Looking for Mr. Smith by Linda Willis

Author:Linda Willis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2011-03-04T00:00:00+00:00

The flipping and flopping between the two versions of the same story caused me a lot of headaches. It was difficult to accept that Rawicz’s story was made up, or rather, that the story was true but his part in it was not. On the other hand, could I wholly accept Glinski’s story? I kept in mind that Glinski had never publicized his experiences and hardly ever spoke of them except to his family. He was convinced that Rawicz was a murderer using an alias and, therefore, had kept quiet about his own past for decades. At this point in time, six decades after the escape and walk, what had he to gain by talking about his wartime experiences? Nothing. He simply answered my query in a Polish-language newspaper in a moment of irritation—a moment of wanting to correct the record, thinking Rawicz and Batko were the same man, and wanting me to know it. It thus came as a surprise to Glinski when he realized we were discussing two different men, and Rawicz was no longer a threat to him.

That still left Glinski wondering about Batko. At this time I received news from Cornwall, England, about the mysterious figure of Batko. His true existence added another element of perplexity to the tale, as if there weren’t already plenty of unsolved mysteries to investigate.

In mid-2005, an e-mail arrived from the archives of the Cornwall Record Office in southern England stating that someone had taken an interest in my request regarding Batko and, voilà, had found an old record. That record went a long way in corroborating the existence of Batko—the man who was a murderer and whose presence and subsequent memory had terrorized Glinski for years. As it turned out, Jan Batko had in fact existed: He was arrested in Redruth, Cornwall, on June 19, 1948, and was found guilty and fined for taking and driving a lorry without the owner’s knowledge or consent, said lorry being uninsured and said driver (Batko) not having an operator’s license. He appeared in court on June 22, 1948—and that was the last anyone knew or heard of him. Still, it confirmed his existence and added further believability to Glinski’s story.

Hot on the heels of this proof of Batko’s existence was additional information pertaining to Rawicz. Photocopies arrived from Russia of official documents with many rubber-stamp imprints. The smaller of the two new documents was a typed certificate in Russian stating that Rawicz was amnestied and allowed to move around and leave Russia. This document was dated September 1, 1941 (the official amnesty date for Poles as designated in the treaty signed between Stalin and Sikorski on that date). The second new document was longer and was a certificate with an expiry date: April 1, 1942. This document certified that Mr. Rusiecki-Rawicz, patronym Feodor, currently living in Taseevo region, may depart from Khrasnoyarsk to Dzhambul for the purpose of joining the Polish Army. It ended with a flourish, stating that the representative of the (Polish) Delegatura Ambasady R.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.