Farewell to Warsaw

Abstract

Irena Koprowska was thoroughly enjoying the morning. Sitting at a window table in the breakfast room of a small pension near Zakopane in the Tatra Mountains in the south of Poland, she sipped strong coffee and succumbed to the spectacular view. Even in summer the tallest mountains were snowcapped. On this flawless August day in 1939 she could see the outline of Mt. Gievont, sixty miles away, painted dark purple by the midmorning sun rising behind it. The rocky peaks of the closer range gave way to the dark greens of high conifers and the brighter colors of the foothills as the mountains rolled toward her in earthen waves, ending in the colorful froth of the flower garden beneath the window.