None of us knew her, but we all knew her name: Gienia. I don’t think I ever said anything to Pani (‘Miss’) Gienia beyond bez ziemniaków (no potato) or bez mięsa (no meat), depending on how I felt about the set meal that day. And yet, over the years, she has remained with me in spirit.

I went to school in an idyllic location – so idyllic that the building is now an old people’s home. Surrounded by a quiet, dense forest, the school mainly served the adjacent housing estate, where I lived, and the sister estate on the other side of the National Park. Children from the 23rd of March Street (so named after the day in 1945 that the resort of Sopot was freed from Nazi occupation by the Red Army) were brought over on a local bus, its schedule synchronized with the beginning and end of the school day. Herding rowdy pupils on board, the teachers would shout Kto na Marca? (“Anyone for March?”), and the recurring joke was that their cries would eventually begin to sound like Kto