“I wanted to be in the army to drive a car,” she explains. “That was my own stupidity – you see if you’re young, you’re stupid.”
Krystyna was about to turn 18, but lied about her age, as 19 was the minimum age to join the army. However, she wasn’t selected to become a military driver and instead was sent to train as a nurse’s aide in Iraq.
Krystyna’s five years of military service – for which she received a King George medal – took her to Egypt, and then to Iraq, where she was reunited with her father. Later they were both stationed in Jerusalem together.
“That was a very nice feeling, but you see, if you’re young you really just think about food and money, not family,” Krystyna admits.
“So I came to my father and I just said, ‘Pops, do you have some money?’ And I looked in his pocket and he had plenty, so I took some because we just wanted to buy ourselves makeup and stuff like that.”
Krystyna and her father were among the troops who crossed the Mediterranean under constant threat from Nazi bombers to join the battle at the hilltop monastery of Monte Cassino, south of Rome.
While patching up the injured and mutilated soldiers coming off the mountain Krystyna met a man who was to become her first husband – a soldier called Stanley Slowikowski – who was sent to her ward with a leg injury.
When the war ended Krystyna and Stanley settled in England, and it was here that Krystyna’s family were all finally reunited – her father, brothers and younger sister.
What happened after the war? Click “Next” to find out.