DeGrace 1 Madeline DeGrace English 1101-049 Literacy Narrative Poland Here We Come The summer before my freshman year

of High School, I went to Berlin to visit my family. This was going to be a really exciting visit, because not only were my brother and I going to be in Germany for a full three months, but our Grandparents were taking us to the beach in Northern Germany. For two weeks straight, my grandfather told me on the phone one day. They had rented a house right on the beach, and my brother and I were giddy with the excitement of going somewhere we had never been before. The day we left for the beach, my Opa, or my grandfather, told us that we could go over to Poland if we wanted to at the beach. Where we would be staying, called Usedom, was about a 30 minute walk from the border of Poland. And since Poland had just been let into the European Union, or the EU, this was the first time any of us would have been to Poland. During Soviet occupation, nobody could visit a soviet occupied country because it was against the rules. When the wall came down, and the Iron Curtain was torn, most people still did not visit any Easternbloc countries because you needed a passport, and you had to pay a fee to cross the border. (The Iron Curtain is the term to describe Eastern European countries. There was a curtain that separated East Germany to Russia from the rest of Europe). This was why nobody in my family, and most people living in Germany, had never been to Poland, until they were allowed to join the EU. Of course we should go to Poland! I said. I had dreams of walking along the Polish water, which would, of course, be different from the German water. In my mind, the Polish beach looked magical. Almost like Germany, but not grey and so cold. Little did I know what Poland actually had in store for us.

DeGrace 2 It was about a 2 hour drive from Berlin to Usedom, and we got there around 4 in the afternoon. We unpacked as quickly as was possible, because my brother and I wanted to walk down to the beach. We couldnt actually swim in the ocean, because it had been raining all day, and also because Northern Germany hardly ever gets above a 70F outside temperature. We hadnt even bothered to pack swimsuits because there was only a slim chance that it would ever get warm enough to actually swim. You can swim in your underwear if it warms up, my Opa said. So when we had finally unpacked, we walked out in pants and sweaters, and an Umbrella to walk along the beach and collect seashells. It was cloudy for the rest of the day, but it didnt rain again. German beaches are not like anything in the States. American beaches are warm, and the water is blue. There are also usually waves, even if they arent very big. German beaches are almost like giant lakes. The water is flat, and it stays cold all year long. The water is also usually an ugly grey color, most likely because thats the color of the sky. The next day was the day we were going to walk to Poland. We woke up around 10 in the morning and got dressed. We should go to a Caf before we leave, my Oma said. (Oma means grandma in German.) We stopped at a Caf around the corner from the house, and ate some breakfast. Typically, Germans eat bread, or Brot, at every meal. For breakfast, Germans usually eat Brot with cheese and sausage. Another favorite is putting what is called Quark on the bread. Quark has the texture of sour cream, but more the taste of cream cheese. My Opa stopped and asked the waiter which way we should walk to get to Poland. Turn left out of here, and then just walk straight. There will be a big sign when you enter Poland, he said. The walk to Poland was all along the Coast, so we stayed on the sand so we could still collect seashells. My brother, Noah, wasnt paying attention and got splashed by a big wave when he wasnt looking. We all laughed, but then stopped at a small Clothes store to get him a new, dry

DeGrace 3 sweater, so he could take off the wet one. It was about 55F that day, and cloudy, so my Oma was worried that Noah would get sick if he stayed in wet clothes all day. After a few minutes we saw a sign that told us we were only a few hundred meters from the border. Achtung, Sie Verlassen Deutschland, or Warning, you are about to leave Germany. This was a sign probably left over from the war, that nobody had ever bothered to take down. I started getting really elated. What would Poland look like? Would I cross the border and enter into a completely new and different experience? Madeline, its going to look the same. The only difference is that the signs will be in Polish, my Opa said pulling me out of my fantasy land. I knew this on some level, but the jubilance of seeing something I had never seen before was too exciting, and I didnt want to wholly believe that it wouldnt be any different. I would be surprised to just how different it really was. When we finally got to the border, we stopped to take some pictures. There was a big sign in German and Polish, which said Welcome to Poland, a member of the EU. Here was the big moment. The moment we would cross over the border into Poland. We were still walking along the sand when we crossed over. We were all smiles, laughing and making jokes about my brother having fell into the water. My brother noticed it first. What are those big things in the water he asked? We all looked and saw massive grey things seemingly floating in the water. The grey things, watchtowers on closer look, had a long boardwalk about 5 meters long and at the end there were tall towers. (Image 1 on page 5 is sort of what they looked like. Only, they were floating in the water, and not in a field.) There were many of them, all along the coast spaced about 10 meters apart. The towers had tinted windows, which was kind of ominous. We couldnt tell if there was still somebody sitting in there, spying on us. Its a good thing its too cold to get in the water, I said because the people here couldnt swim anyway with all of

DeGrace 4 those watchtowers. We stopped at a Caf and asked the native people what the watchtowers were for. Theyre left over from Soviet Occupation, they said, Sometimes the Police still uses them though. They still have trained Police from the Occupation. We were all shocked. The wall had come down almost exactly twenty years from that summer, and Poland still had remnants left over from Soviet invasion. We stayed in Poland for an hour or two, and then started walking back to the house. We walked mostly in silence, thinking about the Polish people living in constant reminder of the hardship of the last 70 years of their history. This is so sad, my Oma said. We were all in mutual shock of how heartbreaking the situation was. I wish there was something we could do, I said, Like, if we could just come with some hammers, and tear down the towers. It changed my perspective on the status of all the former Eastern-bloc countries. If Poland was so far behind in reparations, then how far were other countries, who werent in the EU yet? Did the Ukraine and Russia look even more depressing than what I had just seen? The Summer I went to Poland was an eye-opening experience. Seeing how life is for some people, and how hopelessly people live was really upsetting. Some people in the world are still so oppressed, as if nothing has changed. There is a German proverb that says: Anfangen ist leicht, beharren eine Kunst. This translates to beginning is easy, but persistence is art. It was easy to get Poland into the EU, but not as easy to further their situation, and help them to fully recover.

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Image 1