My aunt, who escaped from a convent as a teen,

My grandfather was set up in an arranged marriage to a woman he didn't love. He had two children with her. Then he was stationed in Britain between the world wars and met my grandmother there, who was a factory worker at the time. He divorced his wife and essentially abandoned his children from that marriage, including my aunt, in order to marry my grandmother. My father was born in 1945, and the same year, my grandfather decided to move his new family back to Poland. A few years afterwards, he was arrested and put on death row for espionage. My grandmother and dad essentially became homeless and were trapped behind the Iron Curtain for many years. In this period of time, my aunt accomplished the things mentioned in the title. Her husband was an alcoholic, so she managed his major international company behind the scenes. She also supported my dad and grandmother a little bit, having watches smuggled across the border for my grandmother to sell on the black market. Eventually my dad got to meet her in her Italian villa. He didn’t share many anecdotes with me, but he said that her children despised her, and she threw a fit in a restaurant when they served her unblanched tomatoes. But I think some degree of erratic behavior is understandable considering what she went through.

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