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“НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, БЕРЕЗЕНЬ 2017 WWW.UNWLA.ORG 15 EUGENIA’S ANGEL by Eugenia Lokot Kowalska My life and the lives of my family members were torn apart by World War II. In March 1944, my family and I left our quiet lives in the western part of Ukraine soon after the front line of the German army was only 14 kilometers from my home. I was only 21 years old, the youngest of three. We traveled with horses, a wagon, and our beloved cow “Nyanka.” This journey through Eastern Europe eventually brought us to American occupied Bavaria in 1945. One day, a young American soldier stopped by our apartment with a friend we knew. My older brother told me, “Tell him that we have an uncle in America.” The soldier did not speak Ukrainian or German, and I could not speak English, but somehow he understood what I was trying to tell him. He asked us where in America my uncle lived. I told him I didn’t know. He took our address in Ansbach and my uncle’s name. We never saw the soldier again. I call this American soldier my angel. He came to give us hopes in a war torn Europe, displaced from our homeland. He was very smart for his young age. He placed an advertisement in the New York Times. In no time, we received a letter from my uncle. My uncle sponsored our immigration, and we arrived in America on June 19, 1949. After starting our life in America, I asked my uncle how he found us. He answered that he was reading the New York Times one day and spotted an advertisement that stated a family in Germany was looking for family in America. He then wrote a letter to our address in Germany. I feel very fortunate that I was able to immigrate to America where I could enjoy freedom. My two daughters were born here, educated here, and they too enjoy the freedom all Americans share. I often repeat my story to many people in hopes of finding that American soldier. I wish that I could thank him for helping us start a new life in America. _______________________________ Editor’s note on the power of serendipity and how things happen Early in January 2017, I received an email from an email from Dr. Larissa Onyshkevych, whose book about her own WWII saga has been recently published. Dr. Onyshvekych forwarded a brief description/review and an excerpt from her book, along with a couple of photographs (see pages 13-14). During a follow-up phone call, Dr. Onyshkevych and I chatted about other WWII adventures and misadventures, including some I remembered my parents and their friends talking about; we agreed that there is a need for stories about those times to be recorded for posterity. Not long after this, I received an email from UNWLA headquarters. Attached to the email was a PDF file with a hand-written letter from a Mrs. Teresa Gluch and a copy of the story featured on this page. In her letter, Mrs. Gluch advised that the author of the story was a friend who had passed away in 2012, that both had been members of UNWLA Branch 93 in Hartford, Connecticut, and that Mrs. Kowalska’s story had been sent to her by the author’s daughter Nina, who had translated the story from Ukrainian into English and was interested in having it published in Our Life . During a follow-up phone chat I learned that Mrs. Gluch knows my Aunt Luba, who also lives in Connecticut, was part of my own “coming to Amer- ica” story, and was for many years an active member of the UNWLA. With Mrs. Gluch’s help I was able to connect with Mrs. Kowalska’s daughter Nina by phone, and we had a nice chat about our parents and the odd vicissitudes of life that brought them to America and how important it was to record these stories for posterity, etc. etc. etc. Almost eerily, the theme of writing down and preserving such stories has recently surfaced in com- munications with several other people (via email, during phone conversations, or in person over a cup of coffee at a diner or over a glass of merlot at a party). Perhaps this nostalgic trend is a sign of aging (although I prefer to think of it as a sign of maturity and wisdom that comes with maturity—in this case, the wisdom to recognize the importance of these war and post-war sagas and preserve them rather than simply chat- ting about them). I know several friends and acquaintances who have already embarked on this project; I have also started . . . it is a journey that is well worth the effort. – tsc
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