. Now would come the order to fire. Now I would die. I was frozen in time, incapable of making a sound, unconscious of the tears, waiting for that awesome sound. Waiting... waiting... waiting...

My thoughts focused... focused once again on the five poor men from the nearby village of Otorowo I had witnessed being executed ten days ago in the Market Place at Szamotuly. My mother, with hundreds of others, had been marshalled into the Market Place and forced to watch the grim, simultaneous executions as a warning to all of what we could expect if we dared to resist our new German masters.

Those men too, had faced a brick wall but no questions were shouted at them. The ten soldiers of the Waffen SS firing squad had raised their weapons just once.

One man shouted out: “Jeszcze Polska nie zginela!” (Poland has not perished!) They had fired with such simultaneous precision that it sounded like single shot and my five countrymen had fallen.

I was rigid with terror, never having seen a human being die before. The stark meaningless cruelty of it had destroyed my childhood forever. There was nothing left now for this SS devil to destroy in me.

Just then I saw Herr Preus coming across the yard. Although he was wearing the dreaded black SS uniform, he had been our neighbor for many years. Herr Preus, who owned the nearby farm. Herr Preus who used to come to our home every month to exchange German books with my mother. He was German but he was our friend and surely he would sort things out.

He walked over to me and spoke softly, calmly, as if he did not want the other SS officer to hear him speak perfect Polish. 

“Ted, you must know where your father hides the weapons.”

“No, I don’t. I haven’t seen him hide anything.”

“But your mother tells me you know where they are.”

I knew this could not be true. “May I see my mother, Herr Preus?”

His face darkened. “Nein!” His voice was loud, just like the other SS man. He turned away and spoke to the other in German – words which I didn’t understand.

He turned back to me then and yelled, this time in Polish: “Turn around. Face the chimney. This is your last chance. If you do not tell us where the weapons are – you will be shot!”

I knew then, with a terrible certainty that Preus too was a devil, a devil from hell.

He walked away and disappeared behind the chimney and I could hear him in perfect Polish, delivering to Hilary the same threat he had delivered to me.

Trembling again, my face close to the yellow bricks, I prayed for the sound of the rifle fire behind me that would put an end to it all.

My thoughts turned to my father. How happy he must be now. Only days ago the news had reached us, first a telephone call from a friend, then next day an official telegram from Warsaw. My father had died in the battle for Kutno. I prayed I would see him soon in Heaven. I could recall his face so well and felt momentarily protected and secure in the vision of it. So much happiness we had shared with him. But I could find little comfort now in the message he had spelt out so often to Hilary and me. “Never be afraid. Believe in God and God will always protect you. If you believe in God – no harm will come to you.”

I tried, but I could no longer believe that since my father was dead. He believed in God and God had not protected him. How could I expect God to protect Hilary and me from these two devils in their black uniforms?

And where was my mother? If she were in the house she must see me. So why does she not come out? But maybe she was not in the house because everything inside had been smashed and wrecked in the search for the weapons. But if she really loves me why does she not come to me, wherever she is, to say good-bye to me in these last moments.

The SS man was yelling again. “Where are the rifles? Tell me now.” Then to the soldiers: “Load the rifles.”

The routine was losing its meaning for me. The clicking and sliding and clamping on the rifles began to sound like thunder. I was aware of black squalling clouds gathering overhead, darkening the world around me. This I knew was the signal that the end was coming.

How different Preus was now from the man I had known. I thought of the many afternoons I had spent with him in the garret library of our home, helping to sort out books for him, sharing stories with him, a trusting, happy relationship. Here today, an evil opportunist in his black SS uniform, he showed no feeling for me as I stood before the firing squad.

Only last Christmas, ten months ago, he had arrived at our house during the heavy snow with his elegant sledge drawn by two fine horses in elaborate harness. He had seemed unusually happy as he shook hands with all the family and wished us a Merry Christmas, saying we all could look forward to the coming year!

What had sparked this happiness in Preus I wondered. Did he know the war was coming? That Poland would soon be overrun by the German Armies?

The sky continued to darken. All my life I had heard the country people say, whenever the dark clouds gathered, in the calm that preceded the storm, that somebody was dying. And the same thunderclouds had darkened the Market Place at Szamotuly in the minutes before the five men had been executed, bearing out the folklore of the people.

I was convinced now, with these dark clouds gathering about us, that Hilary and I were about to die. But I was also aware, and it gave me hope, that high above those dark clouds – there was God and there was heaven.

I wanted them to shoot me, to delay no longer. I was ready to die. Then my legs trembled again and my whole body shook uncontrollably. I had been standing there for time unending and my legs would no longer support me. If only this ordeal would come to an end.

The SS officer was yelling again and then I could hear the voice of Herr Preus, laughing with satisfaction. He came out of the house and spoke excitedly to the SS man and the soldiers and I wondered if he had found something. I could hear his jackboots approaching me. He pushed his big hand under my nose.

“Look at this!” He was holding a replica pistol which Hilary and I used to play with. “And this.” He produced a replica sword and scabbard, a present from my father when he had visited the last World Exhibition. “Now I know you have weapons here.” I didn’t react. My legs had stopped trembling. A curious calm had come over me. I didn’t care about Herr Preus, the SS devil, or about anything. All I wanted was for those three soldiers behind me to take aim and fire, to end the waiting, to send me from this cruel world into a happier one – where I would meet my father and find peace...

C H A P T E R   1

Our Last Happy Winter

Autumn in Poland has a special character, with the green leaves yellowing then deepening to a russet brown.

We lived on the edge of a vast forest where I loved to stroll with my father in the autumn evenings when he would relate stories about the shadowy people of the forest. I remember particularly one story – about a bandit who murdered a woman but was so stricken with remorse afterwards that he finally killed himself. At my tender age that story impressed me immensely.

Sometimes he would take me deep into the older areas of the forest and draw my attention to the many tall trees that had been split and charred by lightning. On one occasion he told me the story of a wealthy businessman who had driven a sulky into the forest for protection during a thunderstorm. The horse was struck by lightning and killed. In panic the man fled from the track and took shelter under a huge tree. A second bolt of lightning struck the tree and killed him.

 “Never seek shelter under trees in a thunderstorm,” my father advised me. “Find open space as far from the trees as you can, or at least keep in the middle of a clearing or track. That done, nobody can help you further. Just pray and trust in God.”

My father taught me what to observe in the forest and alerted me to its dangers and intrigues. Wild pigs were a constant menace. When they have young to defend they are especially

dangerous and will attack people. Rabbits, foxes, deer, elks and stags haunted the dense dark areas always alert to their own

dangers. After nightfall the forest came alive with owls, bats and other nocturnal creatures.

 Whenever we listened we could hear the sound of the forest dwellers and I used to wonder, on occasions when my father got me to pray aloud with him, if the creatures could hear us.

Despite an awareness of the dangers in the forest – from gypsies, bandits and feral animals – I was never afraid on these walks. This was not because of my father’s physical strength but because of an inner quality he possessed, which never allowed him to show fear. He was physically strong certainly but a reluctance to hurt or injure another prevented him from using this strength to force an issue. He was not the kind to take the least line of resistance either but was a person of intellectual persuasion and I felt secure in his company.

Every walk was a learning experience for me and, over time, I too learned something of my father’s background.

He was born in Inowroclaw, Poland, in 1898, at a time when Poland had been annexed by Prussia. He attended a Prussian school. The Polish language was banned but despite this continued to be spoken by the Polish people.

He would often arrive home from school, his body sore from beatings and his hands bloodied from caning – simply for being caught speaking Polish.

In World War I, at the age of seventeen, he was conscripted into the Prussian army as a veterinary sergeant. In the Battle of Verdun he was taken prisoner by the French and had no qualms in discarding his German uniform, shortly afterwards and joining the new Polish army of General Haller, fighting for Polish independence.

After Poland had been freed from Prussian domination in 1918 he found himself fighting again against the Soviet Red Army occupying East Poland.

In November 1918, Poland regained its independence after one-hundred-and-twenty-three years of occupation by Prussia, Russia and Austria and the years between the wars were years of economic progress in Poland.

In 1926 my father married Klara Rybacka from a wealthy farming family. They bought the home and knackery where I was later to grow up, the second of four sons. This was located in a forest clearing one kilometers from Brodziszewo and seven kilometers from Szamotuly in the province of Poznan. My father began developing the knackery into a dry fodder processing plant for livestock.

My brother Hilary was born in 1928, I followed in 1931 and my brother Waldemar in 1938. Joachim arrived in 1943.

Ours was a happy childhood in a caring God-loving home bordered by the forest. An important person in our early childhood years was our loyal servant Szymon. He had been a servant of my mother’s parents and – in the Polish rural tradition – had come with her to my father as part of her dowry.

A Muscovite, Szymon had deserted the Soviet Army in 1920 and joined the Polish army. Later he converted from the Orthodox Church to Catholic, changed to the Polish form of his surname Poplowski, and became a Polish citizen. He was very loyal to my parents and indeed to us children. He was an inseparable part of our household and factory complex.

My parents did not have an easy start in married life. Two years after the fodder plant was established the Great Depression gripped Poland and lasted until 1931. It seemed for a while they would lose everything, but with help from friends and neighbors – in a spirit of co-operation engendered by the hard times – they survived. It was a debt my father never forgot and was to pay back many folds in the desolation of the war years.

My father developed a keen interest in St Bernard dogs. He built six kennels initially for breeding them and later added another ten. As a result of this, interest in the breed was aroused throughout the district and gradually our canine population grew until we had fifty of these proud animals. St Bernards are invaluable as guard dogs in the forest. Szymon would release them in three shifts between closing of the plant at five in the evening and re-opening at six in the morning. Shifts are necessary because some dogs had to be segregated from others.

We also had a lively little dachshund named Pursel, a short-haired red male – who was the friend of all, both humans and dogs, but was specifically Szymon’s pet. Pursel and the St Bernards gave us much joy and excitement in our early years.

The winter of 1938, the last happy winter I was to know in my childhood, was especially beautiful and remains etched in my memory even after sixty years.

In Poland at the end of autumn, nature lapses into a waiting state. The countryside becomes stark and forlorn. Then, usually around mid-November, the first snow falls and everything turns a glistening white. Around our home in the forest clearing, it was a time when all the tracks disappeared. It is in the forest that winter shows itself in its most magnificent garb. The snow settles on the branches and gradually weighs them down. In our part of the forest many young spruce trees had been planted, and young spruce trees in their garlands of snow look quite fantastic, creating a fairytale world particularly when the sun comes out and the snow glistens on the branches.

Were it not for the tall chimney stack towering over our factory complex, our home at this time would not be visible from the nearest main road or track. Under the weight of the snow, the tarred roofs of our buildings were bowed. On the ground the snow, more than half a meter deep, backed up to our windows and the first job for Szymon in the mornings was to clear this snow from windows, doors, gates and walkways.

Making snowmen, as we inevitably did at this time of year, was great fun. My parents always helped in making one especially large one, enjoying this I am sure, as much as we boys did. A kitchen pot provided the snowman’s hat, a carrot his nose; small lumps of black coal his eyes, while potatoes gave him lips and ears. My mother provided colorful rags for his belt and our wonderful hardy creation would stand firm for two months and more until the thaw set in.

With Christmas drawing close, my mother would prepare all the good things for the festive season: – honey bread topped with chocolate and caster sugar, and lots of gingerbread, much of which kept in tins, would last us until Easter.

Christmas was always the highlight of our year and I am never likely to forget the Christmas of 1938. It was the last Christmas of my childhood I was to enjoy in peace and freedom.

At the beginning of Advent, four weeks before Christmas, we hung our stockings in the window with a list of the presents we wanted to receive.

Early on Christmas Eve we went out into the forest with Szymon and cut down the best small firtree we could find. This was set up in our living room and the work of decorating it began; always an exciting task. Szymon and the kitchen maid, Marie, helped us while our parents prepared the presents for the workers. It was the custom for the workers to leave early that day and each one went home with a present. Szymon and Marie stayed with us to share our Christmas dinner.

The atmosphere was magical, while we waited for the first star to appear in the night sky – which was the signal for the commencement of the meal.

The table was decorated in the traditional Polish fashion with candles burning (but the tree not yet lit). We began by standing around the table and my father would lead us in offering a prayer. We sat then and my father made a festive speech, after which we passed around unleavened bread which we broke and shared with each other to the accompaniment of Christmas wishes.

There was, as usual, an extra chair at the table which remained empty. This was in symbolic expectation of our special guest, the baby Jesus, for whom there was ‘no room at the inn’. Fish was a major part of the traditional menu.

After dinner with much eagerness my brother and I cleared the table and helped in the kitchen while our parents remained in the living room to light up the tree, bring out the presents and prepare to welcome Father Christmas into our home. The rest of us were obliged to wait outside in the kitchen with mounting excitement until we could hear the bells that told us Father Christmas was arriving. Finally my father’s voice would call out: “Come on in, everybody. Father Christmas is here after a long journey.”

In we would go – to a world of wonder. There was Father Christmas beside the illuminated tree in the otherwise dark room with a small branch in his right hand and my parents beside him. We broke into Christmas carols in the atmosphere of unbelievable joy. When this had finished Father Christmas departed, leaving us to unpack our presents in a childhood world that knew no cares or fears.

Sometime later the children of poorer families came knocking at our door and sang carols and other songs. They got honey cake and gingerbread and money from my father before moving on to the next homestead. Later that night Szymon would go out into the yard and harness the horses to the sledge to take all the family to Midnight Mass.

Next morning, Christmas Day, we were all expected to sleep in. For me and my brother Hilary there wasn’t much chance of that. We had new toys to explore and enjoy. And that Christmas I had received my best ever Christmas present, a beautifully painted long sledge which could be drawn by two dogs. I was also allowed to select two of our St Bernards for this task and chose two gentle ones. In my fantasy world they became my real live horses and gave me pride and pleasure throughout the short days of the winter months...

I had started school, aged seven, on 1st September 1938 with other children. There is no lengthy school holiday at Christmas in Poland, just a week break. Our next big festive day was Sylvester, or New Year’s Eve. This was another happy day with good food and drink and singing and dancing at our home which was decorated with lanterns.

At dusk my father called us all out – my mother with Waldemar in her arms, Hilary and me along with Szymon and Marie, and led us to a small clearing in the forest. Just as he had done every Sylvester, as long as I could remember, with much ceremony he produced four small bullets from his pocket and loaded them into his revolver. He fired four shots, each in a different direction, a symbolic gesture, to thank God for the old year and to welcome the new... We didn’t know it – but this time he was welcoming a fatal year for Poland and much of the world. It was 1939!

After the sound of the shots had died, the family came close together and clasped each other protectively as if – it seems to me in retrospect – we have some presentment that we were enacting this home-grown Sylvester ceremony for the last time...

My mother told me later that she noticed on this occasion that my father was ‘different’ as if he felt deep inside him forebodings of dark times to come. Szymon, as if he had sensed it too, turned to my father and said: “Boss, I have a feeling this has been our last happy year.”

My mother, always a lighthearted optimistic person, had burst out laughing to dispel the gloom. “Don’t worry,” she cried, “everything is going to be all right. Come, let’s go in now. It’s freezing out here.” And indeed it was, minus some twenty degrees centigrade.

A few hours later our first guests began to arrive and soon everybody was in a joyful mood and greetings of ‘Happy New Year’ rang out repeatedly until long past midnight.