TOGETHER AT LAST
When George, aged 69, spotted Lucien, his twin brother, his eyes filled up with tears. He felt like he was looking into a mirror. A few weeks prior, he had only found out about Lucien, but this moment meant the world to him.
But they still had an objective: to learn more about their mother’s tale and how they came to be divided in the first place.
WHAT WAR DOES
Experiencing a war causes a lot of people to deal with the horrible consequences thereof. Many people lose their lives, and many lose those near and dear to them.
Another awful effect of war is that some people will be permanently separated from their families. People go through life feeling empty knowing that something is missing. However, there is always the chance of them reuniting.
BLISSFULLY UNAWARE
George and Lucien went about their lives, totally unaware of the other’s existence. They lived separate lives, with separate homes, friends, and even continents. However, they both knew something was missing and they would soon discover what exactly it was.
This is how it went down.
GEORGE SKRZYNECKY
George Skrzynecky did not have a lot of memories from his childhood. He knew that his parents were the Skrzynecky’s who were from Szczecin and that he had no brothers or sisters.
However, things started to annoy him at one point.
OUTSIDER
He fought a lot with his parents as a teenager, and he felt like an outsider in his family.
After his 17th birthday, something occurred that pushed him past his breaking point. It was something that altered the rest of his life.
UNCOVERING THEIR SECRET
At the Skrzynecky’s house, he discovered some documents. Everything started to make sense as he studied them. He was a child who had been adopted! He didn’t feel at ease there, of course: those weren’t his biological parents! The papers, on the other hand, made no mention of George’s birth parents.
After his 17th birthday, he left Poland for the United States. He wanted to establish a fresh start in America, and he had no intention of returning. He wouldn’t find out until later when something occurred that made him question his life.
HE KNEW
Lucian, on the other hand, was reared by a different family, the Poznanskis of Lublin. He lived a more pleasant life than his brother, feeling at ease with his adoptive parents, joining the military when he grew older, and eventually marrying a local girl.
Prior to his enlistment in the military, his mother told him he was adopted. He was never made aware of his twin brother’s existence though. His life was mostly dominated by a strange feeling he had lurking in his mind.
SOMETHING WAS LACKING
He was always aware that something was lacking. He only had a vague idea that he had a twin sibling somewhere. He dreamed about it almost every night.
As a result, he decided to start looking into his background. He was content with his life, yet it was still incomplete. He was on a mission to find his long-lost twin brother, and he wasn’t going to stop until he did.
FINDING HIS BROTHER
While growing up, Lucian lived in a Red Cross foster home until he met his adoptive parents. The Red Cross is one of the organizations that help orphans find their biological families.
This is how Lucian learned about George. He wrote him a letter, and the long-lost twins scheduled a meeting in Poland soon after. Lucian was waiting eagerly at the Warsaw airport when he noticed George.
THE MEETING
George’s eyes welled up with emotions when he spotted his brother Lucian waiting for him. The two separated twins dashed towards each other and hugged. They felt complete for the first time as if they had discovered a missing ingredient of their personal history and heritage.
However, something was still missing. So, they decided to dedicate themselves to completing one mission.
THEY HAD TO KNOW EVERYTHING
Now they had to find all the truth about their history. Who their parents were, why did they give them away for adoption, why did they get separated from each other.
With the help of the Red Cross, they spent weeks investigating the matter. They traveled to the old orphanage where they spent the first months of their lives, they talked to ninety-year-old nuns that used to work at the orphanage during that time, they went through old documents. Until finally, they found the truth.
THEIR MOM’S STORY
They learned that their mother had been pregnant with them during WWII. She was a prisoner in a German work camp at that time. She gave birth to them little after the war ended.
She was sick and poor when George and Lucian were born. She couldn’t take care of them properly; that’s why she gave them to a convent so the nuns there would look after their needs properly. But something happened that she didn’t expect.
THEY TOOK THE KIDS AWAY
The kids were sent to a Red Cross center in Poland. Maybe it was a matter of negligence, or maybe the nuns just thought they would be better off there, far from the aftermath of the war. But they were also far from their mother.
The Red Cross center was full of lost children; so they arranged an adoption agreement for George and Lucian, as they did with many other lost kids. But there was a downside to it.
THEY HAD TO BE SEPARATED
After the war, there weren’t many available foster parents who could afford to take care of two children. That was the reason why they were given to two different families.
That was never what their mom intended for them; she didn’t even want to give them away permanently, to begin with. All she wanted was for them to be taken care of by the nuns while she was sick and poor. But who was their father? Why hadn’t he been there for them?
HE WAS AN AMERICAN SOLDIER
Their mom wasn’t married; apparently, their father was an American soldier who went back home after the war ended. George and Lucian were amazed that their lives had so many similarities: George had migrated to America and Lucian had become a soldier.
Learning about this story, tears came to both George’s and Lucian’s eyes. But they were happy for finally reuniting and finally finding something that they had been longing for during their whole lives: their own history.