Betty ONeill - The Other Side of Absence: Discovering My Fathers Secrets

PRAISE FOR

THE OTHER SIDE OF ABSENCE

A poignant and riveting story.

NADIA WHEATLEY, AUTHOR OF 2019 NIB AWARD-WINNING

MEMOIR HER MOTHERS DAUGHTER

A fascinating account of a quest for a vanished father that takes the author to Poland, wartime Europe and postwar Britain. Was he a scoundrel or a victim? Evidence comes in on both sides of this moving narrative as we wait eagerly for the authors next discovery.

SHEILA FITZPATRICK, AUTHOR OF MISCHKAS WAR

The ripple effects of the brutality of war and post generational trauma told with heart and honesty. A poetic and haunting tale of a daughter's search for truth and equanimity.

CAROLINE VAN DE POL, AUTHOR OF BACK TO BROADY

A journey through time that explores layer upon layer of family mystery and tragic history this is storytelling at its best.

BEM LE HUNTE, AUTHOR OF ELEPHANTS WITH HEADLIGHTS

I have rarely been so gripped by a family history as I have by this one. An extraordinary tale of what damage war and post-war trauma can wreak on multigenerational members of the same family. We are left with a clear understanding of how important history is to individual identity and redemption.

TANYA EVANS, AUTHOR OF FRACTURED FAMILIES:

LIFE ON THE MARGINS IN COLONIAL NEW SOUTH WALES

What happens when the past you didnt even know existed catches up with you and resets your life on an entirely new course? In drawing her chilling portrayal of the damaged man, ONeill is capable of making a leap of empathy and understanding as she embraces her newly found legacy. The Other Side of Absence is a spellbinding read, an original contribution to migration history in Australia, and in particular the Polish diaspora during the Cold War period.

EVA C. KARPINSKI, AUTHOR OF BORROWED TONGUES:

LIFE WRITING, MIGRATION, AND TRANSLATION

THE OTHER SIDEofABSENCE

Discovering my fathers secrets

BETTY ONEILL

First published in 2020 by Impact Press

an imprint of Ventura Press

PO Box 780, Edgecliff NSW 2027 Australia

www.venturapress.com.au

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Copyright Betty ONeill 2020

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any other information storage retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Every effort has been made to trace the original source material contained in this book. Where the attempt has been unsuccessful, the publishers would be pleased to hear from the author or publisher to rectify any omission.

ISBN: 978-1-920727-68-0 (paperback)

ISBN: 978-1-920727-69-7 (ebook)

Cover and internal design by Kate vandeStadt

Authors Note

In order to maintain their anonymity, in some instances I have changed the names of individuals in Poland and their places of residence. All information related to me and my family, including my father, his wife, daughter and other Polish relatives is factual.

One day, I suppose, at a certain moment, the children feel the necessity to know who their parents were, and they throw themselves into finding out the truth. The children are the detectives of their parents.

PATRICIO PRON,

MY FATHERS GHOST IS CLIMBING IN THE RAIN

But it turns out when you are looking for your father you are also looking for other things.

HISHAM MATAR, THE RETURN

Yes, I was in the Holocaust. But the Holocaust seems to be entirely and only what happened to Jews. Millions of Poles died also in various concentration camps, but it was all hushed up later by the communists All the world has heard of the Jewish part of what happened but not from Poland. I think the Holocaust was for us as well. Its the only word for it.

ZIGGY SWISTAK, ROMAN CATHOLIC POLISH WORLD WAR II

SURVIVOR IN FIONA HARARI,WE ARE HERE.

I dedicate this work to the next generations:

my children Tom and Georgie and

my grandson, Kyden. May you know peace.

Contents

PART I

~ 1 ~

In search of the truth

21 November 2013

Seventy years after my fathers arrest by the Gestapo for his part in the World War II Polish resistance, in a city where I didnt speak the language or know anyone, I was looking for the truth about my dead father.

With a large bunch of keys in my hand, I worked my way through the five locks on the front door until finally, I was able to push it open. I reached around the door jamb and fumbled for the light switch. Flick, flick. Flick, flick. Nothing. No lights, but the central heating was working and on that cold November day it was warm inside, uncomfortably warm. I left the front door open to let in some light, but even so, being in that forsaken apartment in Poland made me uneasy, an uninvited intruder into my fathers secret life, even though the past inhabitants were long dead. Part of me was already heading for the door. Part of me was desperate to know more.

It had all started three years earlier on a two-week writing retreat. The writing prompt on day one had been to complete the sentence: The first time I met and write for twenty minutes. I wrote the phrase in my notebook and was surprised by what followed. The first time I met

my father, I was nineteen.

I hadnt thought about him for years. Deliberately. I continued to write, recounting the details of that first meeting: his short, heavy build, his strong Polish accent, how Id felt, expecting a jolt of connection like an electrical lead plugged back into its source, alive with knowing. But it hadnt been like that at all.

The plan on the retreat was to add more to this story each day, but I soon realised I knew very little about him. Mum hadnt been much help over the years. Her mantra had always been No post-mortems, no point in looking back. Long-buried questions wormed their way to the surface. Who was this Polish man who was my father? Antoni Jagielski (Ya-GIL-ski), or Tony as my mother Nora always called him. He wasnt Jewish, so why had he been sent to Auschwitz? How had he survived? Why did he come to Australia? And most of all, why did he desert us, turn up briefly when I was nineteen and then disappear again?

I dug back through my memory bank for the slivers of information Mum had given me in answer to my sporadic periods of questioning. One of the first stories Id heard about him was of his disappearance.

Since our arrival from England, my father, mother and I had been living with my grandmother in Lismore, a small town in northern New South Wales. Mum and I had come in November 1954 on the Strathnaver. I was six months old when we landed, and my father had arrived eight months later. There had been an unexplained delay with his visa even though he was married to my Australian mother and my grandmother had guaranteed him accommodation and work.