Tag #123375 - Interview #78050 (rena michalowska)

He was a member of the Communist Party of Western Ukraine, called KaPUZa, for short. All this information is so shallow... My memories are totally vague. I must have been 4, 5 or 6 when he put some papers under the mattress of the bed in which I slept. That happened at night. Before 1st May, I remember panic, commotion, and then knocking on the door: 'Police! Open up!' Occasionally they invited my father preventively for 24 or 48 hours. I know that he was in hiding for a while. Someone must have warned him that they want to arrest him, so he left home and when he came back it was in the middle of the night, only to leave again before dawn. In the little town everybody knew everything about everybody else. In those times when my father would disappear only to come home at night for a few hours, there was a policeman I can remember as if it was today: Mr. Maciejewski. In terms of appearance he reminded me of Pilsudski [11], for he had a similar walrus moustache. He'd meet me on the street and say, 'Poor child, you haven't seen your father for a long time, have you? Maybe you know when he's coming back? When is daddy going to be home?' Several times my father was in jail in Stanislawow. I visited him there with my mother. We went by train, and then walked or took a carriage to the jail which was certainly not situated in some isolated place.