By CASEY NEILL
The suburbs are filled with extraordinary stories just waiting to be told, Lucyna Artymiuk says.
The Noble Park woman recently released a book about her father, Polish World War II airman Jan Artymiuk.
Her journey to writing From Poland to “Wherever in the World” – The Journey of an Australian Migrant started with an email from a young aviation historian in Poland containing her father’s entire military history.
“There were so many more details than I even knew,” she said.
“You suddenly realised the generation who knew all those finer details had disappeared.
“When my father died 30 years ago I was in my 20s. I didn’t know what questions to ask.”
Ms Artymiuk set up an online chat group, contacted descendants of other members of her father’s bomber crew and started gathering information.
She’s involved in the Polish Museum and Archives and attended a seminar the group organised on writing a family history.
“It was getting closer to the 100th anniversary of my father’s birth,” she said.
“I thought it would be a nice tribute to him to write his biography.
“There are a lot of interesting stories – extraordinary lives of ordinary people in the suburbs that have not been told and are just waiting to be told.”
The book is aimed at second and third generations of Polish background “who don’t fully understand the context of how their parents ended up in Australia”.
In the suitcase her dad brought with him to Australia, Ms Artymiuk found study notes for an electrician course, letters Jan received from his then-girlfriend during his time as a prisoner of war, and letters he wrote while courting Ms Artymiuk’s mother.
“It became much more three-dimensional,” she said.
“It’s like a window into the past.
“I’m researching now my mother’s side of the family.”
Email lucynaartymiuk@bigpond.com to buy a copy of the book.
