If I knew that the wall wouldn’t be there one day, I would probably never have left Poland

Irena Roman's garden

I come from Upper Silesia that is now a province of Poland. When I was 15, during a school trip to Vienna, I left my classmates and escaped. Then it was so extreme to be in the regime, that I found the heart to leave my family. I must say that if I knew that the wall wouldn’t be there one day, I would probably never have left Poland. So now in my garden I have a beautiful cherry tree, it is the only one tree in the colony and I inherited it from the man who had my garden before I got it, after he died. He had three children and he planted a tree for each child: an apple, a cherry and a plum tree, so the trees on my plot of land have a specific meaning, a family meaning, not of my family but of a family.

Irena Roman, Poland, Hand in Hand, Bezirksverband Berlin-Süden der Kleingärtner e.V.