My wife and I share a past that spans continents and tracks back to the Polish-Ukrainian border. Eighty-two years ago, during a frigid winter, both sets of our grandparents made the same escape from eastern Poland, ahead of the Nazis’ occupation. They crossed the River Bug, and found their way to what is today Lviv, Ukraine.
For more than a decade we’ve wanted to visit our ancestral homeland. The plan at last was set — and we hope it still is — in May, we are to arrive in Zamosc, Poland, birthplace of three of our grandparents, stop by the nearby village where the fourth came from, and then drive two hours east to Lviv.
But just when you think you are studying history, you find that you are living it. Except now, the refugees are fleeing in the opposite direction.
