Two of my husband Martin's aunts, one on each side of his family, had to make decisions which would transform their lives in one way or another. Orphaned in WW2 after losing her mother to starvation on the way from a labour camp in the Soviet Union to freedom in Persia, fifteen year old Maria Danuta (Danka) Stepek was transferred to Palestine. At the and of the war she was happy to stay in Palestine, but when the Arab-Israeli War broke out in 1948, all Polish citizens were evacuated to England. There she became friendly with an older couple, both lawyers, who had no children of their own. They suggested to her that they would adopt her formally and she could emigrate with them to the USA. Danka deeply appreciated the offer as she was very close to the couple, but made the decision to stay in Britain, where her brother and her sister now also lived. Danka (on the left) in 1947 alongside Martin's mum, Teresa Murphy. A decade later, another of Martin's aunts, this time on...
My ancestors, their stories and my genealogical journey