Like millions of other families in Europe, the Pawłowicz family had no idea how much their lives would be disrupted by the onset of WWII. The documents below, preserved by the family all these years, record the events that unfolded amidst the ensuing chaos and chronicle the family’s escape from Poland to their exile in Brazil.
Letter from Leszek to Bohdan
A 3-page account of 15-year old Leszek Pawłowicz’s departure from Torun, Poland with his mother and sister on August 29th 1939 to their arrival in Curitiba in May 1940. The original handwritten letter (pdf) in Polish was glued into Bohdan’s 12th diary, transcribed in typewritten form in Polish (pdf) and finally translated into English.