The Long Hard Road

After Father left to catch the last train, I stood there looking in the direction of the train station until it was too dark to see anything. Afterwards, I went to my bed, lay down, and covered my face so my roommates could not see me cry.  I was seventeen years old, almost a man, and a grown man didn’t cry even if he felt so terribly alone. Growing up in Poland at the start of World War II, Bogdan Tukiendorf lived through the clash of German, Russian, and Polish armies, the German occupation, the separation of his family, and a difficult immigration to the U.S. The Long, Hard Road details his journey from a farm in Poland to inner-city Chicago. Saddled with a knee injury from an early age, Bogdan limped through childhood and visited makeshift wartime hospitals as his knee worsened. His health prevented him from migrating to the U.S. with his family, so at seventeen he was left alone in a strange German city. The Long, Hard Road shares Bogdan’s experiences from the war, such as his family’s cooperation with the Polish freedom fighters, tenuous friendship with the occupying German commander, the fear of neighbors betraying them, his life in the netherworld while waiting to immigrate, his voyage to a free land, and his struggle to succeed in a new country. This engrossing autobiography will capture your attention as you read firsthand the story of one who survived World War II.