VIEWPOINT
An Introduction from Charles Williams, M.D., FACR, Radiology Associates of Tallahassee: “Few of us can imagine eating out of a garbage pail to keep from starving. George Bonk did. Because he was not allowed to attend primary school, he educated himself with purloined textbooks. He survived childhood polio and later became a Tallahassee physician who was noted for driving a sports car. He was a founding member of Radiology Associates and my medical partner for many years. I would like to thank his widow Donna Bonk for providing us with this comprehensive history of a remarkable physician and his parents who achieved so much in their lifetimes.”
THE LIFE OF GEORGE BONK, M.D. – 1935 - 2021 A Note from Donna Paul Bonk: I came late into George’s life, but I’ve been made a very special member of this family by both his daughters, Marla and Kristin. I hope this story will be of interest to both them and their children as it is to me. They are descendants of truly remarkable people and are to be very proud of their heritage. PREFACE I had been married for ten years to George when I came across a dusty box filled with photos, documents, news articles, and a multitude of ID cards--a box that George and his daughters had brought back from Chicago eleven years before, after the death of his mother, Dr. Eugenia Bonk. As I started to look at these most interesting memorabilia, I started asking George about each puzzling article and excitedly realized that I was uncovering the story of George and his parents through a most harrowing period of history--the crushing of Poland, their homeland, by both Hitler and Stalin in WWII and the Bonks’ subsequent escapes from both. My interest was piqued, and I started reading history books, watching documentaries on Poland during WWII and then examining more thoroughly the contents of this box. One of the most intriguing photos was a rather weathered
and torn one of small George, encased in plastic, with writing on the back that translated “My Talisman - during Occupation, Uprising, and POW Camp - Everything, all my joy and life to me, is on this picture.” This was his father’s ‘amulet’ throughout the war. Finally, as I began asking more questions of George, his past started to unfold. And so, this is my attempt to piece together this remarkable but frightening story of the Bonk family (Alfred, Eugenia, and George), who spend six years running as fugitives from the secret police of two countries--Germany and Russia; then, another five years living as “Displaced Persons” in post war Germany; and finally, their subsequent resettling in a new country and the rebuilding of careers. ****************** The story of the Bonks begins in Lwow, Poland, the cultural center of eastern Poland, pre WWII. Both Alfred and Eugenia had received their medical degrees in 1925 and 1926, respectively, and then married. Alfred was in the military and eventually promoted to Major, while Eugenia was practicing as a Pediatrician. George, their only child, was born in 1935, and sometime shortly thereafter Alfred opened up his own Radiology Office. But on Sept. 1, 1939, their idyllic life changed--Germany invaded Poland.
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CAP SCAN - A CAPITAL MEDICAL SOCIETY PUBLICATION
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