![]() The armband had a big WP on it, for Wojsko Polskie, translated to mean ‘Polish army’ or ‘Polish military.’ It had an eagle between the letters, the symbol of Poland, representing strength and freedom. So, we wore German uniforms, except we added red and white Polish armbands. ![]() “We started the Uprising just wearing the clothes on our backs, our civilian clothes, but shortly into the Uprising, we got into a German storage facility and took German uniforms. We had to be ready for just about anything at a moment’s notice.” Our superiors in the underground would issue orders about points of interest and objectives, and the information was disseminated by the women and girls who served as messengers. The different units and cells of the Resistance were kept separate and secret, organizing themselves through messages sent by couriers between anonymous commanders. “My unit was operating in relative secrecy, part of the Polish underground. ![]() Why had he built such huge walls around his past? Did he have something to hide? Or was this just the unspoken trauma of war? I’m astounded that he never discussed-not with me, not with his wife, not with his employers - that his youth was spent dodging death, fighting to save his country. Men who go completely quiet about everything they saw or did during the war. Not “Ryszard Kossobudzki from war-ravaged Poland,” but “Richard Cosby, American citizen,” a man not unlike many in America’s “greatest generation”: disciplined fathers, who want their children to succeed, their wives to love them unquestioningly, and their employers to respect them. Had I, for example, made a career of asking questions because my dad never answered mine? Did I become a journalist because my father left me always wanting to know more?Īm I so social because my dad never was, for fear of people asking him about his past, the history of his life? The one thing that’s certain is that I suddenly realized that by the time I was born, the harbored secrets of my dad’s life had already transformed him into someone else. Is this normal in parent-child relationships? Do other children not know much about their own parents’ early years, the time “pre-me”?Īnd deeper still, do other children know anything of their parents’ triumphs, their tragedies, their fears? I had found the key to a locked chest of my father’s secrets, and perhaps to myself. As I sat next to him, I was forced to acknowledge that I never knew much about him at all, especially about his formative years. In a few hours and two dozen questions, I had learned more about my father’s past than I had garnered in my entire life.
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