Gabriella – The emotional true life story of a 10 year old child’s courage in a World at War
By Jan Szymczuk

Poland 1939
In the quiet town of Kielce, Poland, a young girl named Gabriella wakes to an ordinary morning, unaware that history is about to tear her childhood from her grasp. Within hours, bombs fall, soldiers march, and a world she knows dissolves into smoke, fear and hunger. What follows is a brutal journey through invasion, forced labour, loss, displacement and survival beyond anything a child should endure.

Driven by an unbreakable inner strength and a fierce will to live, Gabriella instinctively clings to the fragile threads of family, friendship and memory. Against all odds, she outlasts war’s grip on her homeland and carries hope through freezing winters and silent nights filled with whispered prayers.

Her story continues beyond the battlefield, through refugee camps and migration, weaving its way to England, where a new life is slowly, painfully built. Yet even in peace, the shadows of the past linger, testing her strength as a woman, a wife and a mother in a world forever changed.

Told through intimate scenes of struggle, love, endurance and quiet defiance, Gabriella is not only a wartime tale, but a testimony of extraordinary resilience and the unbreakable human spirit. It is a story of roots torn up and replanted, of identity carried across borders, and of love that refuses to die.

Written by her son, this powerful narrative stands as both a historical witness and a personal monument.

A story for every woman who endured.
A story for every child who survived.
A story for every generation that must never forget.