Notes From My Polish Childhood

Isabella Moore

• Publisher: Brown Dog Books
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN:
  9781839522574
• Edition: 0

This book is neither autobiography nor a family history. It is a short account of an unusual childhood and the experience of being born into a family living in a repressive political system.The family members faced many restrictions in their daily lives but, in other respects, managed to avoid the worst excesses of the Communist regime. The book recounts how, despite many limitations, the author and her brother were protected, encouraged to flourish and were not held back by a hostile political environment until their adult years.The book recalls the high and low points of life behind the Iron Curtain in one of the least politically conformist countries of the Soviet controlled Eastern Europe. The work records how dramatically life had changed in a previously cut-off society which, nevertheless, had always held high hopes for future progress.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Foreword
• 1. Jelenia Góra – the town of my childhood
• 2. Kościuszko Square and the surrounding area
• 3. ‘The Bastion’, House No 2 in Kościuszko Square
• 4. Top floor flat No 7
• 5. Zofia – our nanny and housekeeper
• 6. Our kitchen and the ‘rescue mission’
• 7. The main bedroom and its treasures
• 8. Zofia’s sanctuary
• 9. Bathroom, water and perfumes
• 10. Sitting room through the decade
• 11. My piano and the music school
• 12. Paintings and Wlastimil Hofman
• 13. The portrait by Hofman
• 14. Food – Polish cuisine in my family
• 15. Festivities of Christmas
• 16. Easter celebrations
• 17. My parents: Irena and Andrzej – Irena’s story
• 18. My parents: Irena and Andrzej – Andrzej’s story
• 19. Uncle Oleś and aunt Halka
• 20. Grandmother Janina and her home in Starachowice
• 21. My father’s pharmacy ‘Under the Stag’
• 23. The story of the tooth
• 24. Childhood education – School No 7, spectacles and later mishaps
• 25. Family summer holidays on the Baltic coast
• 26. My brother Jurek and his story
• 27. Brief notes on the Polish political system
• 28. Solidarity – the independent Polish trade union
• 29. Bodo the dog
• 30. My secondary education – Stefan Żeromski Grammar School
• 31. Form IB and our teachers
• 32. Memorable school trips
• 33. Matura – exams for the certificate of completion of secondary education
• 34. Medical School in Wrocław
• 35. Internship in the hospital for miners
• 36. Back to my roots in Jelenia Góra