A Polish VoiceSandy WeatherburnLabel: Brown Dog BooksDescription: A young teenager enlisted into the Polish Army in 1938. Deported to the Soviet Union and imprisoned in a Siberian prison camp this audacious soldier became reunited with his compatriots in Scotland where he trained as a paratrooper and took part in the fated WW2 Operation Market Garden Arnhem in 1944.Fifty years later then a patient in hospital the soldier recounted his life’s experience to my father in the next bed who had the forethought to record their conversation onto a Dictaphone machine. My father’s empathetic nature and harrowing childhood experiences of seeing HMS Foylebank destroyed by German bomber planes on his way to school in 1940 led to a unique and unlikely friendship.The discovery of these recordings in 2020 inspired The Polish Voice a fully researched historical record of both men’s lives a tribute to them reminding us of the importance to listen to one another and the legacy of a recorded voice.
