This is a photo of my Ciocia Dominika and her three daughters (my cousins), Basia, Alicja and Kazimiera Janina (Ninka).

This photo was taken just after the war. My aunt and her family lived in my fathers village, Branica Suchowolska, near Radzyn Podlaski in eastern Poland.

Ninka was born during the war. As my father and my uncle Kazik were in the airforce before and during World War II, they were evacuated with the Polish armed forces to Romania, then to France and finally Britain. Their elder and only sister Dominika did not know what had happened to them, so she named her newly born daughter after her brothers, Kazimierz and Jan.

Unfortunately my aunt and cousin Basia have both passed away.

My maternal grandmother, Zofia Dabrowski nee Kosciuszkiewicz, who migrated to her only daughter Alina in Australia when I was 9 months old. She was always an elegant lady, who loved playing bridge with her son-in-law and 'the boys" (namely my fathers friends from his early days of settlement in Melbourne). Is it any wonder that with bridge playing fanatics on both sides of the family that I turned out to be one as well,  

Babcia died when I was 15 years old.