Hanging Hitler's Long Johns

In 2010 my new friend Roman Ward (nee Wisniewski) asked meto look at the journal his mother kept during their six-yearodyssey of dodging the Nazis, Polish bounty hunters, neo-Nazis andG.I. bigots during and in the aftermath of World War II. Roman had promised his mother, Jadwiga, on her deathbed thathe would have her journal published in his lifetime. Three writershad attempted to make a book of her journals but Roman felt all hadfailed utterly. I would learn that Roman himself had never read hismother's writing and, like many Jews who survived the Holocaust,Roman and Jadwiga had never even talked about the dangers theyfaced, the horrors they witnessed or the loss of over a hundred familymembers. Reading the journal made it obvious why the other writers haddisappointed Roman: The best story was his. In fifty years as a workingjournalist it is the most astonishing personal narrative I have everheard; how a 12-year-old boy was entrusted by his father with savinghis older sister and mother. "e;You are the only one who will survivethis war,"e; Roman's father told him in the Polish ghetto before Romanfled wearing a Hitler Youth uniform. This then is the story of Roman Ward from his birth in Poland,through the War and DP camps, through his service in the fledglingIsraeli Air Force to finally reuniting with his mother in America. Hehas honored his promise to his mother; each chapter begins with heraccount of what happened and the book is filled with her accountswherever Roman could confirm and expand them. It's a true and amazing story. Frank FeldingerLos Angeles, 2016