Mother's journey from Poland to Germany via France

[peterinth]

My mother was Polish, born 1919. Her father was a coal miner and the family name was Frankowski. One sister married a French coal miner and moved to Lens France and somehow my mother ended up in Germany at the end of world war 2 where she married a German soldier who subsequently disappeared. She then met my father, a British soldier of the occupying forces in Germany and married him in 1950.
I have no documentation of my mother's family life from Poland up until she was brought over to England in 1950 with her 3 sons aged 5,2,1 year. She could speak German and French well so I suspect she spent quite a bit of time in both countries.
My question is, how and why do you think she would have moved to France and then to Germany where she recounted that she witnessed some Nazi brutality to Jews in Germany.
I am a fool for not showing interest in her past when she was alive, but can't undo what's done.
I would like to write a factual history of her life and write a fictional account of what may have happened.
I would appreciate any help or pointers you can give please.
Many thanks

[Jaga]

Hello,

Welcome to the forum! Many Poles ended up in France working in coal-mining there. Even one the POlish leaders from 70-s, Edward Gierek, worked with his father in France as a miner.
Were they originally from Western Poland or Silesia? My family is from Silesia and Zaglebie. My both grandathers worked in mining industry.

There was a huge mining center between France and Germany, in Germany they needed people for jobs, so this is probably how she ended up in Germany.

The marriages between French and Germans or Germans and Poles were more common that people could imagine.

+++My question is, how and why do you think she would have moved to France and then to Germany where she recounted that she witnessed some Nazi brutality to Jews in Germany.+++

we need to remember that the WW II was not only Holocaust, people of many nations were persecuted. The war was not as black and white as showed here in the US. Jews were probably treated the worst but many German people were not really aware of the persecution. Just read the thread about Jan Karski in the forum.

You can check the article about my uncle who was in Wehrmacht.... although he was Polish. He just had no choice:

www.polishsite.us/index.php/history-and-people/modern-history/434-on-the-wrong-site-of-the-frontline-.html

[Eric]

The father of singer Edita Piekha also worked as a miner in France. Piekha's family eventually moved back to Poland, and then in the 1960s Edita moved to the USSR, and she still lives in Russia to this day.

[peterinth]

Thank you. You have turned on a little light of understanding in my mind.
I think my next step should be to find who holds my mother's birth certificate and follow the leads from there.
I wonder how a Polish family would have been recruited to work in mining France. I assume the whole family would move together. Also would a young woman be forcibly taken to Germany to work or would this be a voluntary move?
I realise I am asking very generalised questions. I have experience of immigrants crossing borders illegally in Asia so maybe I am imagining the whole movement as being clandestine. Maybe it was just an offer too good to refuse at that time. Life was obviously very different then with very different values and hopes.
Thanks very much for your help.
The more I discover the more I need to know. Very emotional, must be my time of life.

[Jaga]

Is your name Peter? Sorry if I just assumed it from the nick.
According to info at:
pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polonia_we_Francji
(it also has English version but not that detailed)
there was an agreement between Poland and France in 1919
so that Polish workers could settle in France to get job there. Between 1920 and 1923 a half a million Poles settled in France with their families. They were working mainly in steelworks, mining, industry and farming.
36% of miners in France had Polish origin!

Do you have any pictures of your grandma, any documents?

last name: "Frankowsk" is quite common.

We have several articles about finding the roots at our old website:
culture.polishsite.us/smgenealogy.html

this might be useful:
nancy.polishsite.us/art25jagafr.htm

[peterinth]

Thanks for the added information. This all helps my understanding.
My brother related a story my mother told of hiding with her sister in a barn from advancing troops only to witness german soldiers running into the barn and stripping off their uniforms. No idea whether the advancing troops were Russian or English/American.
Her sister never returned from a shopping walk after being bombed, a story that must be repeated many times.
My brother has turned up the name and address of the sister in France so that is my next link + German records.
My mother never discussed her past and had no photos to pass on. Maybe the sister has some as she has been in the same house for many years.

[Jaga]

When Soviet soldiers were advancing to the West, they were raping women, even nuns in Germany on the way to Berlin, but hopefully your mother was on the west from Berlin and was saved.
Allied forces organized carpet bombings of many German cities, this is probably when your aunt died. These carpet bombing were terrible, thousands of people died since there were many bombs thrown in a short time.

My other uncle was taken by Nazi to a prison in Poland and then transfered to the labor camp in Germany (since he was in Polish resistance, fighting against Germans). He died during one of the allied forces air attack at the end of the war. Too bad.

If you would be able to figure out regions of German and French regions, you mother was, it would help to understand what could happen there.

[peterinth]

Thanks Jaga and thanks Eric. Yes my name is Peter.
Hopefully I will get more information from my 'French Connection'.
I guess I need time frames to make any sense of her journey. Too many questions and too many maybe's at this stage.

Thanks again.