Iron Curtain Project

‘You’re Polish, right? Could you paint my house?’

29 December 2015

KRIS FLOREK (34) from Poland came to the Netherlands in 2002 and is an entrepreneur.

“My parents are still young in this picture, around eighteen years old I think. They look like anything is possible still. That’s how I want to remember my parents.

My parents’ lives revolve around alcohol, mostly. When I was young, I made the boy scouts my second home. My parents lived in a different world and it was hard to communicate. I often found them in the kitchen, vodka bottle on the table. I learnt to cope with having no food.

I was a student until I was 22. I couldn’t afford it any more. My older sister had already moved to the Netherlands and said: ‘Kris, if you come over for the summer break you can earn some extra cash here’.

I slept on the floor in my sister’s sunroom. I couldn’t find a job. Poland wasn’t part of the EU yet and I didn’t know any language but Polish. Still, I knew I would stay. I had fallen in love with the Netherlands. The Dutch have a single word for giving or granting someone something out of kindness: gunnen. We don’t have that in Poland.

One day, my sister’s neighbor said: ‘You’re Polish, right? Why don’t you paint my house?’ I thought it was weird, because I couldn’t paint. I watched every single YouTube video that featured painters or was about handymen. I rode my bike past painters in the neighborhood to see how it was done.

My first job wasn’t my best work, but the neighbor was happy. Shortly after that, another neighbor needed help, and another – I ended up painting the entire area. I offered to do carpentry, too, as I had been preparing for that.

The first money I made I invested in tools and a car. It was a rare sight: a Polish guy with a Dutch license plate and quality tools. I always took my shoes off when I entered a customer’s home. They might have found it strange, but at least they trusted I’d do an accurate and clean job.

I started my own home-maintenance company. It expanded rather quickly, and by 2009 I was an LLC. I now have three businesses and I’m starting a fourth in Poland, where I’ll be selling Dutch fries and classic orange ladies’ roadsters.

My parents don’t understand my life. Being sixty-five and having been druk your entire life, you lose your sense of reality. I’ve been taking care of them for years. I pay their rent, electricity, and water bills. I love them to bits. Had they been different people, I wouldn’t have been who I am today. I’m happy.

For a long time, I wanted to show the Dutch that people from Poland can make it, too. That things can be different: it’s me, the Polish guy, who helps Dutch people find a job. Today, I want to show fellow Poles how to succeed. They often think I’m rich because my family must be rich, too. When they hear how I grew up they realize how their lives weren’t so different. If I can do it, so can they.”

‘I didn’t care for Coca-Cola. It tasted like soap’

29 December 2015

MISHA FURMAN (67) left Lithuania in 1969 and came to the Netherlands via Israel. He plays with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and teaches at the Rotterdam Conservatory, among other things.

“When I was five, I wanted to play the violin. My mother didn’t know what to do with me: she had to take care of me alone. My father had been arrested by the KGB and was now a political prisoner far away in Russia, somewhere near the Volga River.

She sent a letter to my father in prison, saying I had gone mad and wanted to play the violin. Several weeks later we received an envelope from my father that contained money for a violin. He was a hairdresser and had made extra money cutting officers.

I started taking lessons from that moment. I attended two schools: elementary school and music school. Know that musical schools in the Soviet Union were very good. It was the only advantage of the Soviet system. Teachers are extremely strict, but all the best musicians are from Eastern Europe. In the Netherlands, kids are allowed to play soccer, practice judo, and play an instrument. Lithuania was more serious in that respect: playing the violin meant playing the violin.

My parents had been trying to get an exit visa since 1956. They wanted me to grow up in freedom. Only thirteen years later, in 1969, did they receive one. My mother called me. We were free to go.

I stayed awake all night. I knew what I was doing in Lithuania: I was in my fourth year at the conservatory and had been asked to join an orchestra.

Of course I packed my violin for the trip, as well as this amber piece of art from the Baltic Sea. It’s typically Lithuanian. It was a present from my music teacher of six years Matiukas.

But upon arrival at the border, they took my violin. The amber artwork I could keep.

On the first night, we arrived in Budapest – it’s where I saw toilet paper for the first time in my life. We traveled to Israel from there, and I later came to the Netherlands. The freedom, the unbelievable range of products. I thought I was in Paradise. The only that disappointed me was Coca-Cola. It tasted like soap.

I look at the piece of art every single day. It reminds me of my music lessons and how my teacher has supported me all those years.”

‘Talking about my deceased family was taboo’

29 December 2015

LYNA DEGEN-POLIKAR (49) came to the Netherlands in 1992. She works as a GGD psychologist.

“One night, my uncle smelled smoke. It was July of 1944, and he was held captive in a Bulgarian labor camp. Someone had set their hut on fire. He quickly helped the elderly and children outside, but died from his injuries a day later. So did ten others. He was only sixteen and extremely talented: he played the piano beautifully and spoke many languages. His death is the family tragedy. This portrait of him used to grace my grandmother’s wall, and still hardly anyone ever talked about this part of our history.

After the war, Bulgaria was so proud it hadn’t killed any Jews they didn’t want anyone to bring up any other victims. My uncle, but other family members, too. People who were transported to Polish concentration camps, in Bulgarian trains that traveled through parts of Greece and Yugoslavia that were occupied by Bulgaria, accompanied by the Bulgarian army. My grandmother saw her family pass by one time. When she tried to hand them bread through one of the windows, Bulgarian police officers started shooting at her. Twelve thousand people from new parts of Bulgaria have been gassed after deportation, but the government didn’t see the need to discuss any of that. After all, they hadn’t been real Bulgarians.

Although my childhood memories during communism are mostly good ones – we lived in a snug little apartment and secretly tuned in to BBC at night – the period didn’t leave much room for my Jewish background. The government insisted everyone was equal, so we couldn’t organize ourselves as a group as that would raise suspicion. After the fall of the Wall, I became one of the founders of the Jewish Youth Association in Sofia. I met young Jewish people from other countries as well. One of them was Dutch, and I fell in love with him. We traveled to the Netherlands together, and it was only there I started developing my Jewish identity. War victims are acknowledged here and nobody feels weird talking about it. My uncle’s portrait has a prominent spot in my house now.”

‘I feel Dutch rather than Bulgarian, really’

29 December 2015

MARIO PANEV (33) came to the Netherlands from Bulgaria for the first time in 1994. After years of traveling back and forth, he settled in Hilversum. Panev has his own construction company.

“We were pretty much the first ones to leave for the Netherlands in our country. I remember it wasn’t easy for Bulgarians, either. The first six years we weren’t allowed to stay, because my parents were denied work permits every time. That meant we didn’t have a home, because you needed a steady job for that. We traded Hilversum for Sofia every few months. I had to change schools all the time, which was difficult.

When I was eighteen, my dad managed to start a business here. Things went fast from there, and we got a house in Hilversum. Soon after, I started my own construction company.

I hardly ever work with Bulgarians. They will tell you they can do anything, but they’re just not as skilled as Dutch workers. Because they’re cheap, I sometimes hire one for demolition work, but never for painting or stucco – they’re just not good enough.

And they have a different mentality because of communism. They feel that no matter how hard they work, they’ll still be paid the same.

My parents are retired and live in Bulgaria now. It’s a great place to be retired: there’s peace and quiet and nature is beautiful. The climate is warmer, too. I will never go back to Bulgaria for good. I feel perfect over here.”

Code word: ‘Say hi to Larry’

29 December 2015

EUGENIUSZ BRZEZINSKI (65) left Poland and fled to the Netherlands in 1982. He’s director of operations at GGZ Keizersgracht in Amsterdam.

“I saw it with my own eyes. At six in the morning, workers who were on strike crossed the large wooden bridge on their way to the shipyard in Gdynia. They were greeted by the police’s machine guns. I was in nautical school, a kind of boarding school that overlooked the wharf. It was December and I could see the shots light up in the dark. I heard bangs and a panicked frenzy.

That was in 1970. There was another strike at the shipyards ten years later. Then Solidarność was founded. One of its first demands: a memorial for the workers that were killed in 1970. This coin was minted to raise money for that monument. I bought it right away and have always carried it on me.

Those sixteen months of Solidarność were the best of my life in Poland. It felt like opening a window in an extremely stuffy room. Grey Poland, where people were fed up with endless lines and empty stores, suddenly saw people being nice to each other. We were convinced things would work out this time.

I worked as an officer on a trading ship and was lucky I was allowed to bring my wife along on trips. We were in Venezuela when we heard martial law had been declared. That was all we knew. It was only a few days later a friend in the US told us more. Army tanks apparently roamed the streets, there was a curfew, and thousands of people had been arrested. I was a very active member of Solidarność. What should we do?

After several days we managed to send a telegram to relatives. We received a response: ‘We’re fine, say hi to Larry’. We knew it was code, because Larry was our friend in the US. ‘Don’t return’ is what the message said. ‘All hope is lost here’.

We applied for asylum in the United States, but it was denied. The only Western European city we passed on the way was Rotterdam. On February 22, 1982 we reported with the river police carrying two bags of summer clothing. They took us to a sailor’s home, where we met sixty other Polish sailors who had fled.

When I arrived in the Netherlands I was convinced the situation in Poland wouldn’t change in a hundred years. But the country knew a revolution seven years later after all.

Sometimes I wish I could have contributed more, that I had more hope. The text on the coin moves me to this day: ‘They died so you can live honorable lives’.”

‘I don’t consider myself a migrant worker’

29 December 2015

IWONA LISIECKA (28) came to the Netherlands for the first time in 2012, and has been visiting ever since in the hopes of finding a job as a product designer.

“My first job was one amidst the flower bulbs in the greenhouses of Pijnacker. It was hard work: six days a week, eleven hours a day. But I enjoyed the Dutch landscape and whenever I had some time off I was pitching product ideas at design agencies. I don’t consider myself a migrant worker, although I know I am. Europe is one big country to me. I’ve lived in Spain, Switzerland, and Slovenia as well. The Netherlands is just a new place to discover.

The only item I always take with me when I move is this tiny painting. I found it in a chest at my grandmother’s when I was a child and took it with me when she passed away. Did she make it? Her father, maybe? I don’t know, but that’s exactly why it’s symbolic to me: looking at the painting makes me think of my background of which I know so little. I always took everything for granted, and because of that I never asked my ancestors what life was like in communist times.

The Iron Curtain is still ingrained in Polish life, something I noticed only when I left the country for the first time. Everyone in Western Europe is uncomplicated and upbeat, while the atmosphere in Poland is often a little dark. In communist times we acted as one, but after the Wall fell people became more jealous of those whose grass seemed greener. Another thing I’ve noticed: everything outside of Poland is still considered exotic; working abroad for a while is more prestigious than any type of work experience at home.”

‘Promise me you’ll never run, I urged my son every morning’

29 December 2015

ELITSA YORDANOVA (39) came to the Netherlands in 2001. She’s a social worker, head of the Bulgarian school, and runs a construction company with her husband.

“One night, my husband and I were sitting at the table when I finally mustered the courage to say it: we can’t keep living like this. It hurt. It was the late nineties. I had graduated from university and my husband had just completed his military service, but there was no way to find a job the old-fashioned way. You had to know the right people, or bribe someone. We had to stand in line for hours every day to buy bread, milk, or oil, while our money in the bank slowly evaporated. The democracy that was promised after the fall of the communist regime was stillborn. We were exhausted to the point we didn’t even concern ourselves with politics anymore. All we wanted was to live an honest and ordinary life. I proposed leaving Bulgaria.

The first attempts to travel to the Netherlands failed. Bulgaria was not part of the European Union yet, and being a young, Eastern-European woman, the Dutch embassy figured I had to be a prostitute. The day we finally arrived at Schiphol Airport I was ridiculously nervous. Our luggage couldn’t give away we wanted to stay in the Netherlands for good, so I packed barely anything. The only keepsake in my bag was a Bulgarian flag that said ‘remember your family and your language’. By settling somewhere else I wanted to give my child wings, but I realized he would need his roots as well.

There we were, at Amsterdam Central Station, with two bags and not a clue where to go. I found a job as a cleaner and babysitter. No dream job, obviously, but I felt very proud. Progress, finally.

Promise me you’ll never run, I’d urge my son walking him to school every day. If he fell we wouldn’t be able to take him to a doctor as we lived here illegally. One day he ran a high fever. I had heard of a doctor in the Red Light District who helped illegal immigrants. I got discouraged when I saw the long line of junkies and prostates waiting, but when I arrived with my sick child, everyone made way. I remember thinking: if even prostitutes and drug addicts care for one another, we must have made the right choice in coming here.”

‘I didn’t bring anything. No underwear. No toothbrush. And definitely not this heavy pestle and mortar.’

29 December 2015

ANDREAS VLASZATY (75) fled Hungary in 1956 and came to the Netherlands. He’s a retired psychiatrist.

“I was scared to say goodbye to my mother. She wouldn’t have let me go, I think. I told my brother that if I hadn’t come back by ten that night he should tell my parents I’d probably reached Austria.

We just had to leave, my friend Ivan and I. We were sixteen years old. The Hungarian revolt had just been crushed, so soon Russian border patrols would intensify. ‘If I don’t leave now, I will never escape this country’, I thought. And I wanted to see the world, be free.

I didn’t bring anything. No underwear. No toothbrush, And definitely not this heavy pestle and mortar. You couldn’t. Carrying anything raised suspicion.

We got on the train. It was headed west, but halted a hundred kilometers before the border. We continued on foot and walked though fields and woods the entire day. At night, we lay close together in a haystack. It was cold and dark, and we were scared.

We walked for days on end and thought we’d crossed the border three times. The first time was when we reached the end of a forest and saw a stretch of raked sand, some ten meters wide. Landmines. We decided to draw straws. I jumped across the field in four steps, Ivan followed. It went well. ‘We’ve reached Austria!’, we thought.

We walked on, but then we realized there were fences left and right. We were walking inside the Iron Curtain. Suddenly, someone called out in Hungarian: ‘Stop or I’ll shoot!’ He wanted to know where we were headed. ‘West’, we admitted. He started swearing loudly: ‘Damn it, I can’t believe you’re crossing the border on my watch!’ He thought about it for a bit, then said: ‘Go straight ahead and run.’ We started running and zigzagging. We knew shooting us could earn him a distinction. Nothing happened, he let us go. That made has left a deep impression on me. I still think about him often.

In the distance, we saw ten-meter-high watchtower. That was the real border. We were lucky again as the tower we passed was unmanned. We swam across a river and entered a village, freezing. But this time we really made it to Austria. Someone walked up to us and took us to a dormitory with many more Hungarian refugees. We shook hands: we made it!

After that, I traveled to the Netherlands via Vienna. Many years later, when my parents passed away, I took this pestle and mortar with me to the Netherlands immediately. It reminds me of our daily life at home, my mother grinding poppy seeds in the kitchen, the cake we were to eat together soon.”