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Journalist Rita Cosby shares
best story of her life
Rita Cosby, noted TV host and correspondent, has anchored primetime shows on
Fox News Channel and MSNBC and is currently a special correspondent for CBS’s Inside
Edition. The three-time Emmy winner, who was named a "Fun and Fearless Female" by
Cosmopolitan Magazine has gotten to know hundreds of people from all over the world
with on-the-spot interviews. But it took over half her life to get to know her own father.
Her father, emotionally distant throughout her childhood, abandoned his family
when she was a teen. He was a mystery to her until her mother’s death. While going
through her mother’s belongings she discovered a battered suitcase. Here she found a worn
Polish Resistance armband; rusted tags bearing a prisoner number and the words Stalag
IVB; and a POW tag bearing the name Ryszard Kossobudzki, the man she knew as Richard
Cosby.
“When I pasted it all together, I just wept,” Cosby said.
Before that, all she knew of her father’s past was that he had left Poland after
World War II. Whenever she asked him questions, he refused to answer. She tracked him
down and when they reunited she used her journalistic skills to conduct the most
significant interview of her life.
“Here I am a journalist,” she said, “and I remember I was nervous making the call.”
Her father’s story started when he was 13 and saw his town destroyed by bombs.
Before the Warsaw Uprising, he lied about his age to join the Resistance and was later
captured and sent to a German POW camp. After months in the camp, and weighing only
90 pounds, he and a few others escaped through the sewers and were rescued by American
forces.
Cosby’s story is one of survival, healing and forgiveness and is one she loves to
share through her book, Quiet Hero, Secrets from My Father’s Past. She now serves as the
International Committee Against Mental Illness’s national spokesperson, focusing on Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder and reaching out to wounded veterans and their families
everywhere.
Cosby will be the guest of honor at the Chopin Society of Atlanta’s annual
fundraiser hosted by John Lemley of WABE Radio on November 12 at the Country Club
of the South in Johns Creek.
Dorota Lato, president and founder of CSA promises an evening rich with history,
heroism and inspiration. Holding degrees in music, education and foreign languages,
Lato, who emigrated from Poland in 1991, has been praised on two continents for her skills in
organizing cultural events. And to make the evening complete, CSA will provide a little
piano music performed by Lato’s students, Eliza Folkert and Emilia Folkert of Holy
Redeemer Catholic School in Johns Creek, Jackson Zurca and Anthony Wang of
Alpharetta High School and Stephanie Chew of Johns Creek High School. For more
information visit www.chopinatlanta.org
IF YOU GO
WHAT: Chopin Society of Atlanta Fundraising Dinner, Rita Cosby featured speaker
WHEN: November 12, 6 p.m.
WHERE: Country Club of the South, 4100 Old Alabama Rd
Cost: $85
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