More About The Film

Father Lucjan Krolikowski, author of Stolen Childhood, A Saga of Polish War Children, is interviewed extensively in the documentary. He received The Commander’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta from then-President Lech Kaczynski of the Republic of Poland.

As a young seminarian, Krolikowski was deported to Siberia in 1939 along with hundreds of thousands of Polish families. Krolikowski made his vows as a priest three days before the outbreak of the war. Maximilian Kolbe who later became Fr. Krolikowski’s mentor and eventually a saint was in attendance.

Fr. Krolikowski eventually was reassigned to an East African camp for Polish refugees. Then, in 1949, the Warsaw Communists claimed guardianship of the Polish orphans in Africa and demanded their repatriation. Fr. Krolikowski was dubbed "a kidnapper on an international scale" by the Polish government when he led the orphans away from potential danger and to new homes in Canada. He now resides at the Basilica of St. Stanislaus in Chicopee, Mass., and is still in contact with ‘his’ orphans.

Dr. Lynne Taylor

Also interviewed is Dr. Lynne Taylor, a professor of history at the University of Waterloo and author of Polish Orphans of Tengeru: The Dramatic Story of their Long Journey to Canada, 1941-49.

Taylor is an expert on state-society relations in Western Europe in the context of war. She has spent considerable time studying questions of resistance and collaboration during World War II and has a book published on the Nazi occupations of northern France during World War II. Taylor teaches 19th and 20th century Western European history, and is currently researching the Displaced Persons crisis in Germany in the immediate aftermath of World War II.