About 35 years ago I was teaching in a boys’ school in West London, which was an experience in itself. The school was very rundown and staffed mostly by supply teachers like me, with very few resources. I was working there because it was across the road from where I lived. I had two small […]Read Post ›
This lovely picture is of my grandmother, Helena Łomnicka and my aunt, Alicja, taken after they were freed from Siberia and had recovered a little in Teheran before they were sent to the Lebanon in about 1944 or 5 Today is the 10th anniversary of my aunt’s death – I have written about her before […]Read Post ›
This is my grandfather as I never knew him. He was born in 1878 and died during the Second World War, a captive in Siberia. His story is a very interesting one, but one which I shall leave for another day. Today I was thinking about him as I was wrapping parcels to send […]Read Post ›
For LP Over a week has passed since Holocaust Day. 75 years after the liberation of Auschwitz there is a great danger that people are forgetting – indeed some of us cannot remember, because we did not live through those times then – but that is splitting hairs. You do not have to witness everything […]Read Post ›
I don’t really know how I managed to forget to write about this place when I was writing about our four day trip to Kraków. We had gone to Kazimierz, the old Jewish quarter of Kraków, not to do anything as exciting as sightseeing but to change my battery in my phone, which had been […]Read Post ›
Friday 3rd January. Having recovered from the excitement of the night before, I waited in forthe dishwasher man to arrive to mend my machine. A burly young Romanian, he could hardly fit into our kitchen – but he managed. He spent over an hour fixing the machine, keeping up a good line of chat and […]Read Post ›
Sunday in Kraków was cold. The hotel (Hotel 32) breakfast room was strangely laid out and we felt we had to keep on running backwards and forwards to get everything we needed, but the food itself wasn’t bad. we had lunch to go to anyway as we were going to meet a friend from my […]Read Post ›
This last week has been quite a momentous one. Saturday 28th December we were still in Warsaw after one of the most amazing Christmasses ever. I’ve written about it before. But Saturday found us on the train to Kraków. This was my husband’s first visit to Warsaw Central station since it was rebuilt quite a […]Read Post ›
I ko A story of great joy This photograph is of a true heroine – she celebrated her 95th birthday a couple of weeks ago – I am sure this is something she certainly didn’t expect to do 75 years ago when the second world war ended. About ten years ago she gave me a […]Read Post ›
This is one of my most treasured possessions. Made of olive wood I believe, it has been part of my consciousness all my life. When I was small my mother would not let me touch it – I was quite clumsy as a child – so it gained a mystery that never quite went away. […]Read Post ›
Life Through Basia's Eyes 