"Then we started to wonder what to do next (after liberation)? We didn't want to go from Hitler to Stalin especially as we heard that Stalin was killing-off the remaining members of the Home Army. There was a young chap who decided to return to Poland, to Warsaw... (after) he left a letter came from his mother (in Poland) begging him not to return because the Communists were killing-off members of the Home Army (because) if you are against one oppressor then you would be against the next one too... we had no-one left at home... we decided we wouldn't go home yet and we were looking for opportunities to study."
Lilka Trzcinska-Croydon, Ontario, Canada. Lilka was born in Warszawa, Poland in 1925, POW in Germany 1943-45, in Italy with the II Korpus 1945-46, studied in England 1946-48, emigrated to Canada in 1948.
Arms with Auschwitz tattoos: five students from the school in Porto San Giorgio, 1946. Lilka Trzcinska is No. 44787, her sister Zosia is No. 44789. From 'The Labyrinth of Dangerous Hours.' Lilka Trzcinska-Croydon, A Memoir of the Second World War.' University of Toronto Press Inc., 2004. Reprinted by permission of the author.
"I went to the Commandant and explained why I was not returning, that my family had discouraged me, that we won the War but lost our homeland. I requested to carry on flying and was welcomed into the RAF. So rather than waiting in the Resettlement Camp, I carried on flying."
Henry Franczak, RI, USA, 1918-2006. Born Zagorzyce, Poland, joined the Polish Air Force in Britain in 1939, the British Royal Air Force in 1945, and the Pakistani Air Force in 1947; emigrated to the USA in 1953.
