Paul Erich Polacsek (May 29, 1907 - July 5, 2003)

[thahall]

"Oh, wow, look at you now
flowers in the window
it's such a lovely day...

Out in the crowd
you are one in a million
and i love you so
let's watch the flowers grow
there is no reason to feel bad
but there are many seasons
to feel sad, glad, mad..."My opa (grandfather) passed away a week ago today at the age of 96. I just returned to New York from

Comments

Quite a life...

[thahall]

That he did. Born to a wealthy Austrian family, as a youth he lived through the first world war, and wanted to become a doctor. His father had other plans, and drafted him into the family business. He became a glider pilot, acquired some property in Vienna and a large farm in the country. He wooed my grandmother away from a career as a dancer in Berlin, and was well on his way to having seven children when the Luftwaffe came calling and he headed to the coast of Holland for his first tour of service... late in the war with air defenses in shambles he got out hoping to return to his farm and his family. That happened briefly before the wehrmacht called him into anti-tank duty as the Russians breached the Austrian border near his farm. By the time the war ended he had lost much of his wealth but still had his family together. Ten years later as the cold war got more tense, determined not to live through another war, he sold the farm and moved to Canada and had to pretty much start from scratch. Learning english while working menial jobs and sinking into danger of not being able to provide adequately for his family, he called on his children also to work... only one of the ways he probably followed in his father's tradition. Like many immigrants he struggled to regain some of the stature he had enjoyed back home, initially himself, and then through his children, some of whom felt terribly pressured to pursue certain studies and careers. Over a period of years he finally worked towards a pretty good job doing drug and alcohol addiction research for the government, and eventually he published some broadly distributed papers on that topic. His wife carried the bulk of the load at home with the family, which eventually grew and spread out... some of them returning for a time to Europe and Russia. He settled in Toronto with his wife, retired, gardened, took hundreds if not thousands of photographs of sunflowers and skyscapes. Until very late in his life he avoided topics of the war and dodged his children and grandchildrens accusations that he was an anti-semite and a Nazi party member. He was definately an interesting, smart, and troubled man, and at times one with a lot of regrets. For myself, I do not know how much peace he found... I would like to think it was some.

Now his legacy includes twenty grandchildren and at last count ten great grandchildren, with more on the way. They range from lawyers to writers to nurses, to animal boarders, artists, carpet cleaners to waiters to architects and owners of a pub... many are teachers and musicians, some are extremely well-travelled. All in all, they are quite a bunch... and among other things a fitting and varied tribute to his life. He should have died with some peace.

my condolences as well...

[rcantilles]

wow

I hope that my life will be that interesting by the time I'm 90. If I make it to 90!