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Carlos da Silva Campos talks about his experience reading IPPO colleague Marian Feldman's published book "From Warsaw, Through Luck, Siberia, and Back to Warsaw".

During the last EMBALLAGE, Marian gave me a signed copy of his book "From Warsaw, Through Luck, Siberia, and Back to Warsaw". Later on, in my hotel room in Paris, I started to read a few pages, as I usually do in book shops, just to have a "blink overview".

This time, I didn´t stop until I read all of it. I know Marian since the early eighties, and we met many times and in many countries, visiting packaging exhibitions and companies. More than colleagues, we consider ourselves as friends (IPPO friends), and several times we exchanged words about our personal lives. But Marian never told me about the really hard times he had in his early life.

These 140 pages are one of the most impressive life stories I ever read! Nazi killings, stalinist paranoia, Siberia, deportation, starvation, life in soviet kolkhoz...

During 1943 winter, Marian's father was imprisoned in the Gulag. Just to have a chance to visit his father, Marian payed (!) to become a fireman in the train engine from Rubtsovsk to Barnaul. Marian worked during all trip piling and feeding coal to the engine boiler. Then, in Barnaul, he got the desired authorization to see his father. And this is just one of the episodes... But during this very hard period of his life, Marian never gave up.

Next day after reading his book, I met Marian in the press room again and made my comments. "Oh yes" - said Marian with the candid soft voice that we all konw - "I was very lucky..."  

Lucky???  Well, that's the kind of man Marian is. And now I know why Marian Feldman, born in 1922, is so resilient, walking down exhibition halls, climbing stairs, travelling and attending conferences and meetings, to get stories for his magazine.

Guys, this good friend of us isn't just a good friend. He is a hero!  

Carlos da Silva Campos  

[more about the book in stores.lulu.com/feldmanow]