Abstract
Only very rarely does a person make her profession her whole purpose in life. Anna, Professor Cienciala, did so. For her, everything not connected with history was marginal. Her wartime experiences evoked an early interest in history. In December 1939, with her mother and younger sister Danusia, she escaped from German- occupied Poland. They were eventually able to join Anna’s father in England with the help of Mrs. and Mr. Cienciala’s friend, the Estonian consul Hans Markus. Using the Polish passport of her mother, they traveled by train through Germany. In Berlin their passports were taken away. An all- powerful bribe helped them obtain German identification cards, which made it possible to travel to Budapest. In Budapest Anna’s mother obtained a new Polish passport. They traveled to France through Italy, where they remained almost a year. In the summer of 1940, when the Germans attacked France, they escaped to Spain and then flew to London via Lisbon.
