"Joe Diamonski?"
Oh no... it's unusual.
My father's father was Russian but escaped from the Russia after his father was shot by the NKVD up against the wall of the family house. He went to Poland, changed his name, just in time for the Nazis to invade.
Then he escaped via Sweden & Norway, across the North Sea in a fishing boat, to Britain.
Served in the Free Polish forces in Italy and Germany and after the war pretended he was Polish to avoid being sent back to Stalin's Russia. He was illegal.
Of course, the other side of the family is German...
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Here's a funny thing that happened to me once. Textbook example of serendipity.
So I was at Burning Man. Been out all night on my own, off ma todd, snapping photos with my tripod. Hitched a ride on an art car and jumped off at the HookahDome...
...and promptly ran in to my American friend. Fancy meeting you here!
He's with a guy called Dave who, 15 mins earlier, just ran in to a school friend he hasn't seen in 20 years. So they're chatting blah blah.
So we're sitting in the dust, watching the sunrise and drinking tequila and Kahlua mixed (much better than it sounds) and I get chatting to Dave's friend's wife.
Turns out she's Polish.
I mention that I have a Polish surname and she tells me what it means. It's an occupational surname, like Smith or Fletcher or Clark or something.
We do the family history bit - work out our grandfathers fought in the same battalion at Monte Cassino.
How's *that* for a tangential meeting? |
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