Extract from Jan Glazewski’s memoir ‘Blood and Silver’

ABOUT THE BOOK 

“A book of great humanity and courage, taking the reader on a hunt across time and place and back to the challenges of the present. Deeply personal, deeply affecting.”
—Philippe Sands

Before fleeing the family estate near Lviv, in what is now Ukraine, Jan Glazewski’s father buried what he could salvage of the family silver in the forest. The Glazewskis left war-ravaged Europe after World War 2 for a new life in South Africa. When Glazewski is born in Paarl in 1953, he nearly dies, like his elder brother before him, of severe haemophilia.

Against the odds, he survives childhood — only to discover, at the start of his career,  he is HIV-positive from receiving contaminated blood products.

Despite this setback, he goes on to have a remarkable legal and academic career, which includes his involvement in drafting the environmental clause in the South African Constitution. It is only after retirement that he finally has the opportunity to indulge his lifelong obsession: to recover the family silver.

EXTRACT

After a day or two we leave Lviv, struggling to find the exit route leading to Chmielowa. Although I have my father’s much-fingered instructions in my hand, I abandon any attempt at navigating (this was before the era of Google Maps), even though I am in the passenger’s seat: the street signs — where they exist — are in Cyrillic. In any event my father anticipated that I would be going by train, not by road. The way out of the city seems remarkably unclear. I’m astonished by the fact that the main route out of such a big city is a very narrow cobbled road. It winds through industrial sites and grubby apartment blocks, where children play in the road — clearly the poorer side of town.

Suddenly we are out of Lwów and the landscape changes dramatically. We drive through green, hilly country, with a gorge on the right where we stop for a short leg-stretch. My trip to Chmielowa is now real. I remember my father’s instruction to “change the train in Stanisławow” — now renamed Ivano-Frankivsk. I clutch my two road maps and follow the route quite easily; I have no trouble deciphering the Cyrillic sign showing Stanisławow, aided by the fact that the map is bilingual. We bypass the town. I remember my father saying that the route then goes through the villages of Brzezany, Podhajce and Monasterzyska, names that I can decipher with Ewa’s help.

The big skies, the black earth, the geese scattering as we drive through muddy villages, a peasant woman standing staring alongside a tethered cow — all this reminds me of rural Africa. And yet I am in western Ukraine.

The landscape captivates me: flat, with big blue skies and huge white rolling clouds. It has rained heavily, just an hour or two ago, and I can smell the fetid earth. This was, at least until the Russian invasion in 2022, the “bread basket of Europe”.

I think of my father’s note, 'Approach to Farming', which I found among his papers in the concertina file I inherited from him. In it, he emphasised that caring for the land is an intergenerational activity, that the family plays a major role in determining agricultural productivity.

I take in the landscape of flat fields and rolling hills, dotted with people involved in the seasonal activity of growing hay. The tarred road is in good condition yet relatively quiet. We come to an intersection where we slow down to check our directions. A horse-drawn cart clops by; seated in it are a craggy-faced, dark-skinned couple. I pick up my newly acquired digital camera to take a picture with some hesitation, remembering how annoyed some rural Africans become when I want to photograph them. This couple, however, seem amused that someone wants to photograph them, and they break into peals of laughter. As they pass by, I see the husband giving the wife an affectionate hug.

We drive through villages where people walk in the street with goats and cows. We are careful to avoid the geese, which are gathered in flocks. Cousin Paweł informs me that each flock of geese returns in the evening to their rightful owner, much like homing pigeons.

My father’s instructions were to “take the train to Buczacz”, which we reach by road in the late afternoon. It is dominated by the pre-war town hall towering over the central square. This is the town where my father said I should disembark. I wonder how he thought I was going to travel the remaining thirty or forty kilometres to Chmielowa. By now we are hungry, and we stroll around the striking town, where we buy sausages and bread rolls.

From Buczacz, the instructions are: “take the road towards Jazłowiec ... situated deep in a valey (sic) you climb the main road, pass on your right the convent of the sisters of immaculate conception with a sharp bend to the left.” My father went on to note that Jazłowiec was some fifteen kilometres beyond Buczacz.

Some years before, in London, when I described this route to Ciocia Ala, who was then in her late eighties, she exclaimed: “No, not fifteen, it was eighteen kilometres further on.” She went on to recount how, some sixty years before, she used a horse and carriage to travel from Buczacz station to Jazłowiec. This was the village where she attended school, the convent of the Siostry Niepokalanego (Sisters of the Immaculate Conception), which she clearly loved as much as any young person could love a boarding school. Before we’d left Lwów, cousin Ewa phoned the convent to book an overnight stay, as there are no regular places of accommodation or shops in Jazłowiec or Chmielowa. During the communist era all the Catholic churches and convents had been suppressed, some being converted to health spas, but by now many had revived.

It is nearly nightfall, and we explore a crumbling cathedral before moving on to the convent. Transformed into a spa by the previous communist rulers, it has now been restored to its former simple beauty. The quietly spoken nun in her grey-and-white habit serenely shows us to our rooms and politely invites us to a communal supper in the dining room. As I leave my suitcase on my narrow bed, I wonder whether this may have been Ciocia Ala’s room decades before.

The convent grounds are beautifully restored after years of neglect. We take a pre-supper walk along a wooded road to the nuns’ burial ground, where each grave has its own stone and plaque.

Next day, after a light breakfast, we give the nuns an offering in lieu of a formal payment and set off for Chmielowa, a mere ten kilometres away.

“Follow the main road and turn off to the right about two to three kilometres from the convent towards Beremiany [Brezeżany] but instead turning to the right towards that village you carry on straight another couple of kilometres.”

We are not sure that we are on the right road, but we forge ahead. I marvel again at how flat and black the earth is, set against the blue sky. In the distance I see a dip and surmise that this must be the Dniester River, which flows into the Black Sea and on whose banks Chmielowa is situated. Again, I recollect Ciocia Ala’s nostalgia as she recounted how, during their youth, she and her siblings would canoe on the water, often stopping to enjoy refreshments in Chmielowa.

“Go through a small valey [sic] and then turn to the right towards Chmielowa. Just before you reach the village you pass the village cemetery on the right. Carrying on straight Cerkiew (Greko Catholic Church).”

We are at last nearing our destination. The Greek Orthodox Church with its adjacent cemetery provides a reliable landmark — we seem to be on the right track. My heart is beating faster, although I feign nonchalance.

“And you still carry on strait [sic] few hundred metres after passing the cerkiew, you enter the gate of the folwark farm buildings) Chmielowa (see pencil drawn map).”

We have arrived!

Extract provided by NB Publishers