Poles Apart

It is 1938, and Poland is on the cusp of war. Stefania, a thirty-one-year-old peasant farmer, laughs with a rare, cautious joy. As a gypsy had predicted when Stefania was twelve, her arranged marriage to Kazimierz Bednarski, twenty-three, has borne fruit. She is pregnant.

But her happiness is fleeting ...

Poles Apart is initially told through the eyes of one seemingly ordinary Polish peasant woman, Stefania, as she battles to survive WWII. This is interwoven with flashbacks to her childhood, connecting love across generations. Her daughter's voice builds from a whisper beside her mother's, until she alone narrates the story to its end.

A devout Catholic and romantic, Stefania's greatest desire was to marry and raise a family. Her life quickly spirals downwards as she contends with disappointments, separation and then heartbreaking tragedy and murder following the rise of Hitler and her transportation to a German labour camp.

In Stefania's darkest moments, the worst of humanity contrasts starkly with compassion from the most unlikely quarter, leading to the birth of Janina and the struggle to ensure her daughter's survival.

The end of the war presents a series of new challenges and fortuitous mistakes which lead to Stefania, Janina and their small family journeying across the world to start a new life.

Poles Apart is deeply influenced by the calamity of war and the moral and ethical dilemmas faced by individuals on both sides of a conflict. It is the imperfect nature of the main characters that is honest and relatable.

Having lost control over their lives, their stoic resistance to adversity and even death elicits courage, discipline and justice. This perseverance was vital to the Bednarski's survival, and despite their enduring burden of grief, is why they were able to forge a fulfilled and happy life post-war.