Stolen Childhood: A Saga of Polish War Children
Written by Lucjan Krolikowski
Translated by Kazimierz J. Rozniatowski

The post-WWII adventures of 150 Polish children deported to Russian and ultimately rescued by a Franciscan priest who was branded a kidnapper by a Communist government.

Book Description
Stolen Childhood is the story of what happened to some 380,000 Polish children who, with their families, were rounded up by Stalin's orders in 1939 and deported into Asiatic Russia. Lucjan Krolikowski, a young seminarian also deported there, shared and witnessed the suffering of his fellow Poles.

Freed by an "amnesty," he joined the Polish Army, and when it moved to the Middle East, Lucjan resumed his theology studies, pronounced his vows, and became a chaplain to a Polish military hospital in Egypt. Reassigned to refugee camps in East Africa, Fr. Lucjan and the wandering Polish children met again in 1947--a meeting that began a long and loving relationship.

In 1949 when the Warsaw Communists claimed guardianship of the Polish orphans in Africa and demanded their repatriation, Fr. Lucjan was forced into a world of international intrigue. Called by the Communists "a kidnapper on an international scale," to his orphans, he was the good shepherd who led them to Canada, where he helped his charges overcome the theft of their childhood and become secure adults in a new world. Stolen Childhood is the book of memories he wrote for them, and a cautionary history for people of good will.

LUCJAN KROLIKOWSKI, born in 1919, survived a Siberian concentration camp, was ordained a Catholic priest in 1946, and led a band of 146 orphaned war children from a refugee camp in Africa on an adventure to find a new home in Canada. Father Lucjan lives and works in Chicopee, MA.

Publishing House: Authors Choice Press, New York 2001
Softcover book measuring 6" x 9"
348 pages, black & white photographs, maps
English Language Version

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