“Falcon” and the eagle – 80 years of Michał Sienkiewicz’s life

It would be extremely difficult to summarize Michał Sienkiewicz’s rich and exciting life in one article only. That would rather take several heavy volumes.

Which words could be accurate to convey the suffering of early orphanhood, hard years after the war, defiance against the Soviet political system, passion for sport and health problems, taking part in the Olympic Games in Moscow as a referee and dramatic decisions of the Soviet Union – United States question. Then an active participation in sport promotion in independent Lithuania, an everlasting fascination for history that has been expressed in a book dedicated to his family town, Ejszyszki (Eišiškės). Apart from that, almost palpable help from Heaven he remained faithful to even during the regime that negated existence of God. Thanks to Mr. Sienkiewicz, the Polish Gymnastic Society “Falcon” (Polish: Polskie Towarzystwo Gimnastyczne “Sokół”) was brought back to life, raised like a phoenix from the ashes. All that happened within 80 years of Mr. Sienkiewicz’s life and I can’t stop admiring his outstanding personality, his energy, faith, and inner strength. And his modesty. Since he tells about his life without embellishing or using big words. He humbly ascertains the facts, telling us  about others rather than about himself.

On the day before his 80^th birthday I am trying to pass on just a handful of his extraordinary  life memories.

– I was born on 10^th September, 1933 in a village Janiańce near Ejszyszki. I had both parents and two older siblings – says Mr. Sienkiewicz.

From his childhood he can clearly remember how, in the age of 6,  he became an altar-boy in Butrymańce church, where he was helping priest Longin Iwańczyk in services. From then on, faith turned to be the major support in his life. He can also remember different faces of war, experienced with a child’s mind. The tanks he encountered on his way from school. People and horses thrown by the Germans into the pit in the ground, near Gudakampi.

Then 9^th February came, a blood curdling night, not only because of the frost but also the cruelty of those who banged at his door.

– I don’t know who it was, maybe the whites, maybe the blacks or the reds. Thugs. My sister woke me up and told me to go to the neighbours and not to come back. I didn’t even realize what was happening. I went out and when I returned in the morning, I found all my family shot dead.

Mr. Sienkiewicz used to live at his relatives – his aunt and his uncle. He wanted to go to school. After the war, in Ejszyszki, children were forced by the Soviet authorities to learn in Russian. Though, in 1946, Mr. Kazilionis, a Lithuanian music teacher married to a Polish girl, went to Moscow to the supreme authority in order to ask for the permission for Polish school. They didn’t wait long for the answer – soon after his return the letter came with the permission for the Polish school to be opened.

The children were studying in the lights of paraffin lamps, candles, there was lack of everything – just the post-war poverty. The people were helping each other. Mr. Parchomienko, a physics teacher thaught us in a very interesting way. He constructed the generator himself so we had the electricity at school. In 1948, along with the collectivization, the Russification began. – The Soviet authorities tried to convince us that Polish school has no perspectives, we were intimidated or enticed to study in Leningrad or Moscow. In 1948 our Polish school was changed into Russian – so, in 1953 Mr. Sienkiewicz graduated from the school which was Russian already. In the same year he was recruited to the army. A military police took his identity card in case he would like to go to seminary, as he was not associated with the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, usually known as komsomol (a syllabic abbreviation from the Russian ‘Kommunisticheskii Soyuz Molodyozhi’). In the army he was still asked one and the same question: “Pocziemu ty nie komsomolec?” (Why aren’t you the member of ‘komsomol’?).

Prelate Leon Żebrowski, the prominent person and the priest, who was working in Ejszyszki after the war, didn’t dissuade Mr. Sienkiewicz from joining the ‘komsomol’. He used to say that the times were hard, but Mr. Sienkiewicz would rather have clear conscience. It was priest Żebrowski who inspired Mr. Sienkiewicz with the fascination for his homeland’s history. He gratefully recalls the long talks with the priest about the famous Poles and significant events, even in the version which was not accepted by the Russian ideology.

For not joining the ‘komsomol’ he was punished by sending to the Far East, the Amur Oblast, then to Khabarovsk – he stayed there up to 1956. A local  military academy promised him positions in the European embassies.

– I was refusing three times so they gave it up at last –Mr. Sienkiewicz admits. – They wanted me to sign papers so that I wouldn’t tell anyone about it.

In 1956 he returned home from the Chinese frontier. He started working at school in Dojlidy and then in Ejszyszki. He connected his work with the passion for sport – 25-kilometre way by bike was bread and butter for him.

In 1958 he nearly died. He suffered from pneumonia and because of the complications, doctors left him without hope. Not only days but his hours were numbered. Then, unexpectedly, he was examined by Antanas Sucila, a talented surgeon, what he believes to be God’s help. The doctor diagnosed that a surgery could save his life. Mr. Sienkiewicz admits it was all the same to him at that time. He agreed to the surgery which was supposed to last for 5 hours. After those 5 hours he woke up but he was still being operated on. Since additional anaesthesia wasn’t possible, the surgeon administered to him a dose of alcohol to finish the surgery which took two hours and thirty minutes additionally.

– If it were not for doctor Sucila, I wouldn’t have survived – says Mr. Sienkiewicz – He removed a part of my lung, then he was sitting up by me over the night. Such unselfish doctors don’t exist any more, I guess – Mr. Sienkiewicz sighs. – I once saw a mother of a dying girl kneeling in front of doctor Sucila and begging him, so the doctor resigned from leaving for Crimea and performed an operation on the girl.

After the surgery, Michał Sienkiwicz had to give up practicing sport and he became a referee. At the beginning he worked at the regional games, then at the republican ones and later on at the athletics championships in Soviet Union.

In the meantime he had to take the life decision. After the death of Stalin the political deportees started to return from Siberia. Among them was Mr. Sienkiewicz’s uncle who fought as a volunteer in the Polish–Soviet war. The uncle and other relatives of Mr. Sienkiewicz had no right to settle in Lithuania and were forced to move to Poland. They wanted Mr. Sienkiewicz to go with them.

– I was ready to go, I only went to say goodbye to priest Żebrowski. It was difficult for me to start conversation for the priest didn’t like it when someone was leaving the country and going to Poland. “Really? Oh, God! Even you, Michał! Everybody is running away, they leave everything behind. What about us, the Polish culture will be lost!”- that was the priest’s reaction to Mr. Sienkiewicz’s departure. Then, after a long conversation Mr. Sienkiewicz decided – “I’m staying”.

And so he stayed. He was teaching history at school. In the meantime he graduated from the Vilnius University, philology and history department. Later on for ten years starting from 1960 he was a headmaster at evening-class school in Ejszyszki.

– Aleksander Kaszkiewicz, a future bishop, graduated from this school – says Michał  – Mr. Novikow, First Secretary of a regional department of the communist party grumbled – “They opened the school for those who want to go to seminary”. And there was something about it for several future priests graduated from this school.

The first secretary of the communist party had a big problem. In the whole Ejszyszki region the school’s headmaster was the only person who didn’t join the party. It was very unusual those days. What is more, that man was also a history teacher and that was just unacceptable. The black clouds appeared over his head. He was shadowed in the church, the communists blackmailed him that he wouldn’t be able to find work. They tried to convince him that even after joining the party he would be able, though in secrecy, to attend masses in Vilnius church (that’s what the First Secretary of the party told him!). The system left no choice. Well, the most important thing was to stay faithful to God while the party ticket was formality.

Fascination for sport led him into the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow where Mr. Sienkiewicz – as a sport referee – registered carefully everything and could support and watch the triumph of a Polish pole vaulter, Władysław Kozakiewicz.

 – Kozakiewicz’s every run-up was assisted by the one-hundred-thousand crowd’s catcall. The Russians backed Wołkow, a Russian jumper so the tension and stress were extreme – says Mr. Sienkiewicz, who at that time was soothing the Polish contestant, for Kozakiewicz came from Soleczniki. And then, accompanied by this catcall of the Soviet audience, Kozakiewicz easily leapt over 5 metres and 78 centimetres high bar, and in a flash won a gold medal and broke the world’s record. His answer to the Russian spectators was the famous “Kozakiewicz’s gesture”( known as “bras d’honneur” or “arm of honor”)  which was broadcast on TV in many countries except Poland and Soviet Union.

 – The Soviet ambassador to Poland demanded that Kozakiewicz be stripped of his medal over his “insult to the Soviet people” but Juan Antonio Samaranch, president of the International Olympic Committee, excused Kozakiewicz, claiming that it was just his emotions. The majority of the referees opted for Kozakiewicz to save his medal – says Mr. Sienkiewicz recalling the atmosphere prevailing at that time in Moscow.

Michał Sienkiewicz’s honesty and nonconformity could be also seen during the athletic championships in the 70s in Moscow, where he was also a referee. The politics infiltrated into sport and the Soviet Union wanted desperately to win with The United States in the race of the superpowers, also in the field of sport. At that time the relay race’s result had been  falsified to Americans’ disadvantage. Michał Sienkiewicz was the only referee who hadn’t signed the falsified protocol. It hadn’t changed the results but Mr. Sienkiewicz was satisfied not to had yielded.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, during the happy ‘white and red’ rebirth period in the Vilnius Region, Mr. Sieniewicz decided to bring the pre-war Polish Gymnastic Society “Falcon” back to life. The society’s aim was to popularize sport and healthy lifestyle as well as developing of the national consciousness.

His efforts fell on hard times. The regional council didn’t exist any more and the region was administered by the governor Eigirdas who rejected the idea of founding a patriotic organization. His answer was a categorical ‘no’.

– Then, together with Heniek Mażul and Stefan Kimsa we resolved that the Polish Gymnastic Society “Falcon” would be formed along with the Polish Sports Club in Lithuania called “Polonia”. Eigirdas threatened us with the court for the 3^rd May races – as Mr. Sienkiewicz tells us about the difficulties with creating a sports organization in the independent Lithuania.

Mr. Sienkiewicz didn’t give up and in 1995 he registered the organization as a separate society. Also the “Falcon’s” flag couldn’t be missing. It was embroidered by the nun, Maria Zacharewska, and consecrated by priest Wojciech Górlicki. Today the old flag is kept in the Museum of Sport in Warsaw and replaced by the new one in the “Falcon” society.

All of the sports events organized by Mr. Sienkiewicz, including ‘parafiada’ in several cities, touristic rallies and new discipline – ringo, are difficult to count. Michał Sienkiewicz is a honorary member of the National Olympic Committee in Lithuania, member of the Athletic Federation in Lithuania (since 1960), he was a chairman of the Athletics Jury (1963-1989), a referee at many republican and international games, and also, together with Stanisław Mikonis, he is the author of the book “Ejszyszki’. He was honoured with a Diploma for Merits and titled the knight of the Gymnastic Societies “Falcon” in Poland. He became a fellow of the Legion of Honour of the National Falcons in America and decorated with a Bronze Cross of Merit. In 2003 he received from the Polish president Aleksander Kwaśniewski an annual Stanisława Walasiewiczówna Award “For the work on sport for Polish community”. He was also decorated with the gold medal by the Sports Department in Lithuania for his services in sport development.

– I’ve given myself under the protection of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, she leads me – Mr. Sienkiewicz says humbly. Neither he arrogates to himself any of the merits nor boasts of his achievements, which would be enough for several biographies.

Source: http://kurierwilenski.lt/2013/09/06/sokol-z-orlem-w-parze-michala-sienkiewicza-tresciwe-80-lat/

Tłumaczenie by Elżbieta Szafarz w ramach praktyk w Europejskiej Fundacji Praw Człowieka, www.efhr.eu. Translated by Elżbieta Szafarz within the framework of a traineeship programme of the European Foundation of Human Rights, www.efhr.eu.