the cosmopolitan review

by Irene Tomaszewski

I recently reminisced about my son’s visit to England when he was eighteen. He took his bike with him and had his itinerary well planned. It included a trip to Hatherleigh, a little town in Devon where my family spent a year when my parents were reunited after their long wartime separation. The Soviets had deported them to a camp in the north of Russia in 1940 and there, three months later, I was born. After Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union, Stalin was forced to release his Polish prisoners as a condition of joining the western allies. My father then joined the army of General Wladyslaw Anders, while my mother, sisters and I journeyed through Iran, India and then settled in Tanzania (then British East Africa) where we stayed for six years.

By Krzysztof Rutkowski

krzys[at]cosmopolitanreview.com

WARSAW, Poland -- “Where are you from?” It's a question often heard when meeting someone for the first time, especially in an international environment. “I'm Polish”. I love the look on their faces – surprised, smiling nervously, not sure whether I'm joking. Usually my friends hasten to add: “Oh, come on! This is not the whole truth.” Sometimes I myself feel the duty to be more precise and to explain that I actually grew up in Germany. “How long did you stay there?” I reply: “20 years.” Now everything seems to be clear and you can hear a breath of relief.  “Aha, so you're German,” they cry out in triumph. Well, not exactly. But my interlocutor is satisfied because he is now able to place me on the right shelf.