The house that Edek built - and the secret suitcase kept inside

December 16, 2017 2:29 PM

When Edward "Edek" Herzbaum and his wife Teresa designed and built their family home near Woking, they created a daringly modern building full of light. It was the 1950s. Young architects were in the vanguard of imagining a new, post-War Britain. Edward died in 1967, Teresa in 2002. It was not until then that their daughter Krystyna found a small suitcase full of papers that revealed her father, his story and his art.

Krystyna decided to publish her father's journals because "there are now few survivors still living to tell the world about Poland's plight during World War II, and so it has fallen to the children and grandchildren of those no longer with us, to try to have what happened during those turbulent years, recorded and recognised."

posted by cynical pinnacle (4 comments total)

Jesus. Beautiful and horrific.
posted by milkb0at at 3:01 PM on December 16, 2017 [1 favorite]

That was really good. It was painful reading, but well worth the price of admission.
posted by dfm500 at 3:01 PM on December 16, 2017 [1 favorite]

Wow, beautiful drawings, and an horrific tale, mitigated by the ending, the house, the kids, the life well lived. The portrait of mother and son is moving, hopeful.
posted by Oyéah at 4:26 PM on December 16, 2017 [1 favorite]

Just as Edward's mother did,my great grandparents, sent away their very young children, who ended up on a boat to get them out of Poland and into the United States. As soon as my grandfather was old enough to enlist, he joined the American army and fought in the European theater. Neither he or his sister would ever speak of the war, or of Poland,or how they became Catholic suddenly at Ellis island. Some day, I hope to have the resources to trace it, just to find out what happened to the rest of the family. But a part of me already knows, and I think perhaps I'm hesitant to verify.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 5:31 PM on December 16, 2017 [4 favorites]