The scars are old, but still raw

For over 70 years, Krystina and I lived on separate continents. Yet the minute we met, we knew each other. Not only did we hug and kiss, over and over, we walked arm in arm, we held hands, we caressed each other's cheek, amazed we were finally together.

Krystina is my age. Her father Zdzislaw was one of my father Stanislaw's brothers, and my uncle. 

I spent an afternoon with Krystina, her daughter Malgorzata, and her granddaughter Hanna (pictured above), touring the Warsaw Uprising Museum, a tribute to the thousands of people who fought and died in the streets of Warsaw over 63 days in 1944.

But as Krystina and I walked, arm in arm, around the museum our talk was of another Polish soldier, my father and her uncle, Stanislaw.

His squad of Polish Lancers was captured in 1939, as German forces rolled into Poland. Stanislaw spent the next six years in prisoner of war camps, before turning up in a Displaced Persons camp in Germany after the war where he fell in love with my mother. I was born in the camp.

When the time came to leave the DP camp, Stanislaw, my mother, and their Polish friend Frank Uzarowski, decided to emigrate to Canada, rather than risk an uncertain reception in their Soviet-controlled homeland.

Krystina told me Stanislaw's father, Ignacy, wrote a letter pleading with him not to return to Soviet-occupied Poland. "Brother is killing brother here. All of the Polish people who come back from western Europe are imprisoned as spies."

But in the safe haven of Canada, things quickly turned sour. Malgorzata told me about another letter from Stanislaw to his family. Stanislaw was very depressed. His friend Frank, who had been invited into the family home, had stolen his wife and four year-old daughter.

For a time, after the split, Stanislaw continued to send letters and gifts. "He sent dress fabric for ladies, he sent a bicycle, he even wanted to send some sort of agricultural machine. But the family said not to send it. The family loved Stanislaw and they knew he was in trouble because of what happened, and they wanted him to focus on taking care of himself."

After a time the letters stopped, and the family couldn't find Stanislaw, despite enlisting the help of the International Red Cross.

Krystina told me that family Christmases in Poland were tinged with sadness because my father, mother and I weren't there.

It wasn't until two years ago, when I found an unmarked grave in Northern Ontario, that I was able to discover what happened to Stanislaw, and to join with his family in piecing together what turned his escape to Canada into a family tragedy that still leaves its scars, even today.