A Scout from the 1944 Rising

This past Saturday I met Halina Butler at a Polish Festival  in Martinez, CA. At the festival, I shared about my book, Rising Hope, which takes place in  Poland during WWII.

While speaking with Halina, I learned that, in 1939, she was a 12-year-old Girl Guides member (Girl Scout) when WWII began in Poland. She helped the war effort in Warsaw by riding her bicycle to deliver messages to different Underground Army posts throughout the city. Then, during Warsaw’s 1944 Rising, she, along with many other Scouts, joined the ranks of the army’s Zoshka Battalion.

In Rising Hope I intersect the lives of fictional characters with historical peopl . I have talked to one Polish Scout from this time period over the phone, but Halina was the first Scout survivor from the Rising I’ve had the privilege of meeting in person. What a precious moment. Her eyes twinkled and she squeezed my hand as I told her  about my book. I told her that, in all the research I had done about  Scouts who survived those dark days, they were always praised as heroes, but the survivors  they always said, “We only did what had to be done.” Halina squeezed my hand extra hard and in her sweet Polish said,”That’s right. We just did what we had to do.”