rished there alone (Chorzempa). This is
             how my grandparents and countless others grew up.
             The black sheep in my family was my great grandfather, named Antoni
             Marcinkowski. At the beginning of the war in 1940, he was thirty years old
             and like so many others was to be conscripted into the Polish army, where
             the probability was high that he would have died. He fled the country
             leaving his wife, Jozefina, and two very young daughters, one of who was my
             paternal grandmother Krystyna. Antoni found himself in France in 1942 and
             then somehow (the details are unclear) found a berth on a transoceanic ship
             bound for the U.S. Eventually he established residency in Chicago, which
             was to become the second largest Pole population outside Warsaw. In any
             case, almost all would argue he was a coward of the most contemptible kind.
             Yet, Antoni promised to send for his wife and two daughters after the end
             of war and when he could afford to. His wife did emigrate to the U.S. in
             1958 following the marriage of my two grandparents (Krystyna and
             Mieczyslaw). Krystyna's older sister,
             ...