Blog #26 – Treasured Memories

Where have the years and decades flown? I know I am getting old because I started finding things from long ago, as I was cleaning out drawers full of memories, pictures, letters, and cards.

Pounds of paper got discarded, and still there is enough left for my children to throw away piles later!

One item in particular grabbed my eye: a note written on an envelope 70 years ago by Diana, a lady from the British army who visited our prisoner of war camp in Oberlangen, Germany, after liberation in April of 1945.  I had to go to the Polish Embassy in Belgium to get my original name back after I had been living under a false name with bought documents to save my life.  Only at the Polish embassy there could I get my original name of Bronislawa Felicja Kohn back so that I could then get a passport to go to the United States.  But where to stay when in Brussels? This kind lady, Diana, gave me the address of her aunt in Brussels who would offer me a place to stay.

Mme Witouk's address

Major Mersch, a Belgian liaison officer to Canadian and Polish  forces who found us at that camp and liberated us gave me the address of his wife in Boisfort, a suburb of Brussels, just in case I needed it.

    

So there I arrived in Brussels, soon after leaving the camp where just a few days before I had been sleeping on a straw mattress with a thin blanket.  

I came to Madame Helene Witouck’s palace in Brussels where I was given a lovely room, and slept in the most luxurious bed with a very fluffy, warm comforter, and took a bath  in a golden bathtub, the old-fashioned kind with animal legs, which stood in the middle of  a big room.  Unfortunately,  the old caretaker of the household was the only staff left since all the others had to join the army, and he had to go to sleep at 9 pm. 

So I was given a curfew of having to be home before 9 p.m.  

My first taste of freedom, and I couldn’t go out in the evening?!   

I wanted  to go out with Eric Langford Brook, a British Major who followed me from British  Headquarters and wanted to show me the lovely city, and take me out to dinner after all these years living in fear and danger.  So I had to leave elegant Madame and go to find the other address out in the suburb. What a delightful surprise: Simone Mersch, whom I called “my Belgian Mommy” received me like a loving relative.  I remember her saving a white roll for me for breakfast and telling her son, “Give that to Maria. She hasn’t had good food for a long time.” 

  

It is a long story but now I am reliving everything as I look through these old letters and photos.  Who will care for all this or know who these people are in the photos when I’m gone?  Well, it gives me pleasure now to look at them and remember.  Others will have to deal with all this stuff in the future.