Family Visits Here After Trip From Warsaw

Family Visits Here After Trip From Warsaw

Back in the United States from Warsaw, which they fled just before the German invasion of Poland, Mr. and Mrs. Jerome A. Straka and their six-year-old twins, Jane and James, are resting at the home of relatives here from the exhaustion of a nerve-wracking crossing of the Atlantic ocean.

The Strakas, who had lived for nine years in Warsaw where Mr. Straka was Warsaw director of the Colgate-Palmolive Co., are visiting Mrs. Straka’s sister, Mrs. C. A. Harris, and Mr. Harris, 1019 Lincoln Ave. Before living in Warsaw, their home was at Barrington, Ill.

Happy To Be Home

Mr. and Mrs. Straka are more than happy to be on this side of the ocean, although Mr. Straka rather wishes now he had stayed in Poland a little longer and witnessed the bombing by German planes of the city of Wilno (Vilna), which he missed by only 30 hours. Mrs. Straka, however, has no such regrets.

When the Strakas left Poland, they did so at the advice of American embassy, although the Strakas had no idea that war was so close at hand. Their Polish friends, they recall, believed Hitler was bluffing and that his “bluff” had been called.

Mrs. Straka left Warsaw with her two children in the Strakas' automobile on Aug. 22, traveling by boat from Gdynia to Copenhagen, Denmark, and across to Sweden, and then driving to Oslo.

Four days later Mr. Straka left Warsaw with an American commercial attache in a consulate car, driving to Wilno, which he left only 30 hours before the first Nazi bombers arrived Sept. 1. He then drove on to the Tallinn, Estonia, took a boat to Stockholm, and met his wife and children at Oslo.

After some delay they finally secured passage on a boat for the United States, leaving Gothenburg Sept. 22 on the Swedish-American liner Gripsholm, beginning the most harrowing of their experiences in fleeing a Europe at war.

Caution Observed

Hugging the Swedish and Norwegian coasts and often sailing through fjords rather than risk the open sea, the liner moved cautiously through waters made treacherous by floating mines into the Arctic circle and then west. Each night the lifeboats were put in readiness against a possible sudden sinking of the liner.

Not until the last night was that precaution stopped, and then a tremendous sigh almost shook the boat, for there ahead at last was the Statue of Liberty and New York harbor.

After resting for a few days in New York, the Strakas drove their car—they had brought it along on the boat because they were unable to sell it abroad—to Ann Arbor. They arrived while Mrs. Straka's mother, Mrs. Charles Lingo, and Mr. Lingo were visiting at the Harris home from Long Beach, Calif.

The Strakas believe their Warsaw home, which was near the embassy section, is now in ruins, but they expect to stay in this country until Europe quiets down.

SAFE IN AMERICA AFTER HARROWING OCEAN TRIP: Mr. and Mrs. Jerome A. Straka and their twin children are resting at the home of Mr. and Mrs. C. A. Harris, 1019 Lincoln Ave., after a thrilling crossing of the Atlantic. They left Warsaw, where they had lived for nine years, shortly before the war began.