60 years later, Mother, son finally reunited
Published: April 13, 2007
A mother who had her nine-month-old son ripped from her arms when German forces invaded Poland more than 60 year ago had a smile on her face yesterday when she was reunited with him in Toronto.
“That’s my son,” Anna Rogers said when she saw Andrzej Piekarski for the first time since she was forced into a labour camp in Austria 63 years ago.
Piekarski was handed over to her mother-in-law to look after because his father previously had been killed by the Nazis for his role as a partisan in the Polish underground.
During the war, his grandmother passed away and he then was left in the care of two women eager to enjoy his paternal inheritance.
After the war ended, Rogers had made her way safely to London and sent for her son. Unfortunately for Piekarski, his new guardians refused to give up their new-found riches.
“He was the heir to real estate,” Rogers said.
Her son then grew up in Poland, away from his mother, but he never gave up looking for her.
For more than 50 years, he searched for her, sending off inquiries to every agency and government he knew—but he faced many challenges.
His mother moved to Canada in 1954, and she had remarried and anglicized her name. Meanwhile, the women who raised him offered no help at all—they even hid his mother’s letters.
It was only once one of them was on her death bed that he learned of his mother’s undying love.
After contacting the Polish Red Cross, and turning over a few more unturned stones along with the help of the British Red Cross, he determined she had immigrated to North America, but wasn’t sure if it was to Canada or the United States.
However, he finally got a lucky break—a third-party had tracked Rogers to a home in Sunderland, Ont., about 100 km northeast of Toronto.
Last October, contact was made by the third-party and the two spoke on the phone.
“Andrzej,’’ she said when speaking to him for the first time. “Do you know who this is?”
Since speaking for the first time, the two talked by phone every couple of days until they had the chance to meet in person at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport.
“She looks wonderful,” Piekarski said of the chance to finally meet his mother. “It’s a dream come true. I never thought I would be able to find her.”
“I am so happy,” agreed Rogers, now approaching her 90s. “My son is all right. I am all right. And I get to see him again before I die.”
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