Adamczyk, Wesley H.

Mr. Wesley Adamczyk, born 1933 in Warsaw, and presently of Deerfield, Illinois, is a Diamond Life Master, a term designating a bridge player with 5,000 masterpoints or more. He is also a contributor to the Advocate of District 8, which includes Illinois except the Chicago area, St. Louis and Eastern Missouri, Northern Indiana, and a small portion of Northwest Kentucky.

He is also a published contributor to The Bridge World, and one of the several articles are titled: Two-Way Raises of Overcalls in the issue February 1990, V61, N5.

At the 70th Summer North America Bridge Championships in 1998 he placed 17th in the Senior Swiss Teams Qualifiers with teammates: John Chmielowiec, Michigan City, Indiana; Dick Benson, Le Roy, Illinois; Worth Vaughan, Madison, Wisconsin.

 

 

When God Looked the Other Way - An Odyssey of War, Exile, and Redemption

By Wesley Adamczyk
Publication Date: May 15, 2006 and Foreign Publication Date: June 10, 2006. Source: Internet

A memoir of a childhood spent in unspeakable circumstances, When God Looked the Other Way illuminates one of the darkest periods of European history - the Soviet Union's quiet yet brutal campaign against Polish citizens during World War II.

Book Description: Often overlooked in accounts of World War II is the Soviet Union's quiet yet brutal campaign against Polish citizens, a campaign that included, we now know, war crimes for which the Soviet and Russian governments only recently admitted culpability. Standing in the shadow of the Holocaust, this episode of European history is often overlooked. Wesley Adamczyk's gripping memoir, When God Looked the Other Way, now gives voice to the hundreds of thousands of victims of Soviet barbarism.

WesleyAdamczyk was a young Polish boy when he was deported with his mother and siblings from their comfortable home in Luck to Soviet Siberia in May of 1940. His father, a Polish Army officer, was taken prisoner by the Red Army and eventually became one of the victims of the Katyn massacre, in which tens of thousands of Polish officers were slain at the hands of the Soviet secret police. The family's separation and deportation in 1940 marked the beginning of a ten-year odyssey in which the family endured fierce living conditions, meager food rations, chronic displacement, and rampant disease, first in the Soviet Union and then in Iran, where Adamczyk's mother succumbed to exhaustion after mounting a harrowing escape from the Soviets. Wandering from country to country and living in refugee camps and the homes of strangers, Adamczyk struggled to survive and maintain his dignity amid the horrors of war.

When God Looked the Other Way is a memoir of a boyhood lived in unspeakable circumstances, a book that not only illuminates one of the darkest periods of European history but also traces the loss of innocence and the fight against despair that took root in one young boy. It is also a book that offers a stark picture of the unforgiving nature of Communism and its champions. Unflinching and poignant, When God Looked the Other Way will stand as a testament to the trials of a family during wartime and an intimate chronicle of episodes yet to receive their historical due.

"One of the most remarkable World War II sagas I have ever read. It is history with a human face." Written by: Arnold Beichman, Washington Times

"Most people are not aware that the Soviet Union annexed the eastern half of Poland in September 1939. Even fewer know that until June 1941, as many as 500,000 Polish 'enemies of the state' were deported to the U.S.S.R…. When God Looked the Other Way is fascinating, upsetting, and full of small shocks; and Mr. Adamczyk writes heartfelt, straightforward prose…. This book sheds light on more than one forgotten episode of history." Written by: Gordon Haber, New York Sun

"Now, after the demise of the Soviet Union, when we are no longer trying to prove that our way of life is superior, we can better appreciate the awful privations that the Soviet system created for its citizens and for those unlucky enough to have been caught up in it. Adamczyk's unpretentious prose is well-suited to capture that truly awful reality…. Perhaps Adamczyk's narrative can help us remember what it is about our country that has traditionally inspired the admiration of the world, and to turn away from the worst elements of hate-mongering and fear that have transformed us into a country more like Adamczyk's USSR than we would like to be." Written by: Andrew Wachtel, Chicago Tribune

In May of 1940, 25,000 Polish Army officers were led into the Katyn Forest in eastern Poland by their Red Army captors and executed. Adamczyk's father was one of them. In this finely wrought memoir of loss and survival, Adamczyk tells his family's story against the backdrop of a little known chapter of WWII—the forced exile of thousands of Poles by the Soviet government in the opening weeks of the war. Adamczyk's upper-middle-class family was taken at gunpoint and sent on a harrowing 3,000-mile journey to the barren wastes of Kazakhstan. Life in Stalin's U.S.S.R. was a horror—there was little food, clothing or shelter for the downtrodden natives, let alone for the refugees flooding the area. The family survived through the sheer will and constant ingenuity of the author's mother, who guided the family in an escape from the U.S.S.R. to British-occupied Iran and, exhausted from her efforts, died. Adamczyk's language is earthy, intense and moving. In addition to the strong portraits of his family, Adamczyk fills the book with unforgettable characters from their odyssey—brutal Red Army soldiers; desperately impoverished yet generous Kazakhs; and the clean, well-dressed Americans. With this work, Adamczyk has brought illumination and honor to the families of the thousands who suffered the same terrible fate.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Published by: Publishers Weekly

“Adamczyk recounts the story of his own wartime childhood with exemplary precision and immense emotional sensitivity, presenting the ordeal of one family with the clarity and insight of a skilled novelist. . . . I have read many descriptions of the Siberian odyssey and of other forgotten wartime episodes. But none of them is more informative, more moving, or more beautifully written than When God Looked the Other Way.” From the Foreword by Norman Davies, author of Europe: A History and Rising ’44: The Battle for Warsaw.

Mr. Wesley Adamczyk is a retired chemist and tax consultant who lives in Illinois. He is also a champion bridge player.

 

 

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