The Interview

Saturday, October 21^st, 2006.

That was 5 years ago today. An anniversary that I remembered was coming up only about a week ago. But it immediately rang out with significance and nostalgia. I was in 9^th grade, and my Social Studies teacher assigned a big project, or at least one that seemed daunting to me at the time. Coupled with our textbook lessens of World War I/the Great Depression/World War II, we needed to interview someone, age 55 or older, and ask them 20 questions relating to their life/the world at the time/how it affected them. Right off the bat I didn’t want to do the assignment, I was fairly shy at the time and didn’t know any seniors that well.  From what I can remember, I think the interview had to be in person. So right off the bat I had to scratch my Grandpa off the list, as he was 5 hours away in Toronto, and I was in Southeast Michigan. The idea of using him for the project seemed like a great idea, but didn’t look like it was going to happen.

It was October 14^th, and I was watching the Maple Leafs play Calgary on HNIC. (The game where Sundin scored his 500^th NHL Goal) When I told my mom that I would totally interview Grandpa if I could, she remembered that she was visiting friends in the Toronto area next weekend. Sure enough, it was going to happen, I was actually going to Toronto next weekend, and getting dropped off to spend a day with my grandparents, all by myself, and to get this project done the way I wanted to. I was really excited.

That morning of the 21^st in Toronto, my Grandpa came in his big ’85 Buick and picked me up from another relative’s home, and soon there I was. Sitting at the dining room table with my Grandpa, I had him fill out some permission form or something, I almost thought he’d get annoyed and not want to be interviewed with how much there was to fill out! Finally, with my camera charged, full memory stick with 22 minutes of space, I set it down in the middle of the table, faced it at the wall, and pushed record.

I asked 20 questions, the first 5 or so were about growing up in Poland and what it was like, the next 5-10 were about World War II, (and his part in it, serving in the Polish army) and what followed the war for him. The last 5 were questions about culture/war that had taken place over the past 50 years or so. The interview was about 19 minutes, and I learned a bit about my Grandpa that I didn’t know. It opened my eyes to the fact that he served in World War II. WORLD WAR TWO. I think I had much more appreciation of my family history after that, and more drive to learn about my entire family tree. Another fun fact, I learned his name is actually Zdzislaw. (A Polish name) At the time I thought the interview was one of the coolest things I had ever done.

Little did I know there would be another project later in the school year, in the same class, about World War II specifically. We had to pick an event from World War II and present about it, so I chose the Invasion of Poland. When we visited Toronto as a family in April 2007, I had a interview with both my Grandma & Grandpa about the Invasion, and life during the first few years of the war. My Grandpa lived only a few kilometers from the border the night of the invasion, and said tanks rumbled right through the town overnight. The next few days for him were the beginning of his German education…My Grandma worked on a farm in Germany during the war, and after the war was in the Red Cross with the Polish Army. Both of them immigrated to Canada after the war, and met in Toronto.

That interview was not even 7 minutes, but incredibly in-depth compared to the original interview back in October. I had learned such valuable stuff because of those two projects. Whenever it’s October 21^st, I always think back to my grandparent’s house, and the stories they had to tell…