Karolina Szczepanik
HIS 196H
Prof. Maria Iacullo-Bird
Interview transcript
INTERVIEWEE: JAN DZIEWOŃSKI
INTERVIEWER: KAROLINA SZCZEPANIK
KAROLINA My name is Karolina Szczepanik and this is an interview with… You can introduce yourself and say where you are from and where you were during COVID- 19 (2020).
JAN My name is Jan Dziewonski. I’m from Poland and during 2020 I was mostly in Poland actually. I went to Vienna in 2021, when the COVID struck back.
KAROLINA Why did you go to Vienna when COVID started?
JAN I went there for a college exchange, just Erasmus exchange, something like that. And I hoped the COVID is going to go and I will be able to enjoy the exchange in full extent. But it didn’t happen like that. When I came there, they were like super happy – “we’ll be opening”. They showed us the campus and all of the places. And then, three days later, they told us: “yeah, you have to go home and we won’t meet again”. So, yeah…
KAROLINA Did you go home immediately after they said that you have to go home or did you stay in Vienna for a little bit?
JAN So, I stayed in Vienna for four months. I lived there. They just didn’t tell me to go home, actually. They told me I cannot go to campus. Lessons were online as in most of the places, I guess. But yeah… of course I had to do a quarantine after arriving in Austria. And Austria was particularly aggressive with their like… governance and policies on COVID. Vienna fell from, I think, first or second best city to live in, by indeed, the economy’s ranking, to I think 15 that year because of COVID restrictions. So, yeah, it was a curfew. A lot of testing every few days. Yeah, it was quite crazy.
KAROLINA Did you…um…So, can you describe your initial reaction when you realized you would be stuck in Vienna when it comes to the COVID- 19 lockdown? Like, what was your…um…What were your feelings like? Did you feel like it’s super scary or… It’s more like you didn’t really expect anything because we never really experienced any pandemic. What was your feeling when it comes to COVID?
JAN So, I was a bit frustrated when I realized that I’m not going to go to campus. But I was kind of expecting that to happen. I wasn’t too optimistic about just like COVID fading away and the winter was…yeah, it was the end of winter. So, I guess I hoped maybe that the worst season is over. But still it was quite a few months that weren’t so warm in Austria. And I was frustrated for sure. I was a bit scared about like not meeting too many people, which is the main purpose of such exchanges, and actually enjoying or experiencing living in such a city. But I was so hopeful to get the best out of it. Also, I had a contract for a place to stay at and I…it wasn’t super clear whether my scholarship will be paid if I come back to Poland… out of necessity of securing the funding for quite an expensive place at Vienna. I had to stay just to be present there. And also, I wanted to do that. I was hopeful as for whole COVID experience, that it will end eventually. And for the most part it was pretty great. The second part of exchange was really nice. The first part was pretty daunting and demanding. I spent most of time in small room with dark walls, without much sunlight…without the ability to almost meet any new people outside of my kitchen at the dorm. So, yeah, that was a lot. So, I started…I was working a lot with Polish companies back then.
KAROLINA How about the quarantine? Did you experience like a long term quarantine or like separation from… like people when it comes to COVID?
JAN So, I think I experienced quarantine two or three times throughout the COVID… I think two times in Poland when I was just ill, I just had COVID. So, it was quite expected to happen. And I think once or twice in Vienna it was just like incoming quarantine to make sure that I don’t have COVID. And while quarantine in Poland was okay because I was either with my ex-girlfriend or with my family, but in Vienna it was pretty demanding. It was 10 days locked in my room in dorm and the dorm locked my door so I couldn’t get out…they were just bringing me food three times a day. It felt like a prison. And of course I was able to go out, but my key card wasn’t working so I wouldn’t be able to come back in. So, I would have to go to some people from the dorm and they would have to let me in. And they were working pretty closely with police. So, it would be…yeah, it could be bad for me if I did.
KAROLINA That is crazy… like comparing to quarantine in Poland, I feel like it’s really different and more like strict than what you experience in Vienna. Because… like as I was in Poland when COVID started, I feel like it was very… obviously it was like a hard time for all of us, but they didn’t really check all of us when it came to like quarantine. And it seems like in Vienna it was more like strict.
JAN I think it…it was also like signified by the door because the dorm was also a hotel and they were allowed to operate during COVID because they were strict. So, em… I guess if I were alone in an apartment, it would be lighter. But still, I don’t know if the police wouldn’t come every day to check on me.
KAROLINA Yeah…
JAN Or something like that.
KAROLINA How about your friends? Did you have enough time to make any friends in Vienna before COVID started, or when COVID started so they could like help you with quarantine, or with like… food. Food and everything, like… being supportive for you or anything like this? How do you feel about this part?
JAN So, the first quarantine was like when I came. So, it was the first thing I did after coming and I didn’t have any time to do… meet anyone. It was like from day zero obligatory for everyone coming from Poland to Austria. So, I didn’t know anyone. And fortunately the dorm… staff was bringing me food three times a day and I would be able to maybe get a contact to some people from my floor at the dorm. But yeah, I wouldn’t…I didn’t see them for like two first weeks of my stay there. So, like pretty…pretty long time. Yeah…
KAROLINA Yeah. That’s a long time honestly. Not seeing them… What about em… traveling? Because, as I know, you are traveling a lot… you love traveling. And how was traveling for you during COVID-19? What was the biggest challenge? Did you have a problem with traveling throughout the Europe or outside of Europe or between Vienna and Poland? What was it, and how was it for you?
JAN So, I traveled from Vienna to, I think, two or three countries. It was… it felt… when the restrictions were coming down, it felt like it’s a good time. It was super cheap to travel in Europe back then. Like the plane tickets cost like €10 one way… so it was super nice. But also, it came with many restrictions. So, you had to choose like countries with no incoming, like with no quarantine after arrival, a lot of testing before every flight and… of course wearing different types of masks. There were like, I think, I traveled to Spain and to Mallorca from Vienna, and there was a curfew… so we had to come back to our place before, I don’t know, 10 or 11 pm every night. And one day, our last bus from the city center came at like about 11, and police escorted us to our place. They were really, really angry that we are out at this time. So yeah, it was a specific time to travel for sure, but really rewarding in terms of that. It was super empty in places that are really touristy normally. And of course these places were struggling because of that. But from my perspective, it Was super cheap and still nice to visit them. Yeah… so of course I traveled less than I would travel normally at that time. But still, since it was the time I had some of my own money, and possibilities to travel were abandoned, I was traveling the most in my life during COVID, I think. Except now… now I’m traveling probably a bit more.
KAROLINA How about traveling to different countries? Did you feel like… because as we know, when COVID started, and it was the whole COVID like thing…. a lot of places there were supposed to be very touristy, as you said, were not touristy… Did you go to any other countries outside of Spain? So, did you like to experience this… emptiness on the streets and this like… sadness around people that COVID was around?
JAN I think Vienna itself was the most like… the strongest experience because it’s one of the most popular cities in Europe when it comes to that. And it was super empty during that time. None of the most touristy places were open for the first few months and the curfew was at 8pm so literally I had to run from police I think at least once because I was coming back with groceries and it was getting late and the tickets were super high. But I was… I think also in Croatia and in Slovakia during COVID… and I think… the later in COVID it happened, the less it was felt. It was mostly about the mask and some other restrictions like… But it was mostly becoming formality, not a real problem. And I was pretty used to having to do some stuff. But when it comes to Bratislava, I don’t really know if something more happens there… when there is no COVID, I think the city is sad in itself. But other cities for sure were more empty. But I wasn’t in most of them a second time to compare it… how it looks normally.
KAROLINA How about mentally… did you… seeing these empty cities like Vienna, not people walking around… was it like mentally weirdly hard for you? Do you feel like the whole experience had an impact on your mental health or what was the experience when it comes to mental health for you?
JAN The mental health through the lens of being empty cities or just like loneliness of some kind?
KAROLINA You can honestly say both. Like you can describe your feelings.
JAN So, when it comes to cities it was more like… problem was starting when you saw big groups of people that I felt that probably should be avoided. But also, it was like a double dynamic that they will try to avoid me, I should avoid them. There is like… you don’t know who might be vulnerable to COVID, who might be sick, who might have someone. So, it was like really trying to keep to myself most of the time when on streets and rather like meeting people. Of course, the Erasmus is about meeting people. So… I went to some events and was meeting people who I wanted to meet. But it was super hard because of COVID It was super hard to get to some dorms because this staff was not allowing people from outside. Even my own kitchen was allowed to host half of the people who had their stuff in the kitchen. So, we had to go out and have cameras and they would find people who met who exceeded the amount. So I, for sure, felt pretty lonely for like… first month or two, because of the quarantine. It was super strange, like being locked in a room. But also, I came in to meet people to experience something new and I wasn’t doing that. And it was pretty hard to meet people also because I think some organization, that hosts Erasmus, failed to invite me to some groups. So, I was like not getting any messages, not getting to know anyone. But people I met in my kitchen and on some online classes, which is… you probably can imagine how it is meeting people on Zoom and talking to them directly through Zoom Chat. It is not the best way to meet someone. Um… so I had like… I felt pretty bad about it and I think in.. in April or May… in like… after a month or two, I was really close to coming back to Poland and being like forgetting about it. Like just… just I was so close and I would go back… if not some person I met through Zoom because I was so desperate to do something, to go out and even break some laws, to have any type of fun and go out of my room and my kitchen, which had some pretty nice people, but it was mostly Eastern European people. The dorm was segregating pretty hard when it comes to nationalities. So, most nights we spent together… were drinking and going to sleep some Bulgarian vodka. It was fun for the first few days, but then it was pretty demanding and not really fun to play the easiest board game you can imagine, like playing cards and like playing war with cards and if you, if you lose, you drink. So, it was solely about drinking. So, yeah, I was pretty desperate to meet someone. And with one person I’ve met through some group classes on the Zoom, she told me: “yeah, I met some people through something…we’re going to Mallorca in like three weeks…If you want to join. We have one free space”. So, I went on this trip… not knowing anyone and I met them in Spain because I flew… flew the plane. I didn’t know how they looked. Like I was suspecting a few people, but I was like, not really sure. Everybody had masks on, so I was pretty shy about it… most of the time. And when I came there, I was like yeah… that’s the time I probably have to meet them. It’s like the last second… And yeah, it’s. It saved the experience for me for sure. Like meeting these people and going with them to Mallorca. It was pretty crazy for me to do that like… and for them to take me like that… not knowing me at all. But it was… it was pretty nice.
KAROLINA Yeah… but I think it’s like the beautiful… I feel like the only beautiful part of COVID… that everybody was very lonely and very desperate to go do something… that a lot of people I met, also, a lot of people through COVID, it was just because they all were lonely. So we all like… connected. So, I feel like this is a nice experience that you had. A lot of people didn’t have experiences like this, especially when it comes to traveling. So I’m happy you could travel. And how about the mental… like, how about the impact of the experience on your mental health? Like, can you see the results of COVID right now on your own self? Like when it comes to changes… how did COVID change you? if you can say something more about this.
JAN So, I think it’s… it impacts some relationship dynamics that I had. I. At the beginning, most of the time during COVID, I had a girlfriend and so the relationship was pretty close… really, really fast because of COVID. Because we had to spend time in the apartment… not doing anything else mostly. And so, I think that’s a pretty popular start… that there were a lot of COVID-19 couples happening… and a lot of after COVID breakups, as well… I’m pretty sure. I know a lot of people who did that…I’m… I’m the person who did that, as well. So, that’s the one thing… like the expectations of what you want from other person, what they want from you, what and how they behave, how you know… how they behave with other people is totally…was totally different. Like, I knew her from the side of like… being together during COVID, but when the COVID paid it off, we were both like becoming back more social people and meeting people at random places. It was like coming back to life and it showed just different angles on different people. So I think that’s it. That had a huge impact being in this relationship throughout the time and being like really close… with my computer. I spent a lot of time doing classes. I was leading a students organization and during COVID so like… I was organizing a lot of activities that were made through Zoom or other platforms or teams and I worked a lot. I think it really impacted how you look at such relationships. Like at the expectations you might have from yourself but from other people as well. All other relationships like with my friends, with family went, I think, way more personal. So, like separated from some social settings they normally occurred but because they were mostly through digital channels they were also almost always pretty direct.
KAROLINA If you can describe it in a good and bad way, what would you say… about the impact of COVID in the mental health way and relationships wise way?
JAN So, I think when it comes to long term impact, so taking it from how I feel right now… I would say that it, for sure, impacted my… I think everyone’s ability to operate in larger groups of people, like to be present, to engage in some conversations… maybe more meaningless ones, to meet some new people. It didn’t impair it in some significant way but it for sure changed… changed the way I approached some relationships. It probably adds a lot of caution and distance in public spaces. But I think, I don’t know if it has any further impact on me… Like mentally, right now, it feels quite like a dream… It was at least a few years ago. But yeah… I think it may have driven me inwards in some kind of way.
KAROLINA I agree with you. Like, I think the COVID and the impact of COVID is definitely like… created who we are right now. And obviously there’s a lot of bad things that happened. But also, I can see a lot of good sides of COVID and like we can really change the past and we can only live with this right now. And I feel like it’s good to be like… positive and try to think about COVID in this good way at some point too. It just happened and we just have to live with this. But my next question is more like maybe about the healthcare, how you feel like the healthcare work in Vienna. If you experience any bad or good things with healthcare in Vienna and what is your opinion about this?
JAN So, I had mostly, I think… preventive healthcare that I at least experienced in Vienna. So, it was mostly like public measures of countering COVID and I think it’s really efficient. I think it was really well organized. Something that in Poland they weren’t able to do it. The system was super fast, super nicely done. It was super easy to get tested. You had the results, you had the system to verify if you are tested. And… it was like this huge, maybe not a stadium, but something like a stadium… a huge parking lot where you had like I don’t know… 20 or 30 lines of nurses, probably not professional nurses, but some like medical staff who were examining you, were going through like checking your documents. Then one person did a test, the other tested the thing whether you had COVID and the next few people just stamped you out and gave you the Results and if you had like the preliminary test was positive, you went for a deeper, I think blood test or something like that… So, it was really efficient. They really focused on doing it in a nice way. And I didn’t have any other encounters like with physicians or… or someone more medically active, but I guess it would be pretty good, as well.
KAROLINA So, if you have to compare the healthcare in Vienna and healthcare in Poland that you both experienced, which one would you say was more efficient and more, at some point, better for societies in both countries?
JAN So, speaking specifically about like… which is what I can compare, I think the Vienna’s, the Austria system is way more efficient, way more streamlined like for people to just. You could just come in, just reserve your spot online and be at home like half an hour later. And at first they didn’t enter Vienna but later when they were lifting some of them. Because you had to be tested to public players, some kind of post. So, yeah, it was super efficient, way more efficient than the testing set in Poland. Yeah, that’s the only thing I can compare. But it was pretty nice. Although it was connected with really strict other policies that were, well… less nice in Vienna.
KAROLINA What about people and like I just want to focus a little bit more now on comparing COVID in Poland and Vienna… because you experience both, where do you think people took COVID more seriously; in Poland or in Vienna?
JAN I think authorities took COVID way more seriously in Vienna but way more would be like they… through restrictions so they really banned it. But I felt and it was the common joke that it’s more like the German nation’s mentality to just like ban some stuff that is bad for society. So, it felt pretty normal that it’s like police driven and you have the curfew and other stuff. When it comes to people they are, they were pretty obedient about the laws. But also, I’ve met mostly Erasmus, people who are like me, eager to break any rules if they could have more fun or do something fun in that time. So I’m certainly biased in that way. Whilst in Poland I think I’ve met like a pretty balanced range of people with different approaches from people who are just like yeah, of course everyone took COVID seriously. Everyone was like, wasn’t visiting grandparents after meeting with other people or was like taking it quite seriously. But there was a range from people who just, yeah, if it comes to me I feel safe and I can, I don’t know, go to some smaller parties or do something and to people who are just like till the end of COVID in 2022 were super close and still like avoidance of bigger groups of people and pretty angry if. If they felt that, I don’t know… that they might be infected in some way. While I was… I don’t know… I was thinking about it as a pretty distant thing that it’s a problem. It wasn’t a problem for me in the end. So, yeah, I think in both countries people took this pretty seriously.
KAROLINA But yeah, what about older people? Because in Poland, older people were very scared of COVID and they were very… they tried to avoid everybody around. Do you feel like it was the same case in Vienna when it comes to taking buses? When it comes to the shopping centers? Do you think it was the same in Vienna, as it was in Poland, or something was different?
JAN I think it was pretty much the same. I don’t think I saw many old people in Vienna. I think most of them were. Were closed in their places and yeah… just like not leaving, not leaving. Maybe they had even some program of like neighbors helping them so they didn’t have to go out. But certainly when the restrictions were like… put in place, the hardest one, I think ops streets, buses or any kind of transport was mostly young people and adults, but no older people. And I think maybe in Poland I saw a bit more old people on the streets, but I don’t think it was that much more. I think it is like… a really rare thing to see and it’s the same thing as my grandparents did. They didn’t go out without necessity… if it wasn’t necessary.
KAROLINA It sounds like Vienna was pretty similar to Poland when it comes to older people.
JAN Yeah.
KAROLINA And one last question about the COVID, and we will switch to Black Lives Matter really quickly, just to see if you experience anything with this. But did COVID change your point of views when it comes to your work? Or… because I know we talked about more personal life when it comes to COVID. How about work life? Is it like it helped you realize who you are in a work way? Did you switch your work or did you stay with your interests in the same way as you were before COVID? How was it for you?
JAN So, I think it’s because of online classes. I had so much more time. I just started working way earlier than I would without it. Probably I would stick with it. Before COVID I was working with kids, going to camps, teaching them windsurfing and sailing and other stuff. And probably I would have stayed with that a year or two longer, but I don’t think it changed much more about that. I just, like, started working online just after COVID began because through some student organizations, I’ve met some employers quarterly willing to employ me. So, yeah.. that’s a nice start. Nice way to spend spare time.
KAROLINA Yeah, that sounds honestly nice. What about Black Lives Matter movement? Because the class that I’m focusing on right now is COVID 19 and Black Lives Matter. So, I wanted to focus on COVID 19 with you, but I’m just very curious if you experienced the Black Lives Matter movement at some point in Vienna or in Poland or anywhere else you’ve been, like, traveling to, how was it for you?
JAN So, I don’t think I experienced it, like, directly, like, in person. I don’t think I encountered, like, any type of activities related to Black Lives Matter. It was mostly, like, through online channels, through Instagram, maybe YouTube media. So, I was. I was just, like, following the news. And I would say that that’s mostly it, but I didn’t have any, like, other…
KAROLINA Yeah, how. How about seeing people being involved in Black Lives Matter movement in Vienna? Did you, like, need anybody who was involved, like, physically helping people or more like through social media? Or did you, like, in general, meet anybody who was involved when it comes to Black Lives Matter movement?
JAN I think it was a few people on Instagram that were, like, activists and posting some kind of messaging about it, but I don’t really know if they did something more than just posting about it. I think, like, the capabilities were pretty limited. And I don’t think I’ve met anyone who’s, I don’t know, involved and doing some kind of protest or organizing anything in Vienna. Maybe my friends from New York were posting more about it… I guess they were involved in what was happening in New York that time. I’m quite sure of it. But I didn’t have much contact with them back then. I was just watching their stories and maybe had some few simple interactions about it.
KAROLINA Okay… okay… Got it. Perfect. Okay, I think that’s all I want to ask. Thank you so much for participating in it, and it was really nice to hear your stories and your experience when it comes to COVID and Black Lives Matter.
JAN Great! Happy to help and to tell the stories.
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