Good day Stefan and Group
I would like to share with you more details of my father's military
life.
After graduating from the Jagiellonian University of Krakow in 1935,
he attended Officer training in Wlodzimierz for one year then entered
civilian life as a high school teacher at the Josef Pilsudski high
school in Drohobycz.
He remained a reservist artillery officer with the rank of second
liutenant.
His family, mother Anna (nee Pola), siblings Maryncia (with her
husband Adam, a policeman), Zosia, Tadeusz and Wladek lived on a farm
near the village of Felsztyn. His father Wojciech was working in the
forests of Canada in Temiscaming, Quebec and sending money home.
He was married to Halina Szymanska (not my mother) on August 1, 1939
at Truskawce but got called up for military service on August 28 as
part of the 24th DAC (10 PAC - Przemysl-Pikulice)and fought the
Germans until the 24th of September.
Using a forged, German "letter of safe passage" he managed to bypass
the marauding Russians and took up where he left off (sort of),
teaching at the school in Drohobycz.
The NKVD came on February 10, 1940 and arrested him. His wife chose to
go with him even though they weren't after her. By coincidence, they
met the rest of his family (except Tadeusz and Adam who had escaped to
Hungary) at the train station and managed to get deported to Siberia
together.
Their camp was at Wierchna Kamionka (Viehnaya Kamienka? Has anyone
heard of it ?)in the Jurginsky region of the Omsk Oblast where they
worked in the forest industry.
Ironically, as if being in a slave labour camp wasn't bad enough, he
was yet again arrested (for being potentially dangerous)and this time
thrown in jail in Tiumen where he languished from July 7, 1941 to
December 1, 1941. Without the health or means to leave, despite the
amnesty, the family stayed at the camp until April of 1942 when dad
headed south to join the Polish army.
He survived malaria in a hospital in Pahlevi, then followed the group
through Iraq, Palestine and Egypt, finally engaging the Germans in
Italy as a Liutenant in the 9th heavy artillery regiment. He taught
Polish Soldiers after the war both in Italy and England then emigrated
to Canada in 1947. He married my mother Anna Usowicz in 1956.
A true patriot, he became heavily involved with the Polish National
Fund in Toronto, Canada. He and his fellow former soldiers raised and
sent money to the Polish Government in Exile in London. He and a
number of his group received the Polonia Restituta for their efforts.
It was the proudest day of his life.
He died in September of 1978. It's too bad that he didn't live to
see the fruits of his labours (the collapse of communism).
Good Night
Henry Sokolowski
