The Meaning of Survival
In 1944, Stanley and Diana made a business trip to the city of Tarnów, in southern Poland, to deliver coffee products. The Gestapo was now on the hunt for Stanisław Sternikowski, and so Stanley adopted yet another false identity: his last name was now Krzemiński, to match Diana’s false name of Anna Krzemińska. Upon entering a restaurant in Tarnów, Stanley and Diana were followed, and subsequently arrested at the train station. They were detained in prison for a month, during which they were beaten and tortured. Diana, who was pregnant with her first child, lost the baby by miscarriage.
Stanley and Diana were living near Kraków, with relatives of Diana, when Soviet troops liberated the city in January, 1945. Still reeling from the loss of their unborn child, Stanley and Diana emerged from the war to confront a tremendous reality of loss. Stanley’s entire immediate family had been killed. His mother, Salomea, was murdered during the Nazi liquidation of the Kielce ghetto. Stanley’s father, Siegfried, was deported from Kielce and most likely was murdered in Treblinka, a death camp. Stanley had found a hiding place near Warsaw for his sister Helena, together with her husband David and baby Nina. In 1944, Helena, David and Nina were betrayed to the Gestapo, arrested, and shot.
A Wedding in Wartime
Epilogue
