The Polish Patriot Page #2

"The Polish patriot" is not just a memoir of war, nor is it any history book. It is the true story of the path in the life of a young Polish Jewish doctor who just began his specialization in dentistry when World War II broke out. The young dentist, David, was captured by the Russians and sent to Siberia in a cattle truck clogged with many others on a long journey. In Siberia, he meets the woman who would become his wife, a refugee from Poland. They got married, and he was drafted into the Red Army. Hitler attacked Russia, and Stalin responded. After several years in Siberia, he brought his wife and her parents to Uzbekistan, where their first son was born. The Russian army invades Poland, and David finds himself back in his country as an officer. He reaches his hometown Warsaw and finds the town in ruins, he succeeds in finding his aunt Eugenia, but he discovers that his whole family has been murdered. He also discovers that Poland does not want him back. He advanced with th

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At the hospital, I found Adam in a very depressed mood, as he had not received any letters or information from his parents. Fleeing Jews who were arriving reported that the city of Warsaw was destroyed and that the Germans were kidnapping Jews, sending them to forced labor areas, and forcing them to wear white armbands with a symbol[4] identifying them as Jews. They also told of how the Germans were humiliating and degrading Jews on the streets while some of the local Poles volunteered and helped with hunting and turning their neighbors over to the Germans.
Everyone was looking to escape, but it was too late, as the borders were virtually closed. Those approaching from the Polish side found themselves in the Russian line of fire that shot at anyone approaching the border, while, on the other side, the patrolling Germans shot at anyone attempting to cross their border. These rumors were highly distressing, and I was terrified to hear them. Although my immediate family lived in Wloszczowa, three hundred kilometers south of Warsaw, I had aunts, uncles, cousins, and other relatives living in Warsaw.

At Brest-Litovsk hospital, Adam and I sat together for a few hours, encouraging one another. When we finally went out to the street to smoke, the street was empty, with only civil service patrols occasionally passing by the entrance to the hospital. After we went inside and separated with a long embrace, we knew that, in all likelihood, we would not see each other again. We also believed that the war would continue for a long time and that we would have to care for ourselves, but we agreed that we would send messages to each other at every opportunity.
On the seventh of September, the Germans began bombing Międzyrzec and Brest-Litovsks. The aircraft dropped bombs day and night that shook the earth and caused buildings to collapse. Gaping craters appeared on the main roads, and travel was becoming difficult. Since I had a Polish passport and some money, I decided to go back to see what had occurred on the other side of the border, as the German ground troops had not yet arrived. I returned to Międzyrzec to the clinic of my relative and saw that the building was empty and the clinic was in ruins. Everything was turned upside down. All the equipment that Dr. Buhanik was so proud of, such as hand tools and the X-ray machines, chairs, medication, and syringes, were gone, torn from the wall, all taken away during the heavy bombing of the city, even Leon Buhanik and his wife were also gone.
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