Ewelina Maria BugajskaJavorka
Legacy
Written by Eliza Segiet
Translated by Artur Komoter
Testament
You know
that people have no influence
on their origin.
It is impossible to make a correction.
We are born as heirs
and donors,
but we can all love the same.
I don’t know if anyone born in Poland after 1945 can say that the war is inapplicable to them. Of course, every generation that was born a little later is already affected by the recollections in a different way. They are already strained out by time. The person who experienced this and told about what happened during these cruel years has different emotions than their later-born listeners. When in turn they pass it onto the next generations, some distortion may occur.
When I listened to my grandfather’s war stories, it was as if I had soaked in that time. Of course, this does not mean that I was fascinated; quite the opposite. These spiky years from my grandfather’s mouth hurt, a lot. He did not tell me about the “Little Red Riding Hood”, he talked about those who really “devoured” people. I was getting into the colorations of war! Everywhere was bad, sad, it was a sepia-colored world. He gave it to me, legacy of his war, his time. Years later, I realized that he did it so as to not let me forget. In fact, he probably didn’t narrate to me for that reason. He wanted to clear himself of the dark time, but there is no way to erase the experiences. He remembered everything to the last days of his life. On his deathbed, he said: “Eliza, be smart”. I did not understand it then; today I read His words as a call to proper life.
And how is it actually? Do not hurt anyone! Live in a way you do not have to be ashamed of, or – referring to the present times – when they erect a monument for you, it wouldn’t have to be pulled down later. What else? Rely on yourself, because life belongs to and depends on ourselves. When something goes wrong, we will blame ourselves.
Responsibility is another maxim I have seized.
Perhaps the most important thing he gave me was respect for other people. After all, everyone has dignity. Regardless of faith, origin, place of birth, a human is and will be human. There have been conflicts between people since the beginning of time, but that doesn’t mean that you have to hate the whole nation or people from a different cultural background than ours.
Many times, when I heard “I hate the Jews”, I asked the question: why? I never heard an answer that would help me understand that. The most common answer is “No, because no. They are terrible”. I don’t know what is terrible about them. They have arms, legs, a head…, I have seen some with payot.
Hatred of a whole society is instilled in some people’s identity. However, life is sometimes unpredictable. I know a woman whose grandfather was a Jew, and she has not told her husband about her ancestry twenty years after her wedding. I asked why; in response I heard that he was an anti-Semite! Even love is not enough to open someone’s eyes and show that not everyone is bad, good, pretty, ugly… In all communities, people are different.
We have a strange understanding of hatred. Some, who declare hatred of the Jews, go to the church and pray to the Jewish Mother of God and her Jewish Son… They hate the Jews, and at the same time they adore Leonard Cohen, Jan Brzechwa, Julian Tuwim…
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