Packing away my grandmother’s spectacles I came across this piece of embroidery. My father had obviously packed away her things when she died and gave them to me many years later. But I never really looked closely until now. I remember this cushion and I always knew she had embroidered it. There were some others […]Read Post ›
For the Mhinisteir’s wife Today is the sixth of December. For me the real beginning of the Christmas season. This was the day when good children were given a little present and naughty children a birch rod. One year my mother gave me a rod. It was very small and gilded. Very pretty. But a […]Read Post ›
Yes – I was meant to write this yesterday. This was our first house. I may have written about this before, but when we got married in 1979 we didn’t really have anywhere to live. My husband had come over from Poland – one of the few at that time who did everything absolutely legally, […]Read Post ›
We walked from the bus station to our apartment up the hill. We had been warned by the tourist information lady that a taxi would take a very long route because of the one way system, so up the hill we trudged. We found the street. But not the house. I’d chosen to stay here […]Read Post ›
These days going abroad should be easy. But the pandemic has for me at least put back all the stress possible into going abroad, what with all the paperwork, testing etc etc. Having sorted all that out, the rest of the stress that I suffered last week was largely my own fault. Did I check […]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 ›
For KGK who has just been to Florence and it reminded me of my time there. In April 1976 I went to Florence for a fortnight with my mother’s husband, Zbyszek. The year before he had come out to Spain to visit me on my year abroad and had enjoyed himself so much that he […]Read Post ›
A chance photograph prompted this. I am sharing this post because I think it is so interesting: This past week Basia Korzeniowska posted a photo to the Kresy-Siberia Facebook Group, one which made me do a double-take. Why? Because I have the same photo in my collection. Basia mentioned her mo… Source: A serendipitous encounter…
My grandmother, Janina Wysoka, nee Kirschinger, in 1917 just before she got married. She was born in 1896 and died in 1978 just before I got married. Born in Bratislava; brought up in Vienna. Spent twenty years in Lwow, then Siberia and the long journey to freedom through Iran, Palestine and finally England in 1947. […]Read Post ›
This book was published very soon after the war. My father Jan Wysoki gave it to me to read when I was an adult because he said it gave the truest account in English of his own experiences. I am going to buy another copy now because I tore bits out of this one when […]Read Post ›
Life Through Basia's Eyes 