Christmas Under German Occupation – Rulka Langer

World War II broke out on September 1, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland from the west. Two weeks later, on September 17, 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east. These two enemies divided Poland between them, with the Germans occupying most of the central and western part of the country, and the Soviets the eastern part.

Three of our authors describe how they celebrated Christmas under German occupation. As we approach Christmas this year, we thought we’d give you a look back in time. In this post, we share Rulka Langer’s Christmas 1939, with the other authors to follow in separate posts.

Author Rulka Langer (1906–1993) came from a family of distinguished Polish intellectuals, writers and statesmen. After graduating from Vassar College in the U.S. in 1928, she returned to Poland and worked at the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency in Warsaw. In 1930, she married Olgierd Langer, a graduate of the University of Lwów and the Harvard Business School, who is credited as the father of modern advertising in Poland.

A modern “career woman” before that concept was fashionable, after her marriage Mrs. Langer, the mother of two young children, became a political and economic writer in Warsaw. When World War II broke out on September 1, 1939, she was working in the Economic Research Department of the Bank of Poland. Her husband was posted to a diplomatic mission in the U.S., while she and her children (Ania, age 3, and George, age 8) had moved in with her elderly mother and her older brother Franek.

 

Excerpt from The Mermaid and the Messerschmitt: War Through a Woman’s Eyes, 1939–1940, by Rulka Langer, Chapter 31, “Christmas 1939”:

 

pp. 406–410
Christmas came. Ania was very much worried about the fate of the angel. It is an angel, and not Santa Claus, that brings Christmas trees and toys to Polish children.

“Mommy, are you sure the Germans won’t shoot the angel if he comes after dark?”

Ania knew that Germans shot at anyone who was out in the streets after the curfew was sounded….

“Oh, I don’t think so, darling,” I reassured Ania. “The angel has wings. He will fly and not walk about the streets. Besides, Germans don’t see angels, I am sure.”

We were all determined to have a real, traditional Christmas Eve celebration. Franek had ransacked the big black trunk in which the toys of our own childhood were kept and had produced a miniature zoo, a doll’s tea set, a complete farm with animals and men, and some games. These would go under the Christmas tree. The tree itself bothered me a lot, for I couldn’t find any till the day before Christmas Eve. Vendors were evidently afraid to put them out sooner, lest the Germans requisition their stock. At last everything was ready, and when the first evening star appeared in the sky, as tradition demands, we all gathered around the dining room table covered with a shining table cloth bulging in spots, for there was hay underneath. Hay, like in the manger.

We first broke thin white wafers (Mother still had some of the last year’s supply left), wishing each other luck. We told each other many small personal wishes but we really had only one big wish, and there were tears in everybody’s eyes when Mother voiced it: “For Poland to be free.” Only the children were too excited over the approaching moment when they would see the tree to pay any heed. Then we broke some more wafers with wishes to the absent ones….

After that we proceeded with our Christmas Eve dinner. Every course of that meal had been established by century-long tradition. Some dishes varied in different parts of the country and from family to family, but on the whole they were pretty uniform. First, dried-mushroom broth; two fish courses served with sauerkraut cooked with dried mushrooms; noodles with poppyseeds; and for dessert, sweetmeats and nuts. We had painstakingly collected each item in the preceding weeks. Of course we did not have two fish courses—instead we had one can of sardines.

“It’s fish anyway,” Franek declared, “and if you eat each sardine in two bites you can call it two fish courses.”

“Pull out the hay,” I reminded him of the old fortunetelling trick, “I want to see how many wives you are going to have.”

Franek plunged his hand under the tablecloth and brought out a piece with five blades.

“Five wives, good heavens! You’ll have to start getting married pretty soon, or you’ll never get to the last one.”

“Mommy, what’s that?” Ania had followed her Uncle Franek’s example and was holding up just one single blade.

“Ania, you poor child, you’ll remain an old maid for the rest of your life.”

“I can give her mine,” George offered, “I have four blades, and I really don’t want to marry, ever!”

“That’s what you say now,” Franek assured him….

I lighted the candles [on the tree] and called the children. They rushed in with shouts of joy and then, for a second, stopped abruptly and stood still, gasping with admiration at the scintillating brilliance of the tree. Mother, Franek, Cook and Leosia had followed the children from the dining room and now stood around the tree. I had prepared small presents for everyone. I wanted it to be exactly like last year, and all the years before. And it was. Except for those ugly patches on the ceiling, and . . . last year there had been small presents from and for Aunt Madzia.

After the first excitement was over Mother read the Nativity chapters in the Gospel, while we listened, our heads bent in silence. “And peace on earth to men of good will. . . ” Then we all began to sing Christmas carols….

Franek and I still continued to sing Christmas carols far into the night. There were so many of them. . . Child Jesus lullaby, and the one that had the gay tune of a mazurka. And the sixteenth century one, to the tune of which our forefathers used to dance the Polonaise. And the oldest of them all, about the hay in the manger. . .Franek and I liked it best of all because of its naive refrain that came at the end of every stanza:

Oh hay, oh hay!
Hay like a lily
On which the baby
Is laid by Mary.

We sang them all. All except “Silent Night.” For “Silent Night” is a German carol.

Yes, we had a lovely Christmas and we were lucky. One of my friends had a German search party burst into the dining room just as the family was about to sit down to the Christmas Eve dinner….