Even if many years pass, people shouldn’t lose hope that they will find each other.
George Skrzynecki and Lucian Paznanski spent the first few years of their lives unaware of their biological relationship. In fact, it wasn’t until they were teenagers that they each discovered that they had a twin brother somewhere.
The brothers were born in Germany to Elisabeth, a Polish woman forced to work during World War II. The brothers had the most painful start of their lives.
Their mother greeted them shortly after they were released from the forced labor camp. Unfortunately, after that, she fell ill, which made it impossible for her to take care of the children.
As a result, the woman had to give them up during closed adoptions in Poland. Both boys were affiliated separately and ended up in two different families, and the system forbade their biological parents from looking for either of them.
The boys grew up in Poland not knowing they were related or had a family elsewhere. When it came time for Paznanski to join the Polish army, he discovered that the parents he had known all his life were not biologically related to him.
The discovery was shocking to him, but the boy was happy to finally know the truth. During this period, Skrzynecki took a more difficult path.
When the latter turned seventeen, documents were found in his possession confirming his identity and that he had a twin brother.
This revelation infuriated the teenager that his adoptive parents kept a secret from him. He soon enlisted the support of the Red Cross in the search for his brother, but in vain.
Unable to bear it, he went through the past of his parents and moved to California, entering a new life. He spent the next decades searching for his lost family in various ways.
When they were desperate, thinking that their twin would never be found, the brothers got lucky. In 2014, Paznanski obtained information about her biological mother, revealing that she was forbidden from ever knowing the whereabouts and condition of her children.
He also found out about his twin brother. At the time, the 69-year-old turned to the Red Cross Family Links program to reunite with his twin.
His efforts eventually paid off, as he soon discovered his brother’s name as well as his whereabouts. The program also supported the reunion of long-separated twins, which got them excited. Skrzynecki explained.
“I never knew when that day would come. I thought that one day I would find my brother. I couldn’t wait to hug him and give him a big kiss”.
The brothers first met after their birth in 2015 at an airport in Poland. Seeing his brother waiting at the airport with a bouquet of flowers in his hand, Skrzynecki missed his family every second, and brotherly affection swept over him.
Twin brothers replace each other’s company with a lottery win. Their nearly 70-year separation ended in a tearful hug at the airport in Warsaw, Poland.
