Shout out to

you, Papa.

Yeah.

He's passionate about the world and learning about it.

He's the one that really instilled this identity of where I come from and where my roots stem from.

And he lived in the U.S. for, gosh, like 40 years.

And he moved back to Poland.

And that of course happened to your grandmother, uh, And was there any real reason why your family was arrested and deported to Siberia, or was it just simply because they were Polish and they were in the wrong place at the wrong time when the Soviets took over eastern Poland?

What other kind of research did you have to do for this memoirs?

So my grandmother originally wrote down her.

the story of her family prior to the war, all the way until they were able to leave Siberia.

And when I translated that, I sent it to multiple people in my family for feedback.

And one person in particular wrote back to me, my dad.

My dad is a huge history buff.

He's the one that really got me very interested, not only in Polish history, but in Slavic culture, global history, global politics.

And that of course happened to your grandmother And was there any real reason why your family was arrested and deported to Siberia, or was it just simply because they were Polish and they were in the wrong place at the wrong time when the Soviets took over eastern Poland?

so we always begin our interviews by asking our guests tell us a little bit about yourself and the backstory uh working on this book now you are not the exact author you're the translator of this but could you tell us a little bit like what motivated you to work on this book

yeah Sure.

So I was born in Houston to Polish parents.

And I spent every single summer of my life essentially in the countryside of Poland, namely spending it with my grandmother, Ida Kynarska-Titruska, who is a Gulag survivor.

She survived a sidereal as a child during World War II.

And at the age of six, she was deported and sent into exile along with her mom.

And growing up, we heard her stories and she would always talk about it really high level of it was cold and the hunger and the disease.

And when I sent him the