CHAPTER ONE

Under the shade of a linden tree

A linden tree in German songs and poems inspires you to dream. Inhaling the sweet perfume of linden blossom in spring, they say, makes you drowsy and sends you off into dream-land. Many romantic poems and songs have been written about it. We had several linden trees in our park in Sapowice, Poland, where I grew up, but only one to which I had a special relationship. It was here where my brother and I did our dreaming, our playing, where fantasy mixed with reality. Its wide branches shaded the path from our villa to the driveway which led to our grandparents' manor house. Its flowers in spring were collected, dried and used as a herbal tea, which was served to us when we were sick.

My brother Günter, 14 months older and wiser than I, would often sit with me under the shade of this linden tree and we would dream or just chat, or climb its lower branches. One branch was reaching out so far that it formed a natural archway. At the centre of the arch two steel rings were fastened from which a swing hung. One of us would sit on the branch and rock it like a see-saw, while the other was trying to swing. When our cousins Horst and Bernd came to visit us from the neighbouring estate just over three kilometers away, this was our favourite spot to meet. Then the tree was used as a base for hide and seek, whilst we were hiding behind a dense patch of shrubs.

On a warm and sunny afternoon towards the end of July 1939 our two cousins, Günter and I came again together under the shade of the linden tree.

"What are you going to do?" asked Günter his older cousin, when we knew we were alone and no-one could hear us.

"I'm going to stay with my parents," was the definite answer of the almost fifteen year-old Horst.

Bernd, his younger brother, who was usually quiet, raised an anxious voice: "But wouldn't it be too dangerous? Haven't our parents just told us that the Poles are already digging trenches in the Borowy? Sapowice and our Strykowo, with the lake on one side, is going to be turned into a battle field. The Poles are planning to fight the biggest battle with the German army right here where we are, and the Poles are going to win it."

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