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Alicja R. Edwards
I was born in a small town
of Eastern Poland. My vivid recollections are of being raised in a comfortable
atmosphere of tranquility and culture rich in art, theater, and music. The war
brought unfo...view moreI was born in a small town
of Eastern Poland. My vivid recollections are of being raised in a comfortable
atmosphere of tranquility and culture rich in art, theater, and music. The war
brought unforeseen changes and the end of a peaceful era. When destruction from
German bombs had ceased, the people in the east of Poland faced another danger,
the occupation of the Soviet troops. Our father was arrested immediately as an
enemy of the “ red regime” and a few months later we followed his fate. I was
only sixteen when my family and I, were pulled away from our home and country.
We were forcibly taken and sent away to the Asiatic state of Kazakhstan in the
year of 1940, where we were condemned to slave labor for the next three years,
facing mistreatment, sickness, hunger and death till our release from bondage
and a flight to freedom across the Caspian Sea to Iran where I met my husband,
an American army Lieutenant.
Before meeting my husband, my family and I, lived in
refugee camps in Teheran, later after the death of my mother, I was married in
1945. At that time we lived in southern Iran, in Khorromshahr on the Persian
Gulf till my husband was shipped back to the U.S., leaving me to wait for a
permit to enter the U.S. which came much later in 1946, letting me arrive in
New York. Barely acquainted with a new
way of living in the great U.S., I was back on the trail, following my husband
to Japan, where my son Chris was born. We spent four glorious years in the land
of Rising Sun, then headed back to the U.S. to circulate in several army posts
finally settling in Washington D.C. where my daughter Tina was born. Next came
Germany, a short stint and back to Wisconsin for a while then a stretch of four
years in a vacation land, a seaside adventure in La Baule, France.- In 1960 we
were back in the States and a time of retirement from the army but still in
touch with a government. Our son, Chris, had volunteered for Vietnam and my
husband working as a civil service, followed him. One year in Saigon and then
back to Chicago long enough to pack again, moving to New England, Ayer, MA. New
life again, new friends and new interest in antiques. A few years and we were
back Chicago with my husband enjoying a new profession.
It has been a glorious life,
wonderful children, -no regrets except for the loss of my husband 7 years ago.
I am back at the keyboard, to bring to life ou time refugee camps in Iran.
Throughout the years of our
roaming the world, each return became a sentimental greeting with a warm
feeling of being back home no matter what state or the corner of the U. S., it
always was the safest place, the best, our land of Stars and Stripes and
freedom.view less