The two hearts of Margaux Kier

Margaux Kier (original spelling: Margot Kieruj) was born in Bydgoszcz in the 1960s, the first child of the Kieruj family. She has a brother, Bogdan, and a step-sister, Lavinia. Her mother, Krystyna, was a lawyer, and her father, Otto, an engineer. Margaux recalls her childhood in Bydgoszcz as a happy time. She lived at Łokietka Street 4 and attended primary school No 10 [for eight years – translator’s note]. She is an outstanding pupil, part of the mathematics circle, and works towards participating at the Olympiads in the subject of Russian.

Her artistic talents emerge early. At school she learns to play the flute. She teaches herself piano at a friend’s parents’ house. She is involved in a puppet theatre and still today remembers the fun she had narrating in the role of a Krasnoludek [a kind of house spirit or dwarf – translator’s note]. At school she recites texts and is involved in the choir. She recalls the great solidarity among her fellow pupils, as well as the commitment of teachers and the warm-hearted parents of her school friends. On the occasion of a birthday, the mother of a friend gives her a present more typical for an adult – in the form of a book that she still owns: Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”. Shortly afterwards, she discovers the TV version of the play featuring Jan Englert and is transfixed. And when she sees the festival in Sopot on TV, she decides that one day she also wants to perform there.

This imaginative capacity and carefree attitude persists even after her parents emigrate to West Germany. Margaux’s parents travelled to Germany as tourists, joined up there with the father’s side of the family, and did not return to Poland. Their ten-year-old daughter and their son remained in Poland and were looked after by their grandparents. A tourist visa was the only way to leave the country at that time. For Margaux life went on. She receives excellent marks at school, recites poems, participates in school festivities, and is still involved in the puppet theatre. The attitudes of her fellow pupils and teachers to her and her brother do not change. Only the grandparents are questioned by the police from time to time. In 1972, the family is finally given permission to reunite.

Family reunification
 

On the day of her departure, Margaux is accompanied by her class and teachers to the train. She is gifted books and little mascots from the class teacher and her fellow pupils. It’s a frosty November evening, and as chance would have it, on precisely this evening the Bydgoszcz train depot is on fire. Margaux feels as if her entire life up that point has gone up in flames. The two children are accompanied by their grandmother’s sister to East Berlin. 

Margaux then spends the first six months with her parents at her grandfather’s sisters’ residence in Gummersbach in North-Rhine Westphalia, and after just one week there enters the Guttenberg Gymnasium. As a gifted child she is thrown in at the deep end, however she meets all expectations and in just a few months speaks fluent German. In her free time she catches up on English and Latin, with help from her mother and aunts. After she is moved up to year eight, the family relocates to Cologne. Margaux attends the Hansa Gymnasium, which is renowned for its excellence in biology and chemistry. As the school did not introduce co-education until the following year, she spends her first year there in an all-boys class. At this point she takes up sport, which completes her process of integration. She is a talented basketball player and joins the school team. She manages to progress from this team to the regional league and then even to the national league. She travels to games every weekend for eighteen years, even after she herself becomes a mother.

As a sixteen-year-old secondary school pupil, Margaux discovers her passion for modern expressive dance. As she also enjoys painting, she chooses art as a subject. However, sport and art are not the only activities at which she excels. The school leaving certificate she goes on to receive is a dream. With an average top grade of 1, she can attend any university.