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SERIALS FROM PAST ISSUESRADZIA, AMERICAN PRISONER
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| Born and educated in America, Radzia accompanied her parents upon their
return to Poland. There she marries a Polish Army officer and has two daughters,
Irene and Dana. Although her comfortable villa in Torun was not damaged by
bombing at the start of WW II, it has been taken over by a Volksdeutscher, a
Pole of German descent. Likewise, the Germans have confiscated her mother's
considerable real estate and bank accounts. She and the children were allowed to
live in the basement of the villa, but her mother successfully relocated in
Warsaw. Radzia sought transport to America, but refused to leave without her
children. Now she, together with other American women, has been arrested and is
being transported to an undisclosed place. Chapter 26 Every day we came a little closer to our final destination, no one knew where, except that it was in the direction west of Poland into Germany. We were in transit from September 16 to 25, always escorted by a different group of guards, who were silent, never expressing any opinions to each other nor answering our questions. Where we got the strength to keep alive for nine days in transit was surprising. No one, however, succumbed. All thirty of us made the trip to the Liebenau camp. Was it because of the short catnaps aboard the various trains, or was our being spared cruel treatment by the many sullen guards? Maybe it was the memory of the night spent in the bug-infested cell in Thorn [Torun]; perhaps it was the explosive situation in the women's prison in Dresden, then ultimately being recognized as U.S. citizens, that we made the luckless journey to its bitter end. |