[cyclotic]

I once met a lady who escaped Poland. She was the only female in her family not raped by soviets. One day, her parents pointed her east and said “go”.

She escaped by running past Soviet tanks. An American GI ran out and grabbed her to safety.

[MinuteGal]

A German relative of mine, age 16, was rounded up along with all women and girls in a small German village. They were herded into a barn where they and their mothers and grandmothers were raped by Russian army soldiers passing through the village on their way to Berlin.

After the war, my immigrant German grandparents, living in a Chicago suburb since the early 1900's and owning a prosperous bakery, sponsored her, and she came to live in their suburb for about a year.

She opened a beauty shop on borrowed money which catered to rich people, her clients including the women members of the mobster Tony Accardo and the mobster Sam Giancanna families who lived in her Chicago suburban area. She made a lot of money, often traveling to Italy with the mafia wives to take care of their hair and beauty needs while visiting abroad.

She retired to Tucson AZ where she invested in another beauty salon, again prospering.

Now deceased, she never married.

The scars remained

Leni