I was born in Poland but am the first generation to be raised in the United States. I started collecting Polish medals to sort of embrace and pay respect to my Polish heritage. My mother recently started asking some family back in Poland about any history that they are aware of, and I wanted to see if anyone could help me locate some information on a couple distant relatives? A lot of the information is probably gone from the war, but I didn't know if someone had access to some sort of archives that may contain anything on them.

The first is Piotr Chalupinski. Believed to be alive from 1879 to 1946, unsure where he was born. From what we know, he was in the military during WWI under Jozef Haller (Wojska Hallera). Don't really know what countries he fought battles in, but supposedly he was awarded the Virtuti Militari award which may help locate some information on him. Supposedly he visited the United States two times as well, if that helps. The rest of his life is a little unclear. Part of his story is believed that he lived under a different alias, as many people did during WWII, another part of his story is believed that he was sent to a concentration camp, and was liberated after the war but passed from the conditions of the camp and Europe in general after the war. That is about all I have on him.

The second is Stefan Marzec, he was not in the military although supposedly he was an academic/teacher. Supposedly he lived in Wislica, which is near Krakow. I guess there is some history about him, how during WWII he continued to teach to children in secret. The rest of it is just word of mouth from family, apparently he was caught doing this by the Nazis and was severely beaten. He refused to say Heil Hitler, so they dragged him out to the public square and beat him in front of bystanders to make a statement. That's all I know, but I heard there is a bit of written history on him.

Does anyone have any access to any databases or anything that could pull some more information on these two distant relatives? Any help at all would be appreciated!