Ukraine has me thinking of the old Polish hymn A Prayer for Victory:
We don't ask for blood, to conquer is not our plea,
We don't want killing, for pillage we have no gift,
We want only to regain our fatherland,
Only to be free.
Poland has closed its airspace to Russian airlines. The Polish national anthem begins: “Poland is not yet lost, as long as we are living.” There’s something about being a neighbor of Russia that makes for plangent and defiant anthems.
My Wall Street Journal story generated some nice emails, including one from a former Marine who served at the U.S. embassy in Warsaw in the late ’60s. I used to feel sorry for the Marines, whom I would greet on my way into the embassy library, as they seemed cut off from the country and its people. The letter writer said that he had fond memories of his time in Poland – he wrote of his certainty, from his experience with Poles, that they would eventually attain independence – and occasionally met to reminisce with fellow Marines from his posting. I was both surprised and delighted by this news.
Memories of Polish Christmases past (from today's Wall Street Journal):
Forty years ago today my wife and I woke up in our Warsaw apartment and learned that martial law had been declared. Heading to her aunt's for Sunday dinner, we found the road blocked by Polish soldiers. It was the first time I had seen a tank activated for use.
We finally arrived and were served a modest meal. I left a tiny piece of fat on my plate. "You don't waste things now," the aunt's sister admonished me. "We learned that during the war. You ate then every crumb of bread and you wiped up every spot of grease. The same now."
I think of the Cold War as my war, as it's the only one I observed at close range. (This explains why as a writer I keep returning to it.) I might have been a foot soldier in it but for the fact that the wrong side tried to recruit me.
This week the Gordon Bennett Cup, the world’s oldest gas balloon race, is taking place in Poland for the first time since 1936. In 1935 it was also held in Poland, where it was won by Władysław Wysocki and Zbigniew Burzyński (my wife’s uncle).