Antoni and Antonina Wedding Picture, 1941

My Darling Ewa,

As you know, in September 1939, Nazi forces invaded Poland. The peaceful nation of Poland was situated between Germany to the west and Russia on the east. Russia invaded Poland weeks after the Germans and the democratic nation of Poland was partitioned for a fourth time by two neighboring tyrant dictators. German Chancelor (Dictator) Adolph Hitler wanted more land for settling Germans and Stalin saw an opportunity for an easy victory over a nation overcome with fear and confusion. When the Polish military was swiftly defeated, a young man named Antoni thought to flee the advancing German Army so he joined thousands of refugee families leaving in carts, wagons, cars and on foot to Eastern Poland to escape capture. To the complete surprise of the Polish refugees the Russian Army occupied the eastern partition and drove the Poles from their homes. All the refugees fleeing the German invasion were forced to return to the homes from which they had fled. Antony swiftly returned to Krakow to face his fate at the hands of enemy soldiers. As fate would have it, Krakow was spared much of the destruction and devastation in northern Poland which was the most direct route between Germany and Russia. Friends introduced him to the owner of a shoe shop so he went to work as an apprentice for him. The owner, Bolek, was the older brother of Antonina. It was there that he met Antonina, the love of his life and future wife. She worked in the shop for her brother but when they met she had a boyfriend. Before long, Antoni asked Antonina out for dinner and she broke off her relationship with her boyfriend who cried when she told him. They married in 1941 and would walk along the Rudawa River to his parents home. They noticed a nice plot of land along that river and Antoni, with all the confidence of a young man in love, told his Antonina that someday he would buy that land and they would build a home on it. Antonina said that would be ‘marzenie scietej głowy’ (a dream come true). They were in love in the crucible of Nazi and Russian terror. Both occupying powers were equally hostile to the existence of a sovereign Poland, her culture and her people, intending complete destruction of the nation. Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union co-ordinated their Poland-related policies. They discussed plans for dealing with the Polish resistance movement and the future destruction of Poland. In the most hopeless of situations, Antoni and Antonina dared to dream. Love grows in the crucible, no matter how hopeless. It is such a hopeless situation as this that attracts the attention of our loving All Mighty Creator God. All things are possible in Him. God was pleased with their dream and with his blessing this Krakow couple would overcome adversity and obstacles to achieve their dreams. The Nazi SS and Russian torture, torment and terror machine was a crucible (a place or situation in which concentrated forces interact to cause change or developement) designed to destroy all who resisted Germanization or Russification of the Polish citizenry. The shared evil intent was the absolute and complete eradication of Poland, a peaceful nation. As a young orphan girl, Antonina would sit on a fence and dream of owning a home and how she would furnish it. God, Antoni and Antonina would make her dream come true and glorify His Holy Name. Who wouldn’t love a God like that?