My dearest children and grandchildren

This is but a brave and humble attempt to tell your future generations about what

happened to your forefathers and - mothers in the dreadful times before and right after

World War II.

Writing this and putting it into perspective with what history tells us about those sad

times and perhaps a feeble attempt to correct what the USA press 50 years after all this

happened, wants you to believe - I was just a kid when WWII happened, but I will try to

tell the Maciak Story as well as I can 50 years later :

Elsy Wattenhofer – Maciak : Born March 12, 1926 in Wuelflingen/Winterthur /

Switzerland at her parents home at 5.30 p.m, with a midwife and Pappa Wattenhofer in

attendance. – It was Friday Evening – as soon as I was born, Pappa left for his beloved

Singing-Club night (Friday night was always cherished) and they all celebrated Elsy’s

arrival in style.

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Nothing too much of interest happened during the next few years of little Elsy’s growing

up. Mom and Pappa Wattenhofer worked and grandmother took care of Elsy – also

grandmother was very sedentary and not well at all. So the little girl in her care never

was allowed friends in the house, it was too hard on grandma.

Flashbacks from my childhood where only a few - when the “big people” talked about

Germany’s Hitler and what he was up to. The first and very distinct remembrance I had

from the troubles outside my very small world was on my 12th

birthday (1938) when

Adolf Hitler marched into Austria, declaring “Victory” in his homeland. – For a child this

was fascinating to watch.

The following year of course is when I re-collect the first real shock in my life. Sept 1

1939. In Switzerland was the biggest fair. It took place in Zurich and exactly on Sept l,

l939 our teachers had set the day for our class to visit this exhibition. We left home early

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in the morning on the train from Winterthur – Zurich and spent about ½ day there having

the time of our lives (weather was beautiful).

And than it happened : Over the loudspeaker it was announced that World War II had

just been declared; we were to leave the exhibition immediately as a state of general

mobilisation existed - in Switzerland. All the eligible men were to report immediately

with their weapons and in uniform to guard the Swiss boarder - My father was of course

among them.. We were sent as fast as was possible (with thousands of people doing the

same thing) to the train station in Zurich where total chaos existed. Our teachers must

have sweated blood to try and get us home (for us kids all this commotion was exiting, if

not fun – we just did not realize the extent of all of this).

We finally made it home; where I found my mother in tears – as Pappa had to leave

already for reporting at his military headquarters. Mind you: in those terribly confusing

hours we did not know whether our family would see each other again. However we

stayed home; Mamma and Grossi and I super happy that at least I made it home o.k.

What followed was rather anticlimax… as neither Germany nor the Allied Forces won

much ground. Everything started to be rationed, textiles, food etc. etc. And since my

father was never home from the service, my mother had the big task of fending with

rationing coupons, money etc. – she was still working full time – and that’s how we

survived as well as we did.

As I was entering Swiss High school (starts after 6 years of primary school) it was

summer 1940 - Hitler had invaded France, conquered it and wiped out whole armies

they were pushed (or came on their own free will) across our Swiss borders – and all of a

sudden our country was dotted with khaki uniforms. – It was no small task to feed and

house all these foreign soldiers. Everybody was asked to help with agriculture to help

feed the huge amount of refugees – we hardly managed before for our own people

without imports that were non-existent.

Those allegations made 50 years later, that Switzerland treated its refugees badly are

being put into a false light. Everybody : Swiss , refugees and foreign armies interned ,

had a very difficult life – with no imports, there was not enough food not enough clothing

not enough fuel (private cars did not exist anymore and buses for transportation ran on

wood-alcohol) - Mainly during school vacations Swiss families even took in one or two

children from occupied France, to give them some reprieve from their hard everyday life

in a war zone.

In 1942, I was sent to Geneva for 8 months to try and get fluent in the French language. –

Coming back to Winterthur I entered college (Technikum Winterthur for studies in

commerce with international dealings and foreign languages.

While I was there I met George Maciak (on the way to and from school). He was a

Polish internee having served in France in 1940 in the Polish II division. He was but one

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of those thousands of soldiers that were pushed into Switzerland when Hitler overran

France in summer 1940.

George Maciak : Here a short summary of where and how he grew up.

George was born and raised in Nowy Sacz/Poland, a small city in the Karpatian

Mountains, not too far from Krakow. Mother was a school teacher and father was a

prominent physician. – George also had a younger sister ; Jagoda. – When Hitler’s armies

invaded Poland, George’s father took his son (then aged 17, just after completing the

important Matura-Exam) and left Nowy Sacz for Romania (then still a neutral country,

because he feared that the invading German armies would take his son for forced labor or

worse. - Mother and Jagodka however stayed behind in Nowy Sacz. Half a year later

father Franziscek Maciak went back home to his Family in Poland. Son George Maciak

traveled from Romania through Italy into France and joined the just formed Polish II

division to help defend France against the intruding German Armies. –Finally, when

France was conquered by Hitler, the II Polish Division approached the Swiss boarder at

the Jura Mountains and eventually asked to be allowed to pass over into Switzerland,

where they were interned.

Here goes George’s story (I could never verify, if it really happened this way) He told it

many times :

He was assigned to drive a truck, loaded with sugar – a rare commodity in 1940’s France.

Before entering Switzerland he was ordered to dump the load and leave the truck behind

in France. – Now; George had a very sweet tooth and the thought of parting with this

precious load was too much - he claims he cried himself to sleep that night while leaning

on a sugar sack. - Morning as it always comes found him crossing the boarder into

Switzerland still pining for the lovely sugar. – The soldiers were taken to the Bernese

Oberland and housed temporarily in private families, mostly farmers so that they could be

put to work in the fields (hands were desperately needed.).

Half a year later it was decided, that those who already had their Matura-Diploma could

start studying at various universities. –

And here goes another of George’s stories: He lined up in the waiting-line for those who

desired to study medicine. (His parents had already decided he should follow in his

father’s footsteps). - But after a while in the line George got impatient waiting around

and stepped one line over because it was much shorter; this one was for the men who

wanted to study Chemistry. – And so it happened that George started his Chemistry

studies in Winterthur. Winterthur was designed to house (in private homes) the largest

group of Polish students.

They all started heir studies at the Technikum Winterthur (where I was in Business-

College) and about half a year later they all changed over to the ETH or the University

of Zurich and commuted daily by train to Winterthur (about ½ hrs ride)

George and I lived “just around the corner” from each other but for the first 2 years

nothing happened - I was still “under age” and it also was forbidden to the Polish

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internees to fraternize with Swiss girls. – But time passed and things improved slowly

and in winter of 1943 George and I formally met and started to go steady, much to the

dismay of my mother. By the time I had started my first job in the office of “Publicitas

Winterthur” (an ad agency). George and I had settled down into a nice routine. The

internees were studying 9 months per year and the 3 summer months they were sent into

the mountains (mostly Graubunden) to build roads. – This; George missed one summer

of 1944 because he was put in a detention camp in Wauwiler-Moos near Aarau; reason:

the Swiss military police had caught him in Zurich in civilian clothes and with a love

letter in his pocket.

So his punishment was to spend 3 months in the detention camp – George and I

corresponded almost every day by mail which was heavily censored, so they could not be

real love letters. – But this sour time also passed

And finally: May 8, 1945 The end of the war

George and I got engaged and his uniform finally wound up in the trash can. We all felt

that daylight had finally arrived after the long darkness in our lives. A great sense of

relieve and joy for the future over came everybody.

By now George had finished all his studies and received the diploma as a chemical

engineer from the ETH and wanted to go on for his doctorate. But – the international fund

cut off all money. So that was the end of this dream and George looked for work as a

chemical engineer, but that proved to be very difficult as there were too many Swiss who

also wanted positions like that. - Finally he found a modest job in a pharmacy in

Winterthur. We officially got engaged at the end of May 1945.

A year later George got lucky and was hired as a research chemist at the famous Bally

shoe factory in Schoenenwerd., near Aarau. We married on April 24, 1947 – spent a few

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days of honeymoon in Geneva and settled down in Schoenenwerd. I found quickly a job

in the offices of Bally and so we started 3 very nice years – making lifelong friends . In

August 1947 we took 2 weeks vacation and went to Poland to visit George’s family

whom he had not seen since September 1939. Sadly his mother had died in 1945 – but

we had a lovely visit with his father, sister Jagodka und many relatives in Krakau. - We

had to fly (our v e r y first flight) with Swissair to Prag/Czechoslovakia as we could not

take a train through Austria which still was occupied by the Russians. Conditions

everywhere were still very bad – freight trains full of refugees and in George’s home

town his father showed us bombed out parts of the city. We also took a trip to famous

Zakopane in the mountains by jeep. It was raining, the car-roof was torn and we all

wound up soaking wet. But such was traveling in 1947 - Adventure.

We were very happy in Schoenenwerd; our very first small apartment – new friends (Rita,

Kurt and Addie Seiler) – Rita later became Ron’s godmother. I was also doing some

modeling for Bally as well as some stores in Aarau to make a little extra money. Slowly

food rationing disappeared and we were leading normal lives.

But all that changed 3 years later. George’s work permit was not renewed. Too many

Swiss wanting jobs, at that time there was an abundance of chemists. – So George went

back for some more studies at the ETH in Zurich specializing in micro-analyses, while at

the same time we applied for a permanent visa to the USA. And in June 1950 the big day

came. We sold all our furniture, packed up and left with a train for Naples Italy. From

there we were boarding the “Neptunia” a small refugee boat, run by the Greeks. After 10

days crossing the Atlantic we stopped in Halifax/Nova Scotia to unload part of the

passengers. We then went on to a New York harbor and were met by George’s cousin.

This was the start of our 2nd

life; In the USA. We considered ourselves lucky to be here

as most of our friends in Switzerland wound up in Australia or perhaps Canada. A few of

them went back to Poland.

George’s aunt (sister of his mother) lived in Adams/Mass. Since she emigrated in 1930

she had 4 children with her husband, also a Polish immigrant. They were the ones who

put up the necessary affidavit for our entry in the USA. – We spent the first 2 months at

her house in Adams. George was frantically looking for a job as Chemist but it proved to

be very difficult. So to earn some money George worked shifts in the Berkshire cotton

factory, he hated the job, but we needed the money.

Our brake came September 1950, a small micro-laboratory in Skokie, Il hired him. And

so started our almost 2 years with Charles Beazley of Microtech Labs. – We packed up

our few things in Adams and boarded the lovely silver train in Pittsfield, Mass which

brought us in a 12 hours ride to Chicago. The first month was spent in a small furnished

room with a Swedish family. George settled in with Microtech and I was job hunting. It

did not take long until I found myself hired by Nielsen’s marketing research helping with

TV ratings. And as any red blooded American would, we bought our very first used car a

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maroon Studebaker. I learned to drive and in no time we found a small, furnished

apartment on 1717 North Shore Ave. just off the 6000 block of Clark ave. in Chicago.

We both just loved Chicago, went down town every Saturday (there were no shopping

malls in those days) and took long drives into the countryside or along the lake each

Sunday. We tried very hard to get acquainted with our new country. It took 5 years to

finally receive our citizenship.

In the summer 1951 we drove to Toronto for a first visit with the newly arrived Polish

aunt and cousin of George’s. They arrived there from Sweden, after having spent a good

part of the war in a Polish concentration camp. – You can imagine what a re-union this

was for George, he had not seen them in 13 years.

But we also had some sad times. I was finally expecting our first baby. Sadly a

miscarriage after 3 ½ months put an end to those happy expecting days. – It was a boy -

However, new adventures were just over the horizon. Norbert Neuss – one of George’s

old army buddies and good friend from the student years in Winterthur/Zurich – had

started his new job at Eli Lilly Research Labs in Indianapolis. So he enticed George to

send his resume to Lilly. And we were so lucky, 6 months later we followed the Neuss’ to

Indianapolis and Eli Lilly. Needless to say, for us struggling emigrants such a good

position At Lilly’s microlab was a God sent. On April 1 1952 we loaded our car with all

our possessions and drove to Indianapolis on Highways 41 and 52. We all rented a house

in “Windsor Village” – Neuss were there, Flint, Traverso and many other freshly hired

chemist from Lilly.

At the time George started at Lilly’s I was pregnant again and so was Eli Neuss. They

already had one girl Karin, who was 2 years old. We all together had a real good and

happy time waiting for the babies. Sadly Eli’s baby died shortly after birth.

And so it happened; our first son Ralph was born on July 17, 1952 at Coleman’s Hospital

for women (IU campus) I had a rough time with the US concept of having babies. Fathers

had to stay in the waiting room – not at all allowed near the mothers – and the struggling

mother to be was quite heavily drugged – so that the doctors had an easier time. Not at

all how I wanted to give birth – but you were overruled.

So we had a healthy son and were grateful. In those days we were kept for 5 days in the

hospital. As it was the middle of Indiana summer, the heat was just unbearable, so George

was the first in the neighborhood to buy a window air conditioner. People thought we

were nuts – nobody but the movie theaters and department stores, some restaurants had

air conditioners. Very few people had TV sets in their homes. Our neighbors and friends

from Lilly had just bought a set so, we all watched in their house the l952 presidential

election of D. Eisenhower. – We bought our first TV in 1953 watching with real joy and

relieve as Dr. J. Salk announced: we had a vaccine for the most dreaded disease: Polio. –

What a blessing for the world.

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In April 1953 I had saved enough money to buy an airline ticket for baby Ralph and

myself to fly home to Switzerland to present my parents with their first grandchild. It was

our first transatlantic flight with TWA – no jets of course. From Indy the first stop was

Pittsburgh, then on to La Guardia/NY where we had to take a bus for a 40 minutes ride

through town to Idelwild airport (later re-named Kennedy airport) - from here on TWA

to Paris and finally - last leg was Paris – Zurich. Needless to say Ralph as well as I was a

mess, we did not have lovely disposable diapers in those days – and I did not have a

special crib or even a seat on the plane for Ralph – I made a little bed for him with

blankets between my legs on the floor. Otherwise he was on my knees. Yep such was

flying in those days. But we made it and had a wonderful re-union with all the family and

friends. - We returned to Indy before Ralph’s first birthday. And in September 1953 we

bought our first new car - a green Studebaker. Did we love that car…!

The year 1954 found me pregnant again – we really wanted another baby and so on Feb.

14, 1955 our new daughter was born. But tragedy struck; again those drug practices at

birth: I reacted very badly to them, they made me quite ill; at the critical moment of birth

the baby was deprived of oxygen. She lived for a very short time, but then nothing could

save her. The hardest thing I felt was to come home and tell little Ralph – his so long

awaited sister was not coming home.

To help us all overcome this loss, we decided on a car-trip to California and back. This

was a big adventure for the 3 of us. In 2 weeks we traveled the famous route 66 out West

and via Los Angeles – San Francisco – Reno – Yellowstone and back to Indianapolis. On

the way we visited friends and all the national parks that were along the route. We had a

wonderful time.

This summer 1955 we also bought our first new house - a small 3-bedroom home in

Beech Grove. Now we really felt comfortable and tried again to have a new baby. The

pregnancy was not without troubles; but happily on March 5, 1956 we were rewarded

with a wonderful healthy, happy baby and named him Ronald. He was a quiet, sweet

thing and not much problems. - Just 3 days before Ron’s birth, George and I were sworn

in as USA citizens. So this was a most memorable March 1956.

George was reasonably happy at Lilly’s, but we wanted more money as we had soooo

many plans for our lives. - So he and Eugene Fornefeld (a fellow chemist at Lilly)

decided to open up their own Microlab in Eugene' basement.

And this was the start of “ MIDWEST MICROLAB”

Things improved nicely moneywise – however George was never home, all day at Lilly’s

and evenings at the Midwest Microlab. So all the tasks in and around the house were left

up to me –

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In 1957 I took my two sons to my parents in Winterthur and we spent about 10 weeks in

Switzerland. Ralph learned to speak the Swiss language perfectly but he forgot his

English. It took him one week to re-learn it again after we were home in Beech Grove.

The following year we decided that we needed a bigger home, so we went house hunting

and found what we wanted in the new sub division of Brendon Park. In November of

1958 – the day after Thanksgiving and in a snow storm we moved in the newly finished

house which we called home for the next 19 years. We were very happy in this

neighborhood – so many really good friends and the children had a very big family to

grow up with.

Those years were the truly good ones for all of us. The Microlab moved to Devington

(small shopping center next to our neighborhood) which made George’s commute much

easier. I also started to work for the lab for a few hours daily in our house doing reporting

and the book work. I wanted to be sure to always be home and available when the

children came home from school. We had now also a second car so it made things much

easier.

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In May 1959 my parents stepped on an airplane (Swissair of course) and visited us for the

first time.

We spent a wonderful 5 weeks together taking car-trips whenever it was possible.

Visiting for once Gatlinburg in the Smoky Mtns. – And one trip to Chicago for a visit

with grandpa’s godmother who lived there with her family. – It was a wonderful re-union,

as my father had not seen her in about 40 years. – George also took grandfather to the 500

mile race and when it came time to fly back, we all drove together to New York via

Buffalo, Albany and down the beautiful Hudson River valley. Of course we also stopped

for a visit at Niagara Falls. My father was so touched and impressed with all the sites and

sounds of his trip to the USA and his first transatlantic flight that he wrote a lengthy

travel log which was published in his Winterthur newspaper. That was still news.

They returned once more in Fall 1963 for a great visit; but there was also tragedy:

In November (while they were still here) the much loved Coliseum blew up – and on the

lighter side, just a few weeks before: Clowes Hall was ready to receive customers.

In January 1963 George announced that he wanted to take up skiing again. (He learned it

before the war in Poland) And so we packed up George’s new skis, the boys sled and

drove for 8 hours to Crystal Mtn. Lodge, near Thompsonville, Mi. – I figured the boys

and I would be sledding, while George skied. Ha! : one of the biggest misconception I

ever had…. We rented for all of us non-skiers outfits and started lessons. A few hours

and we all were totally hooked on skiing. – The next few years saw us skiing at Crystal

Mtn and Boyne Mtn about 3 times per winter – usually a prolonged weekend.

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Christmas 1965 was spent with the grandparents in Winterthur. George took Ralph to

Poland for a visit and to ski his Tatra Mountains in Zakopane. In the meantime Ron and I

were trying our ski-legs in Wildhaus/Toggenburg and finally we all converged in

St.Anton/Austria for a week of ski vacation together with our friends Rita and Kurt

Seiler.

Here goes a little story from this trip: Ron, having fun with the elevator at our Hotel, got

himself stuck between floors and guess who helped him out of his predicament; the Duke

of Kent (Cousin to Queen Elizabeth of England) – He was a guest at the same Hotel.

One night, sitting at the bar not far from the Duke of Kent and his entourage, we heard

him tell this story of the day: “and than there was this chap who took a spill right next to

the ski piste and fell with his backside into the gurgling creek”. Well guess what, that

chap was our George. Luckily he did not get hurt; he just came back with a very wet and

cold butt.

For a few years we spent skiing vacation (Christmas-New Year) with Rita and Kurt Seiler

in Davos and in Arosa, those were wonderful times.

Such were our winters, fun and all. School and work were mostly normal with its ups and

downs. No sense going into details.

In summer 1966 we sent the boys for l week to summer camp near Cincinnati together

with a few friends. George and I flew off to Montego-Bay, Jamaica. We wanted to

explore a new part of the world. We fell totally in love with a beautiful, tropical island

and made quite a few friends down there (one of them was a Swiss from my hometown

who married a native girl) – we had some really fun times together and considered

Jamaica our 3rd

home.

While summer vacations were still spent with the grandparents in Winterthur we felt the

boys should go and explore camp style vacation in the Swiss mountains. Zugerberg for

Ralph, Crans Montana for Ron and Lake Geneva for Ralph (camp for teens)

When Ron got to be high school age we decided (with his enthusiastic yes to send him to

an International School in Switzerland “The Institute Rosenberg, St. Gallen” – Ralph had

just finished high school with his diploma and did not know what to do. So he too wanted

to go for one year to Institute Rosenberg. We had always wanted to give our boys a good

all around international upbringing and this seemed the right way to go about it –Today I

am not sure anymore whether this was a good idea. Only Ralph and Ron will be able to

say the final word on this venture.

Certainly they had a good chance to visit their grandparents who by now were in very

poor health and had moved to an old people’s home. The grandparents health deteriorated

steadily (mostly cancer) and a bout with influenza ended heir lives at Christmastime.

George and I flew to Switzerland for burial and dissolved the estate. It was a very sad

time; yet this comes to everybody’s life.

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Ron cam back to finish high school at Arlington High and Ralph entered College in

Seneca Falls/NY,

One year later, the 4th

chapter in our lives started. For Christmas 1972 we all flew to

Switzerland, rented an apartment in Bad Ragaz. Little skiing was done as there was

hardly any snow in the Alpes. New Years we spent with all our Seiler friends at a

restaurant in Bad Ragaz and the rest is history. We searched and found a condominium

and bought it in Laax/Flims. – Our lives changed somewhat after this.

I decided that I did not want to just spend vacation in this lovely apartment, doing

nothing. I wanted to work and in doing so getting to know the people and their ways

much quicker and better. – In those days Switzerland was always short of people in the

work force and I found a seasonal job with the Tourist Office in Flims. Starting June

1973 the boys and I flew to Switzerland and started to work our summer jobs. (We also

had Mike Sippel with us for a few weeks - his first European trip) - Ralph found work as

a delivery van driver for Leiwaesche Ilanz, and Ron started tending bar at the Hotel

Oberalp in Ilanz. What a summer this was, none of us knew the Buendnerland. Work and

exploring the land and people kept us very busy that summer.

Christmas vacations naturally found us again in the mountains. – I also was working the

busy winter ski season at the Tourist office. And so it went: year after year – I packed up

every 3 months to go and work in my mountains and spring and fall were spent at the

Microlab in Indianapolis. The boys finished college and were on their own. Every spring

I traveled extensively from city to city in the USA within the frame-work of the Ski

Group Shows, representing Flims/Laax.

During these years George managed to fulfill a longtime dream of his own. – The

Doctorate – He was working on his Doctorate in chemistry in association with the

University of Gdansk/Poland and in June 1979 he received formally his Doctorate in the

micro-analytical field of chemistry. A real highlight in his life.

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Very sadly we lost George to a sudden heart attack on June 15, 1983 – this was very hard

on all of us. Life was never quite the same anymore. Thank God I had my two jobs and

carried on for 10 more years. Ralph and Ron both got married and had families, and I

was blessed with 2 wonderful grandchildren : Hilary and George.

After I retired from the Tourist office and sold the condo in Switzerland (spring 1992),

my life got much more quiet, but to this day I still fly 2 times a year to Switzerland.

Thanking God I am still healthy enough to do this. - Life has been very good to all of us.

Elsy Maciak

2004