Oral History

On Friday, March 12, 2004, I interviewed George Wardas, an immigrant from Poland.  George is around 70 years old.  George Wardas was born in Poland and lived in Warsaw, Poland’s capital.  The interview was about transportation in Poland, before, during and after WWII.  The interview also covered transportation in America.  As I interviewed George Wardas, he spoke with enthusiasm.  When I asked George about transportation, this is what he said…

Transportation… and I’m talking about Warsaw, Poland, the capital of the country.  Eh, before the war (WWI) we had pretty efficient public transportation in Warsaw, it consisting isss main mode of transportation was tramways…electric eehh I believe the name was tramways…ehh there was some buses, not to many there was some trolleys and the of course there was some taxi’s, not too many.  Ehh what was quite popular were, were the horse driven uh carriages.  That was probably eh the most popular of transportation.  Then there was public transportation consisted of tramways and buses and trolleys.  Eehhh, that was before the war. 

Ehh, wealthy people, wealthy people used taxis and on warm summer time when ehh the weather was good they would ehh…eehh… would ehh...rent the horse driven ehh carriages, yeah.  The not-so wealthy people would be uhhh…using public transportation, which means tramways and-and-and uhh trolleys.  <Sigh> Actually come to think of it, there were very few trolleys before the war it was tramways and ehh some busses.  Trolleys didn’t ehh become popular until after the war. 

 <Breathe in> During WWI, uhh there was quite a bit of destruction and ehh ehh the estimate was 20% of the city was severely damaged, during the siege and during the advance of German troops.  Ehhh after several months uhh the life in the city came to…ehh somewhat normal stage and the tramway transportation was reactivated and the taxis practically disappeared because I believe if I remember right the Germans confiscated most of the auto uhh automotive ehh type of transportation.  There were still some of ehh horse driven carriages, and ehh life in general was quite subdued during the occupation for some understandable reasons.  Ehh I’m probably 100% right that there was ehh practically none of taxis left, the only motorized vehicles that you could see were Germans, the uhh occupiers military vehicles.

Ehh now I’m talking about German occupation for the duration of the war. The Russian occupation didn’t start until 45 when the war ended and Germany lost ehh the only transportation that the German brought in were just allowed the tramways to be reactivated so…there was no introduction of any new uh type of transportation. The Germans came in in 1939 and stayed for ehhh better part of five years, the war didn’t end until 45 ehh of course by the end of 1944 the soviets, Russians, were all ready advancing so part of Poland was already in Russian rule.

When the war ended and the Russians gained control of Poland ehh anomaly Poland became independent, but it was under communist rule the polish government was ehh was established by by by the Russians and there was your asking about transportation again, probably you would say just normal slow advance ehhh… as a result of rebuilding the city and the country.  The tramways came back the trolleys were introduced and quite popular ehhh quite a few busses and buss lines were active and ehhh taxis gradually started to moving in.  The number of taxis started to increase.

I came over by boat.  Ehh to Montreal and from Montreal by bus to New York, New York ehh I went by plane to Minnesota ehh the reason why I went to Minnesota was because my mother was living there, she ehh was the one that sponsored my ehh my immigration.  At the time of 1958, there was already transatlantic passenger airlines ehh but it was quite considerably more expensive then, then then the boat the ship so it was strictly for economic reason that I decided not to use a plane.  And also I had quite a bit of luggage with me because I was an immigrant so using a plane was not practical.

Ahh all this was a period of car ownership that became more and more popular.  When I came in, in 1958 not every family had a car there was large I don’t know exactly but large percentage of people especially the ones that lived in large cities that didn’t own a car.  They in depended entirely on public transportation but then gradually it became a dodge in every garage or whatever and Caesar U.S.A, Chevrolet cars became more and more affordable and more popular and ehh by the end of the 60’s very few families left that wouldn’t have a car.  Then in the 70’s, what became popular was multi-car families it wasn’t just one car per family there was more, more and more families that had two cars and by now there is lots of families and if there is three people in the family there was three cars.  Ehh other than that air transportation became more and more popular and airfare prices continued to go down and down and if your talking about today its long distance is actually cheaper to fly instead of driving and staying over at hotels.  So that’s that’s about it.

Interviewed by Zachary Sprague