It has been many years since World War II, and I continue to bear witness to what I remember. Of course, there are also details that I’ve forgotten until they suddenly pop up in my mind. Just today in 2025 was one of those times.
After the war ended, my mother, sister, and I were traveling from Poland, to join my father who was waiting for us in England. He had been a prisoner in Russia during the war. We were visiting my mother’s hometown of Kraków on the way out of Poland and my mother was looking up people she knew before the war.
One friend in particular was very happy to see us alive. My mother shared our story of survival, hiding in plain sight with false identities as Catholics, and of my injury, my hand being seriously wounded during a bombing. The friend, a Catholic, told my mother that my injury was punishment from God for pretending to be Catholic.
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