POLAND: The Peasant & the Tommy Gun

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On the narrow wooden bridge that crosses the Vistula at Warsaw, a ruddy-faced, wide-eyed girl named Stenia, with a Tommy gun slung across her back, stood guard. Past her flowed a bustling traffic of carts, bicycles, UNRRA trucks, Red Army vehicles and pedestrians.

Stenia was 23, but she had lived a lifetime of terror. She was a left-winger, a militiawoman, a veteran of the resistance and of Gestapo torture. The Nazis had knocked out two of her front teeth; now, when she smiled, she showed shiny, stainless-steel replacements.

TIME Correspondent John Scott...

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