DIARY BETWEEN WORLDS

CHAPTER 4

Where My Strength Comes From

Sometimes I ask myself: where does this strength in me come from?

Not strength as toughness, and not strength as struggle, but that inner support that does not let me simply walk past, that makes me stand up when others remain silent.

And I begin to search for the answer.

Not in the present. It was there much earlier.

My grandmother was born in 1934 in a small village. She hardly ever spoke about what happened to her.

But facts.

They find their way anyway.

Over time, gathering memories, documents, and information piece by piece, we began to understand more.

1944. She was only ten years old.

A concentration camp, where there was cold, hunger, and swamp instead of solid ground.

And people who had nowhere left to go.

She told me how they heard people talking, how, in the middle of all that fear, the thought of escape began to grow.

It was not just a plan. It was their decision to live.

They waited for the right moment.

And one day it came – during a powerful storm.

When everyone finally decided to go, they ran. They ran, crawled, and struggled forward – into the swamp, to a place where there was no food, no protection, and where Mother Earth herself could take them.

But they chose to go because it was their only chance. One single moment to survive.

And she survived.

And that was her victory.

But it did not end there.

After escaping from the camp, while they were still hiding, she stepped on a mine.

And once again, she survived.

I do not know whether she believed in God at that time. But I know something else: when I was five, she and I walked toward God together.

Not through fear, but through love.

She taught me. But she did not teach me with words – this was simply how she lived.

She prayed for everyone: for our family, for my mother, for us, for her grandchildren. And not only for her own. For our friends, for abandoned children, for those who were left alone.

Every time we came to see her, she hugged everyone.

She fed everyone and blessed them, making the sign of the cross over them before they left, as if, for her, there were no strangers.

As if every child deserved protection.

She asked God for everyone to be well, for the angels to protect us.

And I watched her and absorbed it all.

At the time, I did not understand how important it was.

But now I understand: my strength is not mine alone. It was passed down to me.

Passed down through pain, through survival, through empathy and compassion. Through the choice to live when it seemed that everything was already over and survival was impossible.

Through a love that does not divide people.

Now I am 42, and I see one thing: I do not try to be this way. It comes naturally.

And I do not think about whether I should stand up or not.

I simply stand up.

Because this is how it has always been.

Because someone once chose to live.

Someone survived so that they could pass it on.

And perhaps what I feel now is not only me.

It is the strength of my lineage, which did not break then.

And that strength continues to live in me.