Sunday, May 27, 2007

Friends around the world...

This story started May 8, 2007 when I received an email from my friend Teddy asking for my help. He received an email from his friend Manuel Batista Farres in Spain. The following is the email. I have cleaned up the English a bit, since English is probably their 2nd or 3rd language - while I barely speak American English.

Dear Nancy,
I am very sorry, I have for you very specific ask today.

My friend from Spain, writer, Manuel Batista Farres ask me very much
about help with searching his Polish friend, Vincent Drozd.
Below are the parts of his emails to me about that matter.

Show me, please, the first steps in this matter, I would like help my friend Manuel.

I hope, you can help me.


Thank you very, very much!!!

Warmly from Poland,
Your Tadeusz Glowinski
http://glowinski.olesnica.pl/


~~~~
Excerpt from Manuel's Email ~~~~~

In 1950 I had a Polish friend living in Barcelona, his name
is Vincent Drozd, born in the city of Cracovia. Vincent arrived in Spain as a war refugee with other Polish boys, in 1945. In 1952, all Polish boys were deported to USA, to the city of Buffalo, but I never more I have not news from my friend, Vincent Drozd.

Question : Existing some possibility to find V.Droz?person For me will be
very important to contact with this person.

He said(?sent?) to me:
"We traveling into Buffalo, in United States of America, and probably I will work in the Ford Factory".



The first thing I did was a web search. I found a bunch of Drozds listed with LinkedIn.com (http://www.linkedin.com/find/d/d85/d85_90.html). I posted a question there and got a few responses, but I believe I was out of line to do so - sorry!

One person really went out of her way to give me some links. I'm hoping that sprit will help my friends and I find Vincent.

I have searched Ancestry.com, but I must admit to not having a lot of time for this... that silly work thing. I could not locate a Drozd immigrating from Spain at the right time. Again, I do not have the time for exhaustive searches, so I may have missed something.

I have asked for more information and this is what I have been able to put together:

Born in Warsow or Cracovia around 1934-35. He would be about 72 today.
He and other Polish 'boys' arrived in Barcelona, Spain as war refugees in 1945. He would have been about 10, truly a boy. In 1952 Vincent, aged 17+/- and the other Polish male refugees were deported to USA - ultimately Buffalo, NY. Possibly he worked in the Ford factory.

In the early '50's he was fair-haired, 1.70 meters tall (5'5") with blue eyes.
He speaks Polish (of course) Spanish, Catalonian language, and now, English!

Please help us get some more information about this man.