Warsaw, 1938.
Roman Blum is in his twenties. Helen Pietrucha is 20. They meet a year before Nazi Germany invades Poland.
Then the war comes. By one account, Helen, pregnant with his child, hid Roman in a dugout before they were torn apart. She reportedly lost the baby.
After the war, Blum could not find her. With no word of her, he married someone else.
In the 1970s, he finally learned what had happened to her. Helen had moved to Australia. She had married, too.
Years later, he wrote to her that he could still see the last loaf of bread she had managed to give him.
In 1987, Musial says, he wrote her one last letter. In it, he reportedly promised to "make all the suffering and pain up to you after the loss of our child."
Helen died in 1999, thirteen years before Blum. Teresa Musial had been her longtime friend and caretaker. She inherited Helen's estate, and she was the one who brought the letter to court.