In 1945, the Nazi war machine was finally crushed and cities and countries all over Europe were being liberated by the Allied Forces. Great shouts of joy could be heard. Young girls in Rome, Paris, Amsterdam, and other cities across Europe kissed young GIs and other liberating forces. Churches were filled with masses of Thanksgiving. Prayers of gratitude were offered up by the tens of thousands to Our Lord Jesus and his Mother Mary for finally ending the hell to which these dear people had been subjected for the last six years. It was a new beginning, a new world for Europe.

But not quite all. East of Germany and west of Russia, the little country of Poland was not liberated by anyone. It just changed tyrants. It was evacuated by the Nazi troops, and just taken over by a different monster, the Soviet Union. At the end of World War II, when Hitler knew the end was inevitably close, he had initiated his "Scorched Earth" policy, which, stated simply, meant: "Burn everything to the ground. Don't leave anything for the Allies to capture." Warsaw, the capital of Poland, was almost completely destroyed. We're told that 85 percent of the city burned to the ground.

When Eisenhower came through some months after the war ended, he wept at the all-out devastation he witnessed. And yet, while this ruination was being inflicted on the people of Poland, the Russian army, which was supposed to be our allies, sat on the other side of the Wisla River and just watched. Then, when it was finished, they simply marched in and took over, according to a preordained agreement made by Josef Stalin, Winston Churchill, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt at the Yalta Conference in February, 1945. The Communists continued the rule of tyranny over this nation for the next 45 years.

A perfect example of the way things were changed is indicated by a street in Czestochowa, a great Marian shrine. Before World War II, the street was named Mary Strasse. In 1939, when the Nazis came in, it was renamed Hitler Strasse. In 1946, it was renamed again, this time, Stalin Strasse. In 1990, it was renamed one more time, back to Mary Strasse. When we planned this book, we didn't actually plan a section for Polish martyrs.

We planned this segment for St. Maxmillian Kolbe and Blessed Edith Stein, martyrs of the death camp at Auschwitz. We honestly didn't know what else we could write about with regard to Polish martyrs. We didn't know of any other Polish martyrs. We had such a surprise waiting for us. Thank God we went to Poland before we finished writing this book.