Why the Poles Fight
“Why in the world did you fight the Germans in the Warsaw Uprising?” A good friend of mine shook his head. There was more than a question in his demeanor. I sensed a tone of disapproval. “Were you out of your mind?” He was Hungarian and left his native country during the 1956 upheaval. The […]
How We Care. My Mother.
“A mother is only as happy as her unhappiest child.” Nicole Helget, Stillwater When the Warsaw Uprising broke out, I was 6 months old. We lived in the center of the city, where the fighting was most brutal. One day, the group of insurgents brought us two infants whose mothers were killed by the Germans. […]
How We Care. My Father.
When a father helps his son, they both laugh. When a son helps his father, they both cry. Yiddish proverb. One of the most consequential decisions of my life was to bring my parents from Poland to the United States. While they were getting older, I realized my parents’ future looked grim in Poland. Communism […]
The Best Polish Women Violinists
At the height of his career, Paganini was asked who was the best violin player of them all. “I don’t know who’s the best,” he answered with his natural modesty, “but the second-best is Karol Lipiński. There were many superb Polish violinists. Many of them were born when Poland was not on the maps of […]
How the Poles Fought for Their Country
80 years ago, our neighbors decided to change the course of Polish history. The Nazis invaded us from the West and the Soviets from the East. Once again, as it did through the centuries, our country had to defend its identity, culture, heritage and its territory. The brutality of the invading forces was unspeakable, and […]
Why the Poles are So Sensitive about World War II
The Poles lived through hell. WW ll started in our country. The hordes of invaders rolled over our land back and forth many times. Comparing them to the brutality of Genghis Khan’s wild tribes would insult Mongolian animals. The inhuman 20th-century ideology was added with sophisticated methods of killing and disposing of the dead bodies. […]
Dark times, Coming Home
Those were the dreadful times. They were trying times. Polish people were put in the positions, where there were no viable solutions. Any bad choice, and you end up with a bullet in your head. Yet, people helped each other. Unspeakable danger quite often brings up the worst in people. But also brought up the […]
Dark times, Trip to Auschwitz
There were the worst of times for my family, my country and the world. Two terrible powers, on their insane way to dominate, crushed everything and everybody that was on the way to oppose their vision of the world. Poland, for millennia, was squeezed between bad and worse, between two shades of evil. Suddenly, our […]
Growing up under the Communism in Poland
In 1953, March 6th happened on Friday. When I came to the class in the morning, I saw my third-grade teacher sitting at her desk, head buried in her hands, crying. We sensed a personal tragedy, and not knowing how to react, quietly took our seats. She then looked at us with the teary eyes. […]
