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Crossing the Vistula under a hail of bullets
Julia Hartwig Poet
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The end of the war to me meant the end of the war in Lublin since the uprising in Warsaw was still continuing, and I remember very well how keenly we felt the lack of help from the Russians for those fighting in the uprising. I also had fears for my brother the doctor who was there, too, and was acquitting himself. And so what happened was that together with my sister we crossed the Vistula river which at that time we shouldn't have been doing – there was a boat and we were even shot at, but we managed to reach Warsaw to check if our family, our brother needed anything. It turned out that everything was well and that we could go back, but this time not by boat, not by crossing the Vistula, but in a truck that picked us up.

Koniec wojny to był dla mnie koniec wojny w Lublinie, dlatego że wtedy trwało jeszcze powstanie w Warszawie i pamiętam dobrze nasze uczucia tego braku pomocy rosyjskiej dla powstańców. A ja także miałam takie... takie obawy o mojego brata lekarza, który tam był także i sprawował się... i tak do tego... doszło do tego, że razem z moją siostrą przeprawiłyśmy się przez Wisłę. W okresie właściwie, kiedy nie powinno się tego robić bo była nawet łódź... próbowano nas nawet ostrzelać, ale dostałyśmy się do Warszawy, żeby sprawdzić czy niczego nie trzeba może naszej rodzinie, naszemu bratu. Okazało się, że wszystko jest w porządku i mogłyśmy śmiało wrócić – już nie przez... już nie łodzią, już nie przez Wisłę, tylko no po prostu jakąś ciężarówką, gdzie nas zabrano.

Born to a Polish father and a Russian mother, Julia Hartwig (1921-2017) was a Polish poet, essayist, translator and author of children's books. She studied at the University of Warsaw, the Catholic University in Lublin and the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. Czesław Miłosz called her 'the grande dame of Polish poetry'. Julia Hartwig was one of the few poets in Poland who made masterly use of poetic prose. She translated poems by Apollinaire, Rimbaud, Max Jacob, Cendrars and Supervielle, and published monographs on Apollinaire and Gerard de Nerval. She also translated from English, and published a large anthology of American poetry which she co-edited in 1992 with her late husband, the poet Artur Międzyrzecki.

Listeners: Andrzej Wolski

Film director and documentary maker, Andrzej Wolski has made around 40 films since 1982 for French television, the BBC, TVP and other TV networks. He specializes in portraits and in historical films. Films that he has directed or written the screenplay for include Kultura, which he co-directed with Agnieszka Holland, and KOR which presents the history of the Worker’s Defence Committee as told by its members. Andrzej Wolski has received many awards for his work, including the UNESCO Grand Prix at the Festival du Film d’Art.

Tags: Warsaw, Vistula, Lublin, Warsaw Uprising, Russians

Duration: 55 seconds

Date story recorded: June 2010

Date story went live: 27 May 2011