The Roundup, First Book of the Trilogy in Historical Fiction

The Murano family saga is my primary theme. Pals Forever is published. So is The Resurrections. The third on The Eighteenth Camel is coming out any day. But the life of a cardiac surgeon and his family is not the only story I am interested in. I am expanding beyond the medical fiction. My next […]

Country at the Crossroads in Europe

The end of the first millennium saw the developing of conditions for future wars in Europe. Christianity slowly kept expanding, and Poland, still a pagan country, didn’t want to accept the new order from the Holy Roman Empire, our powerful Western neighbor. Instead, we asked to be baptized directly by the pope, thus separating ourselves […]

The Polish Fight for Freedom

On this day, 83 years ago, a dark cloud descended on Poland. On September 1, 1939, the German hordes invaded our country from the West. Seventeen days later, the Russians completed the job, and marched from the East. Once again, Poland disappeared from the maps of Europe. But, as we say each time singing our […]

My Father and Growing up in a Communist Poland

My father was an honorable and a decent man. I still remember the first advice he gave me. “Don’t lie,” he said. “It’s so much easier to live your life when you don’t have to remember each version of the story you told different people.” He was honest to a fault. Never tried to manipulate […]

Traditions

Teaching kids how to cook mother’s favorite dishes. Showing them the places your ancestors are from. Telling stories about how parents met and what they’ve done before you’ve arrived. Traditions. Most of the kids don’t think about what’d happened before they were born. And if they do––it happens late in their lives. Often too late. […]

Why the Poles Fight, part 4

They were the largest group of the people participating in the Warsaw Uprising. And the only one not involved in the decision to rise. Before the war, Warsaw had a population of 1,300,000, and the city was the seventh largest of Europe. In March 1945, after the Germans evacuated, only 310,000 were left. From the […]

Why the Poles Fight, part 3

They were young, desperate, and had seen enough of German savagery. They wanted to be free and wanted to avenge the unspeakable brutality of the invaders. They knew they could die, but also knew there are worse things than death. But the youths of Warsaw weren’t the only players in this crucial moment of the […]

Why the Poles Fight, part 2.

The Museum of Warsaw Uprising is chilling evidence of the atrocity of dying Nazi experiment. Being beaten on both fronts, the Germans unloaded their rage on the essentially defenseless population of the Polish capital. Their destruction of Warsaw was symbolic and reminds me of the epic razing of Carthage by the Romans after the Third […]

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 […]