trivia

My Mom’s great-grandfather—on her father’s father’s side—has set up the original Institute for Smallpox Vaccination in Warsaw, when Poland was still partitioned between Russia, Austria and Germany. It was a very successful family business, popular because the occupying power (Russia) did not provide a public vaccination service. My other Great-grandfather—on my maternal grandmother’s side—was Russian. He travelled to Russia during the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, and subsequently died in one of Stalin’s purges.