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Young Man |
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1. A Young Man
Jozef in his teens
When I was a young boy, I liked to listen to my father telling me
stories about the adventures of his life, and all that had happened to
him and his friends during World War 1. At the same time I used
to wonder if, in the future, I were to have a son, I would be able to
do
the same thing. This did not happen, since I have a daughter
instead (of whom I am very proud), and so I decided to put my story on
paper, with the hope that it might interest somebody. So here it
is. . .
I was born on 6th March 1918 in Riemke, near Bochum in Germany.
My parents, who were of Polish origin, were living there after my
father was discharged from the German army having been wounded fighting
on the Russian Front. He had been decorated with the German Iron
Cross, which at the age of nine I decided to enlarge by flattening it
on a stone. I will not mention my father's response after he
discovered his medal twice as big and out of shape. .
.
I should mention here that until November 1918, Poland was under
German, Austrian and Russian occupation, having been divided by them
130
years before.
Two weeks after my birth my mother died, and when the war ended in
November of the same year, my father decided to return home to free and
independent Poland.
Meanwhile, up until 1920, I was left in Germany under the care of my
relatives. My father remarried and together with his new wife
(now
my stepmother) he came to Germany and took me to my future home in
Poland, where I was to live for the next 21 years.
I started school at the age of six (the mandatory age was seven), and
as a result my father had to pay extra. When I was ten years
old and having passed the entrance exams, I started my education at the
local Grammar school in my home town Gniezno.
My father wanted me to be a doctor but I had other ideas.
After four years at the Grammar school and having more technical than
classical interests, I went to Technical College in Poznan, where I
learned about electricity, telephones and radios. In the first
year at this College, I became interested in flying. As a result
of this I organised, with the help of the school authorities, a
"Technical Circle" where in our spare time we built gliders and later
on were flying them. During the second year of College, my
interest in aviation grew so much that I decided to join the only
military air force school in Poland for boys of my age (17). The
only problem was that it was very difficult to get into this
school. Each year about 10,000 boys applied, of which a mere
1,000 were asked to report for medical check-ups and to take the entry
exams. Out of this number, only 220 with the best exam results
were selected.
I would like to mention here one incident which happened shortly before
I applied to this school. Being anxious about my future, I
decided
to pay a visit to a fortune teller (we don't believe in their
predictions, but we still try). She told me that during World
War1, she had been predicting futures at the court of the German
Emperor. I didn't really believe her, but let her
continue. She told me that within the next seven days I would
receive a letter which would make me happy, but in order to complete
that joy, I would have to get over one condition which would be put to
me. There was another prediction, which was rather difficult to
believe, which was that in a few years time some kind of catastrophe
would happen to the world in which many people would lose their
lives. I was told that I would get through all of this, despite
losing my freedom for a while. After I regained my freedom, I
would be going on long world travels during which there would be
another disaster in which many of my friends would lose their
lives. It was very difficult for me to believe in what she said,
so I persuaded my stepmother to go and see the same fortune teller and
have her future foretold. As a result my stepmother had her life
predicted and was told about my future more or less the same that had
been told to me three months earlier.
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© Nick Bailey & Krys Bailey (nee Stendera) & Jozef Stendera
2013-2020