The Mermaid And The Messerschmitt (Paperback)

THE MERMAID AMD THE MESSERSCHMITT RULKA LANGER ROY SLAVONIC PUBLICATIONS NEW YORK COPYRIGHT, 1942, BY ROY SLAVONIC PUBLICATIONS PRINTED AND BOUND IN THE U. S. A. BY KINGSPORT PRESS, INC., KINGSPORT, TENN. BINDERY JULK, 1957 ALL the characters in this story are real, and so are the episodes. I have changed the names of people and places but I have tried to make them as true to life as I could. Even conversations are reported almost verbatim. I wrote this book because I was homesick. I wrote it, also, to show my many American friends why I was not happy to leave Poland in February, 1940, even though I was coming to the United States the friendliest and most hospitable country in the world a country I love so much. Arent you lucky to be out of that hell people would exclaim when I first arrived. I dont know . . ., I would answer hesitatingly, and they looked at me with surprise. The fact was I didnt consider myself lucky. Perhaps it was hell. But if so, it was my own kind of hell, a hell I loved with all my heart. It was only for my childrens sake that I had left Warsaw. Finally, I wrote this book to show my readers what it is like for an average human being to live through the Blitzkrieg. No war correspondent, however brilliant and American correspondents are the most brilliant the world over, can ever do that. A war correspondent is always on the spot wherever the most dreadful things happen. A bombed hospital, an orphanage set in flames, he sees them all. He talks to hundreds of destitute peo ple. In fact, he sees ten times more of the horrors of war thaiiujthe v rage, person in the same city does. And yet, tj when he runs to that gigantic fire, leave his own children behind in hishotel caught in an air raid, he doesnt tremble for the life of his own old mother. His brother has not vanished somewhere on the crowded, plane-infested roads. It isnt his own house, the house in which he was born and has lived for years that has been set on fire by an incendiary. And if he himself goes through the agony of mortal fear none of his readers will ever know about it. This is no part of his reporting job. . . . To the average person, I think, war horrors come pretty much like the pangs of child-birth. At first, in spite of apprehensions, life still goes on, almost normal, with all of its little trivialities. Then comes the pang wild, screaming, inhuman. You think youll never stand it yet you do. It passes once more you are yourself. Trivialities reappear. Another insane, unbearable pang. . . . And yet another breathing spell with its tiny but insistent daily cares, its humor and its griefs., . . And in that horrible process in which so many die, new human beings are born. For no one who has been through war will ever be quite the same person again, R. L. July, 1942 NEW CANAAN, CONNECTICUT TO MY MOTHER 1 IN FRONT of the house, under the big chestnut tree, Mother sat on a wooden bench talking to Uncle. Uncle, tall and gaunt, was leaning on his stick, while Ania, my towhead three-year-old daughter, tugged at his hand and made sweet eyes at him. She was a grand one with men, regardless of their age, Ania was. When she saw us ap proaching she let go of Uncles hand, and ran with out stretched arms to hug me. Who won Mother asked. We were just returning from a volley-ball game. It was one of those riotous family affairs, in which the grown-ups joined the chil dren, and onlychildren took seriously. But Mother was always immensely interested in all our games. They I said dramatically, while trying to free my self from Anias embrace. Lets go in for tea. Im raven ous. Fresh crescents for tea today, Basia, our hostess, an nounced proudly. Hurray I Warm, crunchy crescents, with butter which will melt, and golden honey on top of that, drip ping . . . Before we entered the house I caught a glimpse of Georges blue shirt, and Tereskas red dress, flashing among the trees at the other end of the big, sloping lawn...