One way to host an engaging dinner party is to compile a guest list inclusive of a wide range of skills and histories. You could start with a tractor-trailer driver, a luthier, and someone who’s lived in a refugee camp, then spice things up by adding a Mount Holyoke College faculty member, a reggae musician, and a 1984 Polish National Pistol Shooting Champion. With the guest list growing, you might need to double-check on the availability of seats. But don’t worry. Two chairs will suffice if the guest list includes Malgorzata Lach, because the Erving resident fits all of the above descriptions, and more.
Lach, 58, was born in Soviet-controlled Poland and found her home country to be “colorless and boring.” From a young age, she wanted to leave: “I just had to figure out how.” She was inspired by her older sister’s trips to European countries that enjoyed greater freedoms than Poland at the time. “When I was 6, my sister was 18; she went to France and Italy, picked up enough of the languages to work as a waitress and made a bunch of money. She came back wearing colorful clothes and great shoes. Even her face looked different: excited, free, more open. I wanted some of that. But our government didn’t want us to have time to think about anything except basic survival. I couldn’t wait to get out of there.”
Her yearning was magnified by annual family sojourns. “Every year, we went for a two-week vacation throughout Europe.” (Each time Lach said the word “vacation,” she used air quotes.) “My parents packed our Fiat with everything we needed for two weeks: a tent, food, all our supplies. They packed other things, too. Drills and other tools were hard to get in Russia, so my parents packed drills and we’d go first to Russia. After selling the drills, we bought things that were hard to get in Hungary and headed there to make a profit.”
Lach’s parents never wore blue jeans. “Yet one day, my parents were wearing jeans and — when we arrived in some country where it was hard to find jeans — my parents sold theirs right off their bodies.” The family traveled to countries with broad consumer choices, like Italy, and stocked up on goods to take back to Poland. “Those annual ‘vacations’ enable us to live better the rest of the year,” said Lach. “Those trips were wild. If we couldn’t find a place to pitch our tent, we slept in the car.” In addition to consumer goods, Lach noticed that countries like Italy and Austria had other favorable elements, too: “Colors, smiles, joy. So different from Poland.”
Her family’s industrious streak helped shape Lach’s character, and she has always noticed things that bring joy. “As a child, I fell in love with music I heard on my older brother’s bootlegged eight-track tapes. I decided to teach myself guitar, which was a great outlet for me.” Following that inspiration led Lach to music-related professions, including as a music educator and performer; she also builds and repairs classical guitars.
Lach proved to be proficient in more than just music. Her ascendancy to winning a top national prize for pistol shooting at age 17 began three years earlier when her civics teacher recruited students for a team under the auspices of the Polish armed forces. “I got really good,” she said with characteristic understatement. Lach’s mementos include a medal, a newspaper clipping, photographs and, most impressively, target papers with the centers shot to kingdom come with crackerjack accuracy. That someone could hit targets so accurately is sufficiently impressive, but there’s more: “The target was on a movable contraption,” said Lach. “It was hidden from view for 10 seconds, and became visible for only three seconds. We were given six magazines with five bullets each for a total of 30 shots in each competition. If you didn’t shoot during the three seconds, you lost 10 points.” Lach loved the adrenaline, pacing and concentration. “Three seconds to shoot, 10 to wait, then repeat. You had to lower your pistol between shots.” Lach practiced twice a week with a trainer, and other times on her own. “We were assigned pistols, but had to leave them at the range. They belonged to the army.”
Competitions took place nearly every weekend, and Lach loved it. “My travel was paid for and, after I made the national team, I received compensation, as well. Also, for two weeks every winter and summer, the shooting team got to go to camps — all expenses paid.” A fond memory from that time reveals a lovely side of Polish culture. During a winter camp expedition, “20 of us trudged through a foot of snow to the top of a mountain, where we discovered a house! The couple who lived there were homesteaders, and even though they hadn’t expected 20 people to show up, they offered us hot tea; some of us had to drink out of jars. Then the woman took out a humongous round loaf of bread and the man went to the well where they kept their bacon. They cut 20 pieces of bread and 20 pieces of bacon. We probably ate a week’s worth of their food. But that’s Polish hospitality!” After enjoying the couple’s generosity, Lach and her teammates “slid down the mountain in our waterproof clothes. It was a blast.”
Despite her affinity for the pistol team and some positive experiences, Lach maintained a strong desire to leave Poland and to create a new life for herself, a yearning that led her to make bold moves at the age of 18 that read like a gripping novel. Tune in next week, dear readers, to learn how Malgorzata Lach reinvented herself multiple times in order to follow her dreams — always motivated by a strong work ethic and extraordinary moxie.
Eveline MacDougall is the author of “Fiery Hope.” To contact her: eveline@amandlachorus.org.