Newsletter (2017-2018) February 2018 Newsletter | Page 16

The True Hero
By Barbora Kulikova
“The greatest heroes are those that will never be
appreciated for what they have done. Those who
keep their acts of heroism as a secret and do not
exhibit themselves as some kind of special hu-
man!”
a couple of weeks after our wedding the Second
World War began. We did not notice it very much
as our village was far from any war-like place.”
His eyes were closed as he tried to drag out ev-
ery detail from his memory.
An old man was sitting in his chair, smoking a
pipe and watching the flames burn oak wood in
the hearth. It seemed that this sentence escaped
from his mouth by an accident. Although there
were several people in the room, only one per-
son noticed these words. The word “heroes”
caught an attention of his granddaughter. She
thought he was talking about Spiderman or Bat-
man, so she looked at him with an interest. He
noticed that she was listening, so he nodded at
her to come closer.
“But one day… He came… It was one of those
rainy days when you do not want to do any-
thing. I was reading a book and I suddenly heard
someone knocking on the door. At first, he was
just knocking, but after five seconds the knock-
ing changed to beating at the door. I thought he
was going to break it down! I opened the door
and there was a man covered in old rags. He
asked me to hide him somewhere. That ‘they’ are
looking for him and if they find him, it would be
his end. He was escaping the enemy army for
several days but today someone saw him and re-
He loved her, as she was his only granddaughter, ported him. I had to think because if they found
and he tried to pass on his wisdom to her. How- him here, it would be our end as well. Although
ever, it was difficult because she was in her teen- I did not want to put my family in a danger, I
age years. She did not listen to him very much decided to hide him in the hayloft. I brought him
anymore because she thought her grandfather some food and milk then.”
was not “cool” enough. However, when she lis-
tened to his stories, she used to love to watch his
face. She could recognise all the emotions that
came along with his words. She knew that all his
stories were true.
“When I was a young boy, I lived in the country-
side. We had a really nice little house that was
quite far from other houses. Your great-grandma
wanted to have a small farm, so my father bought
her two cows, three horses and some poultry. We
also had a dog and several cats I could play with.
It was a great time!”
The look in his eyes seemed to be far away, as if
he was back in the time, deep in his memories.
“When I was finally a bit older and stronger, my
father became old and weak. The house was my
responsibility, so I was taking care of everything.
I married your grandma when I was twenty. Just
FEBRUARY 2018
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