Derkowski

This is the story of the long life of someone who became a seven-year-old war refugee when the Nazis invaded Poland in September 1939. His father managed to escape with him just ahead of the invaders and their Soviet partners-in-crime, but he lost his mother and his country. A ten-year-long odyssey followed, involving eight countries on three continents; several schools, languages, and adventures, including an intercontinental escape from a boarding school; and observations of different cultures and environments.

In 1949 he arrived in Canada by himself from Africa as a seventeen-year-old with one outfit of tropical clothes, ten dollars in his pocket, and a fragmented education. After the government-required one year on a farm, he moved to Toronto, where thanks to the opportunities offered by Canada he worked his way up the ladder to wind up with two degrees, his own urban planning practice, contributing to the growth of his new country with three children and six grandchildren, one of whom is a published author in her own right.