When little George and Lucian were given up for adoption, neither of them knew they had a twin brother out there somewhere. The twin boys went to separate families after their Polish mother, who was freed from a labor camp at the end of WWII, became too ill to look after them.
But nearly 70 years later, thanks to a little help from the Red Cross, the two brothers were reunited, or re-introduced, after saying goodbye to each other as infants.
George Skrzynecky, 69, found out he was adopted and tried to find Lucian in the 1960s but the search turned up empty. Skrzynecky went on to move to the U.S. Meanwhile, his brother Lucian Poznanski, 69, spent his entire life in Poland. Poznanski learned he had a twin brother only last year when he received information about his birth mother and discovered his twin had also been adopted. "I couldn't contain my emotions ... it was a shock," he told The BBC. He put in a request with the Red Cross' Restoring Family Links Program, which works to bring together family members who have been torn apart by war and other crises.
"For 70 years, I lived with unknown things and I was thinking 'I'm never going to find him'," said Skrzynecky. "I never knew when this day was going to happen."
The BBC, which originally reported on the brothers' reunion, was there to capture the emotional return home as Skrzynecky came back to Poland to meet his brother. They met at the Warsaw airport where Poznanski waited with flowers, and the two shared a long, tearful embrace and gave each other kisses on the cheek and pats on the back.
"What has happened in the past, you cannot change it," Skrzynecky said. "The best part of everything is that we found each other."
There have been numerous other heartwarming stories of long-lost siblings being reunited. Just last year, five siblings adopted by different families were brought together after their biological mother's obituary provided clues helping them reconnect. And two long-lost childhood friends in Canada discovered the reason for their special bond: they were actually brothers. Amazing.
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