Krystyna's story

"As a child I loved my mother but she seemed different from other mothers. She didn't know how old she was. She couldn't remember where she was born. I wondered what had happened to her that she could have forgotten such important things. It had something to do with the Second World War..." Krystyna is one of 732 'Polish children' who survived forced deportation to the Soviet Union and was given a home in New Zealand in 1944. Her remarkable story, a composite portrait drawn from interviews with Polish survivors, begins in a peaceful Polish village and follows her family's harrowing journey to a labor camp in Siberia, the terrible flight to freedom, and Krystyna's lonely voyage to a safe refuge in New Zealand. This is a beautifully evoked account of a child's journey through Europe at war, and a young woman's bewildering encounter with rural New Zealand.

Krystyna's Story

Ogonowska-Coates, Halina

Shoal Bay Press

"As a child I loved my mother but she seemed different from other mothers. She didn't know how old she was. She couldn't remember where she was born. I wondered what had happened to her that she could have forgotten such important things. It had something to do with the Second World War..."  Krystyna is one of 732 'Polish children' who survived forced deportation to the Soviet Union and was given a home in New Zealand in 1944. Her remarkable story, a composite portrait drawn from interviews with Polish survivors, begins in a peaceful Polish village and follows her family's harrowing journey to a labor camp in Siberia, the terrible flight to freedom, and Krystyna's lonely voyage to a safe refuge in New Zealand.  This is a beautifully evoked account of a child's journey through Europe at war, and a young woman's bewildering encounter with rural New Zealand.

Bridget Williams Books

Krystyna is brought up on a farm in eastern Poland - before the Second World War tears her life, her family and her country apart. Having survived forced deportation to the Soviet Union and several years in a Siberian labour camp, she becomes one of the 'Polish children' brought to New Zealand by the Fraser government. She eventually marries a New Zealander and has children: looking out at a very different world at the end of her life, she can never forget the horrors she knew in her youth.'Krystyna' is constructed from oral history: she is one or all of the women that author Halina Ogonowska-Coates interviewed - women who were among the 'Polish children', girls who grew up into New Zealand women but who always retained their memories of a Polish childhood and a European war.

Krystyna's Story (New Zealand Women's Lives)

Literature & Fiction

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Books by Ogonowska-Coates, Halina

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Ogonowska-Coates, Halina. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Krystyna's Story

Krystyna's story

Krystyna's Story (New Zealand Women's Lives)