Introduction to My Life Story

My Life.
From My Own Perspective.

Introduction

I am not writing this out of a sense of self-importance, nor out of a sudden urge to publicly bare my private life. I have decided to recount a few key experiences, using them as a springboard to address a much broader issue. It is an issue that in Poland is still swept under the rug or treated with an alarming level of indulgence, yet it is intimately tied to what we call the Polish mentality.

I have no desire to be pigeonholed as a "critic of Polishness." First of all, I dislike generalizations. Secondly, I have many wonderful friends among Poles. And thirdly, I consider myself largely Polish.

However, I have spent my entire life interacting with many different nations and years integrating into various countries. This gives me a certain distance, allowing me to observe phenomena that are far more intense and destructive within Polish communities than anywhere else.

Working in Poland for many years, I lived a very good life up to a certain point. I had a multitude of appreciative clients and earned a very good income. However, this was accompanied by relentless hate, jealousy, envy, and constant attacks that I had to learn to endure or simply ignore. Today, looking back from the distance of Cambodia, I judge it much more harshly. I realized that material comfort and a high standard of living were not worth the price I paid: years of humiliation, degradation, and constant witch hunts.

I refuse to play the victim—I never felt comfortable in that role and always avoided it. However, I am fully aware that a high standard of living and success achieved without self-promotion do not make up for hatred and aggression. Moreover, I realize that I was no exception. Other Poles—celebrities, artists, or simply public figures—arouse the exact same hate and hostility among their compatriots.

The fact that I am not alone in this does not comfort me in the slightest, nor does it legitimize these destructive behaviors in any way. On the contrary, it makes me feel an even greater need to describe these events from my own, subjective perspective.

I hope that this subjectivity will expose a certain objective mechanism. I have noticed that many people approach this topic either defensively (claiming that "I'm just nitpicking") or with the false conviction that "it's the exact same everywhere in the world."

Let me be clear: it is simply not true.

The Polish mentality, in this regard, is a global anomaly. And it needs to be written about not because it hurt Piotr Tymochowicz or ruined his parents' lives, but because it primarily destroys Poles themselves.

🧱 First Fragments of Memory: Life Behind the Wall and the Polish "Third World"

I was born in Warsaw as an only child. My mother was a geographer specializing in international relations, and my father was a nuclear chemist at the Institute for Nuclear Research in Świerk. I was incredibly fortunate, as they were both brilliant, loving, and deeply patriotic people.

However, for the first few years of my life, my parents were separated. I lived with my mother in East Berlin (the capital of the GDR), while my father worked in West Berlin. The borders were closed, and we couldn't visit each other.

My earliest memories are of Berlin. As far back as I can remember, it was my city—the places I strongly identified with as a child.

I attended first and second grade on Fischerinsel, and then moved to a school on Andreasstraße, close to the city center. My mother worked at the Polish Institute of Culture, so she made sure I attended a Polish school twice a week.

But it was the East German public school that shaped me the most. I remember the sheer exoticism of that system and its heavy propaganda machinery.

What did I do during those mandatory 30-minute morning assemblies that started every day at 7:30 AM? I simply slept in. And when I was already at school and just wanted to get home faster, I would ostentatiously wait on a bench, far away from the hustle of the assembly, in my own independent little world.

The sheer artificiality and pomposity of the Young Pioneer celebrations amused me. I didn't join the Pioneers, and I didn't take part in party ceremonies. I felt like a rebel. The school frequently complained to the embassy to get me or my mother in line, but fortunately, my nonconformity was tolerated without any harsh reprisals.

It was a fascinating period of German duality. As students, we were encouraged to snitch on and spy on our own parents—checking, for example, if they were watching banned Western television.

That was when the image of two parallel worlds formed in my mind. One was the forbidden world where my father worked—a colorful world of freedom. The other was the drab but optimistic, emerging world of a new Germany.

I remember climbing the surrounding hills with my friends to gaze at the inaccessible world of the "decaying West," which shimmered in the distance with the rainbow colors of neon advertisements. Sometimes we would stand there in complete silence for almost an hour. I remember one friend whispering, "Someday, I'm going to live there."

The border was like an Event Horizon to me—something you could only reach with your imagination. That world held secrets: secret tunnels, Hitler’s flooded bunker, and the "ghost stations" of the subway that led to the West.

At some point, however, we managed to get a pass to the West through a family reunification program.

Suddenly, a completely different world opened up before me. We moved to the villa district of Wannsee, surrounded by lakes and forests. Formally, it was the American Sector. I was in for a culture shock at my new school, which was attended by both German and American kids. In stark contrast to the Eastern Bloc drill, the atmosphere was relaxed, built on partnership with the teachers, and filled with a genuine joy of learning.

Regardless, I still traveled to East Berlin twice a week for Polish school. I was constantly living at the intersection of parallel worlds within a single, divided city.

These were the 1970s. I remember when the border with Poland was opened and Poles started flocking to East Berlin in massive numbers. Aside from holidays and vacations, this was my only contact with my fellow countrymen.

And that’s when the culture clash hit me. To me, it was literally the "Third World."

Not just because of the material backwardness of the Polish People's Republic, but primarily because of their perception of time.

Whether in East or West Berlin, I was living in the local future. It was a world focused on building tomorrow, without constantly picking at the scabs of the past. I grew up among German and American peers who didn't identify with World War II in the slightest.

In Poland, and among the Poles visiting Germany, I felt like I was in a completely different temporal reality. It was as if the war had ended for them just a few weeks prior.

In the next episode, I will describe situations I witnessed firsthand—things that were never talked about in Poland, shamefully swept under the rug for all those years, and which probably very few people would believe today.

👇 Let me know in the comments—was your childhood also a clash of two different worlds? I invite you to join the discussion and follow the upcoming episodes.

#PRL #Berlin #ColdWar #Mentality #History #LifeAbroad #Memoir #Reflections #ThirdWorld #Distance

Part Two

Poles in the GDR… A Difficult TABOO Subject
(My Life – from my subjective point of view)

I remember that as a child, I experienced summer trips to Poland as journeys not just to a different place, but to a different time. I had the feeling of traveling back into the past.

As a child, I couldn't grasp the ennoblement of the working-peasant class, which I associated with the lowest social strata, illiteracy, subservience, and a certain belligerence bordering on quarrelsomeness. I didn't feel superior – I simply couldn't understand what value there was in elevating people to the heights of power without the necessary competence or education.

The drabness and greyness of the Polish People's Republic, combined with pervasive filth and shoddiness, were offset for me by the wonderful stories my grandparents told. Yet my real encounter with the widespread pathology of communist Poland paradoxically took place not in Poland itself, but in the heart of the GDR – in East Berlin.

Twice a week, I attended the Polish afternoon school at the embassy there. Often after classes, I would stay longer with my parents, and that's when I became an involuntary witness to the horrifying behavior of my fellow countrymen.

Of course, I don't like to generalize, but I remember how many times I wanted to sink into the ground with shame, watching the behavior of Poles who regularly came over after the border opened in the 1970s.

I know that to this day, there is a strong belief used to justify this behavior: after all, we were victims of the war, the aggressor was Germany, we were a poor and backward country, and in nearly every family, someone was killed by the Germans.

That is clear, and I have no intention of denying it. But Polish gangs of young thugs and grown men swaggering through Berlin, shouting "Heil Hitler!" and "Hände hoch!", spitting in young Germans' faces, hurling abuse at children, and staging drunken brawls – that built neither friendly feelings nor respect.

I remember how older Germans compared these Polish groups to the Soviet soldiers from thirty years earlier.

I lived in a world that wasn't living in the war but was trying to build a new future. I was raised with the conviction that collective responsibility must never be endorsed. What is a child guilty of, just for being born twenty years after the war in a particular country? That was obvious to me.

I witnessed specific scenes that I can still see before my eyes to this day:

Public urination and defecation in the subway – on the station platform – by drunken young thugs from Poland.

Humiliating Germans of all ages, practically torturing them in the street.

An attempted gang rape of a girl who was maybe twelve or thirteen years old, after she had been forced to strip naked.

Drunken abuse, spitting in faces, beatings in the street – not only against older people, but also against very young people and children.

I don't know why it was mainly the pathological element that flocked to Berlin, but from my mother's accounts, I know that debates took place at the highest levels about whether it might be better to close the border between the supposedly fraternal countries once again. I believed her, because I saw it with my own eyes. She, as a great Polish patriot, was also deeply affected by all of it.

That was when, as a child, I started to be afraid. Not of Germans, not of Americans. I was afraid of my own countrymen in East Berlin.

I already knew then that no war from thirty years ago could justify this. I couldn't understand the sluggishness of the GDR police – as if they were afraid of upsetting party dignitaries by acting against the "fraternal nation." I saw how Germans endured it with humility, with a constant sense of guilt for the actions of their ancestors. I never saw any retaliatory reaction from them.

And I was dying of fear and shame. It happened that abusive curses were hurled in my direction, people thinking I was German.

That was also the time of massive Polish "raids" on grocery stores and shoe shops, where people would buy 100 or even several hundred pairs of shoes in a single trip. Aggressive, impatient lines would form, from which Germans were forcibly thrown out – as "Gestapo men."

I never saw one Pole call another to order. There was clearly total permission for these disgraceful behaviors.

It stuck in my memory because these weren't occasional outbursts. I saw such scenes almost every time.

Perhaps that's why, even as a child, I no longer shared the mindless adoration of my own nation. I increasingly identified with the humiliated Germans, especially when the abuse targeted young people or children.

I understand that this can't be attributed solely to individuals. It was a consequence of poverty, shortages, lack of education, and a life perpetually defined by a war that had ended over 30 years earlier. But is that a sufficient reason to fully excuse one's countrymen? Does the fact that Poles suffered more than other Europeans explain such behavior by guests in a new geopolitical situation?

That doesn't convince me.

We came to the eastern part of Berlin less and less willingly. My attendance at the Polish school was cut down to one day a week – and even that seemed like too much to me.

I'll be honest – I don't feel entirely comfortable writing about all of this. I keep thinking that maybe I shouldn't, that it's the distant past, that many people today will accuse me of having bad intentions.

But that is exactly what the Truth was from my subjective point of view – whether anyone likes it or not.

I still believe, however, that the Truth we witnessed firsthand has far greater value – even if it is painful and uncomfortable – than any political or social correctness.

Please write to me in the comments – do you share my view? Do you think that things like this need to be talked about, even after all these years?

#History #PolishPeoplesRepublic #GDR #Berlin #Taboo #Mentality #Memory #Identity #Reflections #Truth

Part Three


Life Between the Island of Freedom and the Besieged Fortress

I found myself in a truly unique situation. In a sense, I grew up across three different worlds, each with its own distinct worldview.

My home base was West Berlin—a veritable oasis of freedom and the Western world, divided into the American, French, and British sectors. I lived in the American sector, attending school alongside German kids and the children of American military officers.

At the same time, the East German (GDR) elementary school was still fresh in my memory—a place saturated with propaganda, featuring programs designed to indoctrinate children into the struggle for socialism, all wrapped in a "besieged fortress" mentality directed at the entire Western world.

Then there was my third world, the one I visited during the holidays: Poland itself, but also the Polish school at the Polish Embassy in East Berlin.

What immediately stood out—and what gave me a tremendous sense of psychological comfort and sparked my curiosity about the world—was the educational model I experienced at the Conrad-Grundschule in West Berlin.

We learned with genuine passion because we had real teachers—enthusiasts of their fields who operated in a totally laid-back environment, free from absurd rules, bans, or authoritarian treatment. It was a partnership-based model with a highly individualized approach to every student. I never felt judged or under any kind of pressure. School was synonymous with the joy of gaining knowledge and with sports.

There was a massive emphasis on physical education, which we had every single day—including some Saturdays and Sundays. Besides American football and basketball, we played a highly unique team sport that is rarely known outside the region: Prellball (it’s somewhat like tennis, but instead of a racket, you hit the ball with your clenched fist). On top of that, Aikido was the main focus—classes that would end up saving my life many years later.

In the Western school—worth noting—I wasn't being programmed to feel hostility toward the Eastern or socialist world, nor was I conditioned to believe I had to fight for anything. We were taught things that were actually useful in life and that helped us better understand the world. There was even a Religion class, but it involved no catechism; instead, as kids, we simply learned about the world's major religions. Without prejudice, without judgment, without trying to shape our opinions.

From the Eastern school, I remember the ingrained belief that someone was constantly out to get our freedom, that someone was destroying our achievements, and that someone wanted to attack our values. I remember being told that we had to fight for everything: fight for peace, fight to exceed the production quotas, fight against temptations, fight against a lack of discipline, fight against the enemies of the people. Every new road, every new school, every new building was framed not as the result of hard work, but as a victory snatched from the jaws of our opponents in a relentless struggle.

The afternoon Polish school at the embassy, on the other hand, was pure torment and a complete farce. It was mostly Polish history framed as the tale of an eternally tormented victim, focusing on its countless martyrs, followed by the rote memorization of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party. I remember that Polish language class consisted of tedious syntactic analysis rather than exploring the beauty of poetry or literature. Then there were the mandatory patriotic readings, like My z placu broni (We from the Defense Square), and of course, Pan Tadeusz, along with Sienkiewicz’s kitschy novels meant "to uplift hearts." Everything was delivered in an authoritarian manner—a martyrological mush sprinkled with propaganda and the mindless memorization of whatever the teacher dictated.

As time went on, I moved around Berlin—both East and West—increasingly freely and independently. Living in the Wannsee district was a true breath of fresh air, situated by the beautiful lakes and surrounded by vast forests. My commute to school took me through the woods for about three kilometers.

I spoke Polish only with my parents and at the Polish school. My primary, natural languages of communication became German and English, given the large number of German and American kids in my circles.

As a kid, I was increasingly starting to notice the numerous paradoxes and the sheer falsehood embedded in that reality.

First, it seemed strange and incomprehensible to me that the countries claiming to be the victors of World War II were actually scraping by in poverty, looking more like humiliated losers than the triumphant, wealthy winners they claimed to be.

Second, in the East, I had been primed for extreme mutual hostility, for the "rotten West," for its obsessive desire to destroy the supposedly competitive East, and for the malice and pettiness of the owners of material goods who exploited the poor. Yet, I experienced all of this as a gigantic lie. I felt truly free in an environment of incredibly kind, amiable, and open people, where no one was fighting anyone else, exploiting anyone, or putting anyone down.

Third, I increasingly noticed logical contradictions, right down to the very construction of the Berlin Wall, its security measures, and the minefields. From the Western side, you could not only touch the wall with your own hands but also observe the East from numerous watchtowers. On the Eastern side, they had built special barricades, tank traps, and guard towers—all pointing inward, toward their own citizens, toward East Berlin. It was as if all of this was meant to defend not against the "rotten West," but against their own citizens to stop them from fleeing to the West.

Fourth, I was repeatedly drilled in the East on how wonderfully socialism served the citizens, how the Party took care of its people, ensuring their prosperity and a daily supply of the highest-quality products exclusively for their benefit. Meanwhile, even basic fruits and groceries were off-putting in their ugliness and poor quality compared to Western products, not to mention the automotive industry—comparing a Trabant or a Wartburg to a Mercedes, BMW, or Audi.

Fifth, the general level of life satisfaction was incomparably higher in the West than in the East. And somehow, the oppressed and downtrodden working class was nowhere to be seen.

Sixth, almost every month there was some attempt to escape from the East, yet strangely enough, no one wanted to flee to the East. At least, no one in their right mind.

Seventh, based on the school curricula and daily propaganda, one got the absurd impression that East Germany had always been a hub of progressive anti-fascists like Ernst Thälmann, Rosa Luxemburg, and Sophie and Hans Scholl, while all the evil came from West Germany. It was as if East Germany had always existed—except that before and during the war, it was just an invisible, underground state.

Eighth, strangely enough, the endless litanies of bans, orders, directives, and punishments for not complying with them applied almost exclusively to East Germany. In West Berlin, nothing was forbidden—at least not on that list. No one told us or checked which TV programs we weren't allowed to watch, which newspapers to read, who to associate with, or who to run away from and who to inform on.

Ninth, in the West, I experienced no cult of personality. I saw no portraits of former fascists or contemporary politicians. No one was being specially promoted by anyone. In the East, however, it was thick with portraits of Erich Honecker and his wife. In both schools I attended as a student, I remember their pictures and likenesses in every single classroom, on the stairwells, on the information boards in front of the school—and literally in every restroom above the sinks. This wasn't just a standard cult of personality; it was a monumental and visual madness. Everywhere in the East, you could stumble upon statues of Comrade Lenin. From West Berlin, I recall just one futuristic monument—the "Man of the Future" at the exhibition center by the highway.

Tenth, and finally. In the West, I was left completely in peace regarding membership in any youth organizations. No one ordered me to join the Pfadfinder—the German Scouts—who practiced giving first aid and forest navigation. I was the one making the decision.

However, I also saw a huge difference in the way of life and functioning of the GDR compared to the Poland I visited occasionally.

East Germany obsessively cultivated friendly relations among the youth of the socialist countries—there were constantly rallies and festivals. What stood out the most was the complete reprogramming toward the Future. Toward an incredibly optimistic, socialist Future, toward constant creation, building, and planning. This was understandable, of course, because from the perspective of East Germany, there wasn't much in the Past to refer to.

One got the impression that East Germany had become a sort of "showcase" for the socialist world during the Cold War. It was meant to show a humble, new German state subservient to the Soviet Union, while simultaneously serving as a propaganda outpost to prove how progressive and modern a socialist country could be.

Later, as a young man, I saw this playing out in another very interesting arena. I don't think anyone in Poland knows about this.

Namely, that arena for East Germany was sex—and everything related to it. Now, there were no official brothels or pornography, but East Germany realized its specific sexual freedom in other ways. It was so intense that I genuinely believe this sphere absorbed the German youth to such an extent that they didn't think about subversive matters or rebellion. At least in this area, they felt truly free.

First of all, we had co-ed locker rooms at school, and the FKK (Freikörperkultur – Free Body Culture) was often promoted. At mandatory swimming lessons, it sometimes happened that we swam naked even as kids. The Germans didn't cultivate any grim, oppressive religion, so it was easy for them to promote a natural attitude toward the body and sex.

There was no issue with early sexual activity, there were few taboos, and you could openly talk about these kinds of topics. East Germany recorded not only quite early sexual initiation and activity but also very young marriages. They had a very favorable birth rate at the time and special state care for young citizens. Many contraceptive methods were officially promoted, and there were no problems with legal abortions.

The numerous youth rallies were basically true festivals of sexual freedom. I think this is also where their sheer number and frequency came from. It looked as if sex and a natural attitude toward it were meant to be a compensation for the youth, a substitute for the lack of other values and temptations.

I think this is also where the belief in Poland that "German girls are easy" and attractive came from.

Part Four
My Life: A Subjective Perspective
In short, even as a child, I noticed with extraordinary clarity how the Western education system cultivates and builds an independently thinking human being. In contrast to the Eastern system—which was clearly designed to build a loyal, mindless soldier of socialism wrapped in an optimistic veneer, with a dash of sexual freedom thrown in.
In contrast to both of these systems, the Polish system, which I observed through my contacts with the Polish school and by watching my peers, focused on the mass production of oppressed and wronged victims. Victims proud of their defeats, failures, the Partitions, and their entire historical martyrdom.
This was extremely shocking to me from a child's perspective. I remember bombarding my parents, and later the teachers at the Polish embassy school in East Berlin, with a torrent of questions: why does it have to be this way? Can't this be changed?
As a kid, I tried to encourage the teachers not to just follow what the Ministry of Education or the school board mandated, but to introduce a more collaborative, partnership-based system like the one I had at my school in the West. A system that I actually enjoyed and that seemed very effective.
It quickly turned out that my parents couldn't answer most of my questions—at least not in a way that satisfied my relentless curiosity. And the proposals I enthusiastically made at the Polish embassy school about the Western system were labeled as subversive and destructive behavior.
Because I was stubborn and probably quite a handful for the teachers, I got a poor conduct grade. My parents kept getting called in by the school with demands to quickly force me into line.
Interestingly, I wasn't making these proposals just for myself. I remember that as a kid, I was truly convinced that my peers would eventually be grateful to me for the extra freedoms I was also advocating for. Instead, I was met with deep contempt, a lack of understanding, and the belief from most of my peers that I had either lost my mind or was just acting superior—because I lived in West Berlin, not East Berlin, where most of them were housed. This was very alien to me, because I didn't envy anyone anything; on the contrary, I understood them perfectly and tried to treat them normally, just like everyone else.
Meanwhile, hostility between us was growing, along with deeper and deeper reservoirs of resentment and jealousy. I remember being disappointed that the teachers did nothing about it, even though they saw the unchecked outbursts of jealousy with their own eyes.
I didn't fully understand it back then, but from today's perspective, I do. First of all, none of them had any psychological or pedagogical competence. They were mostly wives of embassy staff who were taking these side gigs as a form of corruption, not real teachers. They were part of a system that demanded obedience, not critical thinking. Secondly, they all lived in East Berlin, so they probably couldn't deal with their own resentment either.
Over time, we split into two camps: those who lived in the East, and those from West Berlin. That's how politics—on a broad front—marched right into the Polish school.
Even as a child, I was highly sensitive to basic injustice or the humiliation of other kids. I remember one boy's constant remarks, his endless mockery, and his encouraging others to find the "black sheep" in our class. This was a glimpse of school bullying, which people have only been talking about a lot recently. In reality, it had always existed—the only difference was that it was the norm for teachers not to react. I remember that one time I stepped in and gave that kid a good thrashing during the break. Well, he was a bit bruised, but I didn't do him any major harm. However, it caused a huge scandal because it turned out he was the son of the ambassador at the time.

All the aggression from the teachers and embassy staff, as could easily be predicted, was focused squarely on me. Fortunately, my parents backed me up and also asked why there was never a reaction to the humiliation of others, but only a reaction to physical retaliation. This incident resulted in me going to the Polish school even less frequently—which, by the way, brought me great joy.
As a child, I looked at Poland through the lens of my experiences at the Polish school in the GDR, and from a vacation perspective—since we spent almost every summer vacation in the country. My summer break started in early June, so I had the opportunity to visit schools in Poland as an observer, spending time with my peers for at least two or three weeks. I took advantage of this because I was driven by curiosity and a desire to discover a completely different world.
And indeed, I observed the exact same things as in my local embassy school. Pervasive authoritarianism, teachers imposing their views, a lack of ability to listen to students, and the cultivation of martyrdom, victimhood, national grievances, lost uprisings, and wars. Along with a general mandate to be proud of all this despair and to appreciate it.
That's why, I think, to this day Poles celebrate not the end of the war, not victories, but humiliations, defeats, and existential mediocrity.
This was quite mind-boggling to me. As a kid, I felt like I was surrounded by sleeping zombies, people who were dreaming their lives rather than actually participating in them. I remember my surprise, and then growing irritation, that everything in Poland had to be so "dead serious," with so little optimism or hope, and so much complaining and whining.
I often read nowadays how many people look back fondly on the times of the Polish People's Republic. How they miss the alleged warmth and willingness to help each other. I think it's a kind of collective illusion—a cognitive and reflective fake that most people unfortunately fall for.
First of all, the very fact that allegedly everyone was helping everyone else proves that everyone needed some kind of help. A community based on scarcity is not proof of warmth, but of poverty. Things weren't going well in Poland at all.
Secondly, I think a simple psychological phenomenon overlaps here: we always tend to idealize our youth and everything associated with it. Meaning, if we had worked in a penal labor camp as young people, most would still say it wasn't so bad, that work builds character, that at least there was order, and that beating rugs on a metal frame instead of staring at a smartphone at least ensured physical fitness. But unfortunately, it's all a rosy delusion that we feed ourselves.
It might not sound very patriotic, but I left the world of Poland after vacation with a huge sense of relief. I associated this world with an incredibly grim facade of reality, with dreary grayness and hopelessness, with complaining and martyrdom, and some kind of collective paralysis. I was happy to be going back home. To my international friends—not just Germans and Americans, but also Turks, Pakistanis, and many others.
In Poland, I had the feeling that World War was still going on. That for most Poles, it hadn't ended at all, or if it had, it was just a few days ago. Over time, I noticed that I had less and less in common with my neighborhood peers in Poland, and less and less to talk about with them. Running around with a stick, pretending to shoot at Germans, didn't appeal to me and seemed childish and absurd.
My greatest pleasures were my grandmother's stories and her baking, and the endless conversations with my grandfather—not just about the war, but his many years spent in Korea. Grandpa remembered Korean, and on top of that, he confided in me many secrets that neither my grandmother nor anyone else in the family knew about. I was deeply impressed by this and felt somehow more adult in his company. I think it was my grandfather who awakened a dormant, long-held curiosity for Asia.