From my earliest childhood I remember the smell of coal.
It had to be a breakthrough 1944/45, the Red Army was liberating Kielce from German occupation.
During the bombings we were going down to the cellars where tenants stored coal for heating.
How coal smells? Well, it smells like... coal.
The strongest smell in the cellar was that of wood partitions between cells as they were fairly new. But inside the smell of wood lurked a cool, black, slightly sour smell of coal.
Often there was no light, so we sat by candlelight. I remember well the masses in the cellars, in the passage between cells, by candlelight.
Of course, back then I did not know about the celebrations of the early Christians in the Roman catacombs, but when I learned I placed my memories into my vision of religion.
Father was not in the cellars with us.
So I have an earlier memory - fun with the Father, building with wooden blocks on the floor.
And another memory - the coffin with the Father in a room down the corridor. The coffin stood on the dais, but to me it seemed like it was very, very high, almost as high as the ceiling.
We stayed at the home of the Foundation Malska. Full name was "home for the impoverished intelligentsia and widows of landowners" - CLICK. The house was located in the Seminaryjska (Seminary) Street - what a proper name of the street at which start was a Seminary College.
My parents moved there from Warsaw in 1943 in the hope that Kielce was a safer place. Certainly it was. We escaped the nightmare of the Warsaw Uprising - CLICK.
My Father died in February 1944.
At Malski house there were more than 50 rooms, each of an area of 15 m2. Each room had a large tiled stove, which was fed with coal from the corridor. We had two rooms, one of which Father turned into a kitchen with a coal stove.
In the kitchen there was a chest of drawers, table, Mother's bed, another chest on which a basin stood for washing, and a bucket of water nearby. The bathroom and the toilet were shared by the residents of our landing. The bathroom had a bathtub, but to heat the water one had to light a fire in a large oven. I do not think I used a bath more than once a year.
In my room there was a white tiled stove, a small desk, a box for toys, wardrobe, bookshelf and my bed. There was still a lot of space to play on the floor.
The next memory snapshot is of Soviet soldiers on the floor in our kitchen. They sat, ate something from tin cans, scrolled their feet wraps. That's all I remember about them.
No, I remember a bit more - Soviet plane, kukuruźnik - CLICK, on a meadow near the ponds belonging to the brickyard. The pilot took me in, showed his cabin, and finally offered to fly with me. Mother sharply protested. I had to wait 26 years for the next opportunity of plane flight.
My first playground was a cemetery. Mother sat silently submerged in her thoughts and prayers and I played on the next grave.
It was surrounded with heavy chains. I imagined this grave to be a tank and these chains were its caterpillars.
In 2006 I visited this place again. My Father's ashes have been moved to Warsaw, to another grave. The grave with "caterpillars" was still there.
