Father's Day 2024
My father My father fathered me Yet we did not go fishing together My father did not father me I lived on another continent I was fathered in another world My father wanted to father a better world But was fathered in prison starting at age fourteen My father did not father me But when I came he saw I looked like him And drank my tea like him My father fathered me Yet he did not read me stories to put me to sleep His stories never put anyone to sleep My father did not father me He let my mother do it all But gave credit where credit was due My father fathered me But I only got a third of his brain A quarter of his charisma One tenth of his bravery A quarter of his humour A quarter of his compassion A half of his sense of justice Very little of his dignity Much of his love for people All of which was plenty To be a carpenter and a decent person My father did not father me But all who knew him Spoke of decency Spoke of fighting for justice For human justice and fairness
Leonard Borkowicz grew up in Drohobycz, which was in the Austro-Hungarian Empire when he was born, was in Poland for a while, was in the Soviet Union for a while and is now in Ukraine. He was a communist from an early age, spent 7 years in prison for his efforts, fought in the Red Army during the war, Governor of Szczecin, ambassador to Czechoslovakia, Chef of Film of Poland, editor. He was also my father.
In the summer of 1969, at the age of 18, I returned to Poland to see my father from whom I had been estranged since leaving Poland with my mother and grandmother in 1957. I had corresponded with him over the years as a child and teenager but knew very little about him. My mother and grandmother always spoke well of him but never told me what he did, what his job was or anything like that. Children always want to know what daddy does, but his life overshadowed my ability at the time to comprehend.
He had an amazing life filled with great achievements, trauma, war, betrayal, prison, many struggles for justice and decency as the world around him collapsed and rebuilt.
As governor of Szczecin right after the war, he was faced with the retreating Red Army in which he had spent the war, dismantling all of the factories in the newly annexed Polish territories, territories that were previously German, and shipping them off to the Soviet Union. He managed to stop this, so that Poland would have some infrastructure to rebuild with.
We walked the streets of Warsaw and joked and laughed as every character we discussed turned out to be a Jew, a Polish Jew, and we would laugh. It was all great fun. We laughed a lot. We were also laughing at ourselves and our pretension. All this even though he had lost his last job due to the firing of all the Jews in Poland after the 6 Day War in the Middle East. There were not many left in Poland at the time but many left in 1968. He stayed.
When he was the ambassador to Czechoslovakia and the Polish secret police had sent an officer to keep an eye on him, he threw the man down the stairs, for which he expressed many regrets, none political but rather his concern for injuring the man.
1969 were radical times for me and many in the Western World where many of us toyed with communism, Maoism, Trotskyism among others. I was fascinated with Communist Poland for its lack of consumerism and corporatism. I did not realise his role in creating Poland and his rejection of the result. We would often talk about communism, and how different Poland was from Canada.
One day I tried to make a point about the difference in the two societies by stating that even though Communist Poland had a lot of problems, what I admired about it was that it had a “system” as opposed to the chaos of capitalism. His response was memorable, clever and didactic. He said: In Poland we do not have toilet paper, but we have a system, you may have toilet paper in Canada, but…. You do not have a system. I feel sorry for you. In Poland we do not have milk, but we have a system. You may have milk in Canada, but I feel bad for you because you do not have a system. In Poland we do not have meat, but we have a system, while in Canada you have meat and no system, which is terrible!
He was very proud of me when I came to see him. My mother wrote: sure great to have an instant son that is like you. He knew a lot of great people, most of whom I had no idea who they were, theatre and film directors, writers. But he graciously introduced me to them all where I never felt ignorant or belittled, though on reflection I could have used some humility. On meeting a director of one of the most interesting theatres in Warsaw, I could not tolerate his overly praise of “Hair” which he had seen in Yugoslavia and told him as much. I had seen it in New York and though the subject was sorta interesting the presentation was too conventional for me. My teenage intolerance never got to any of them.
We were all supposed to call him Lusiek
Happy Father’s Day. Read a book to your child, take them fishing, and teach them justice.
Very good Peter. The most poignant things never try to be, something about the large amount of underlying loss throughout this. thanks
Thank you for sharing, Peter! Great photograph! I am happy to hear that you had more of a relationship to your Father than I imagined. I am sure that many young people that have crossed your life professionally look up to you as a guiding figure. Happy Father's Day!