Mother reunited with son after 60 years
Published: April 19, 2007
If there’s one memory Anna Rogers wanted to hold on to from her experiences during the Second World War, it was her son.
Ms. Rogers, 89, lost touch with him when she was ordered to leave her native Poland and was sent to a labour camp in Austria more than 60 years ago.
Finally, last Wednesday, the Sunderland resident had more than a memory of a nine-month-old baby to embrace when she was reunited with her only child, Andrzej Piekarski of Poland at Pearson International Airport.
Now 64, a jovial Mr. Piekarski hugged his mother, who had been waiting for him anxiously alongside Red Cross officials, and the two smiled at each other lovingly.
“It’s a dream come true,” he said in Polish through Red Cross translator Ola Smaga.
Before being sent off to the labour camp, Ms. Rogers left her infant son with her mother-in-law, because her husband and other relatives had already become casualties of war. Mr. Piekarski explained he searched for his mother for more than 50 years, almost giving up. But his mother made first contact with him via a phone call.
“Do you know who this is on the other side of the phone?” Mr. Piekarski recalled his mother’s first words to him in over half a century.
With a smile, he added that he wrote down his mother’s phone number improperly and spent another month trying to reach her again.
When he did, the two talked regularly on the phone for three months leading up to the meeting, to break down the language barrier. Ms. Roger’s ability to speak Polish had slipped over the years and Mr. Piekarski doesn’t speak English.
After the war, Ms. Rogers could not retrieve her son and fled to Italy, eventually ending up in Great Britain, the U.S. and then Canada 45 years ago.
Mr. Piekarski contacted the Polish Red Cross last year to aid in her search.
Radmila Rokvic-Pilipovic, a Canadian Red Cross zone co-ordinator, explained that search filtered through other Red Cross units in Germany, Britain, and then to the national co-ordinator in British Columbia.
“The Germans kept really good records during the (Second World War),” she explained.
“After the war, we got all the information from the camps.”
Ms. Rogers had enlisted help of neighbours to use the Internet and library resources to track her son down, making phone calls to Poland with no luck. The two had stepped up their efforts to locate one another at the same time.
“It was a meeting of the minds,” the mother said.
Mr. Piekarski said he will stay with his mother in Sunderland for about a month, with no definite plans in mind.
“It’s like a blind date. I’ve no idea what to do.”
Back home, Mr. Piekarski has a wife and two children aged 29 and 14.
“Suddenly I have a big family,” said Ms. Rogers.
The Red Cross ‘Restoring Family Links’ program helps Canadians re-establish contact with family following wars and disasters. There is a network of 183 Red Cross societies throughout the world that is used to locate individuals being sought by loved ones.
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