Elizabeth Lis

Elizabeth Lis was born in London on November 4th 1943. Ten days later her Polish mother, known only as ‘Ellen Lis’ arrived on the doorstep of a wartime babies home in the tiny coastal village of Hope Cove, Devon. Ellen asked if the staff could look after her baby until the war ended, promising to send monthly support, but this stopped after one or two payments.

Sometime during 1944 the babies home moved inland to ‘Higher Knowle’ in the village of Lustleigh, also in Devon; apparently ’the navy were practicing by shelling the beach and it was too loud for the babies’.

When the war ended in 1945 my mother told me “all the other children were returned to their parents but I was left behind like a left luggage parcel!” The two nurses who ran the home, Rose Toms and Dorothy decided to keep Elizabeth and raise her themselves. In 1946 they moved with her to Amherst Road in Tunbridge Wells and over time changed her last name to ‘Lister’ to make her sound less ‘foreign’. When Elizabeth was about nine Dorothy left to get married and mum remained with Rose.

“ in the War giving out information such as where the Babies' Home had gone to was often considered to be dangerous. And anyway, if it was disbanded at the end of the War and Rose and Dorothy moved to Loxtor Wrey, the Nursery as such wouldn't have been traceable. Lots happened in war time which is hard to understand years later….

My abiding childhood memory though is of feeling a total outsider wherever I was, I knew I was Polish although the tale I had been told was that my Father was a pilot who was shot down over France. I lived with two women, neither of whom had the same surname as me, both were a Miss, I simply felt I didn't belong anywhere.

Dorothy disappeared off the scene when I was about 9; she was engaged, got to the day or so before the wedding and found out he was already married. She left and went to live in a hotel in Malvern. We kept in touch for a while but she had no further part in my upbringing. So yet another of my significant adults went off and left me ! And as I said the other night, for the first years of my life I had NO significant adult anyway, I was just one of the babies, with no visible means of support, weakly, often gravely ill and failing in every way to thrive”

Meeting her parents

Somehow Elizabeth and her Godparents managed to trace both her parent’s living in London in 1964 and she made contact with them. They were divorced and both remarried and mums initial contact was with Helena Narzymska, her fathers 2nd wife (in her notes mum calls her Helena 2). She records her birth mother calling her father, Stanislaw Lis, to tell him she was his daughter.

Her first meeting with Stanislaw was on Easter Monday 1965. She was to learn her father was a ‘marked man’ and unable to return to Poland. He was working with the Polish government in exile and according to mums notes was the ‘Polish President in exiles personal representative’.

At the time she met her father she was seeing a new ‘boyfriend’- my father, Derek Workman. Derek was married at the time, 31 years older than her, and they kept their relationship was hidden. Mum had her own secrets. However, both she and my father met Stanislaw and his wife numerous times, he welcomed her and invited her to the Polish Club and other events. Helena 2 even took up a suit for Derek.

“Dad and I met up a few times with my Father and Step-Mother. I think he basically liked them, and could probably empathise with them about their wartime experiences. It was my Step-Mother who told me that my Mother was Jewish, she possibly thought I would be horrified. There was no love lost between them, teenage jealousy by my Step-Mother (Helena Narzymska knew Helena Rothenberg in Poland) certainly coloured her opinions of my Mother. I think I mention something along those lines in the notes I made”.

Sadly mum began to feel very pressured by Helena Narzymska, who had herself endured deportation to Siberia with her young son, and a nightime treck across Europe to reach the U.K. following the war. Helena wanted Elizabeth to embrace her Polish identity, and mum told me “I suddenly felt very British”. She was also intimidated by Helena. About this time she fell pregnant with my older sister, Anna and began to build a family of her own. She lost touch with her father, and never knew he died in 1967 just months after their last meeting. No- one informed her.

About 12 years later, after my own father died, mum began to search for Stanislaw again, to no avail. She told me before she died she regretted that period of her life and the fear she had of ‘becoming Polish’. She loved her father and was very proud of him, she was so young when they met and had been caught up in her own dramatic unfolding circumstances. Her later life was to reveal how much she had needed her father.

Me Mater!

Elizabeth was to meet her mother for the first time in 1965 or 1966. It is unclear whether she met Helena once, or on several occasions but what is known is that they met in a cafe, and not Helena’s home. On at least one occasion she took her newborn daughter, Anna to meet her mother.

I asked my mother if she had liked Helena, ‘Oh yes! very much’ was her immediate response before adding that the war had taken its toll on her mother and she remembered hoping her own face would not be as lined when she reached her mothers age; research was to reveal why that was decades later - Helena was pretending to be a LOT younger than she really was...her vanity backfired!.

Helena was evasive in regards to contact details, she was very hard to track down, but in other respects it seems she was more open with her daughter about details of her life than her sister Irena was with her own family. She never revealed she was Jewish, but she told Elizabeth she had a brother who had been murdered by a firing squad during the war.

Research later confirmed her brother’s name and date of birth although his fate has never been uncovered. She spoke about her young nephew, beaten almost to death by the Gestapo when he was thirteen. He had escaped and gone to the U.S.A where he had reconstructive surgery. Mum had no way of confirming these stories, but she remembered them, and I grew up hearing the details. It was only after both Helena’s and Elizabeth’s deaths that they were proved accurate.

Sadly Elizabeth lost contact with Helena in 1966 or 1967. They arranged to meet again in a cafe , and my mother said she mistook the day. She didnt show up and as far as I am aware, she never made contact with Helena again. Did she get scared? Its very possible. Was Helena afraid to reach out to her daughter? that is also possible. Elizabeths youngest daughter Katharine recalls a converstion in which our mother told her Helena was going to take her home and introduce her to her husband (known only as General Anders wartime bodyguard) . Whatever happened, there was sadness and regret which persisted throughout her turbulant life. By the time she died Elizabeth had been married 5 times, she struggled to connect with her 7 children and yet she was one of the most intelligent, vivacious and capable women in the many social circles she frequented.

In 2014, standing before Elizabeth’s casket, her daughter, Jennie Milne realized she did not know who her mother really was, despite knowing her intimately. She determined to search, seeking the connection that eluded her during her mothers lifetime, beginning with the fragments of information that remained. Just recently a photograph of Elizabeth, taken by Derek Workman when she was 21 was found in the U.S.A amongst Helena’s possessions sent to her nephew James Russocki after his aunt died. Mother and Daughter never forgot each other. The circle is closed.

Jennie Milne August 2020