A Polish officer's medals

[Oldpilot]

Good evening! I am researching the life of a Polish colonel who in the late 1930s wore three medals as shown in the photograph. Any clues as to their significance would be most welcome. He was 40 in 1915 so likely served in some or all of the conflicts 1914-1920. Thank you. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

[A.J. Zawadzki]

Hi Dan,

From left to right – Cross of Merit (silver or gold); Medal for Polish-Soviet War 1918-1921; Medal for 10 years of Independence.

Please feel free to tell us more about this officer.

Regards,
Tony

[Oldpilot]

Hi Dan,

From left to right – Cross of Merit (silver or gold); Medal for Polish-Soviet War 1918-1921; Medal for 10 years of Independence.

Please feel free to tell us more about this officer.

Regards,
Tony

Thank you, Tony! He is the father of a Polish girl I met in England in 1955, with whom I recently reconnected, and with whom I am writing about her childhood in Lwow (now Lviv in western Ukraine), the Soviet Union, Iran, Lebanon, and England, all of which languages she had mastered by the time she was ten. (Well, in the case of Lebanon the language was French.)

He was born in 1875, was a veterinary surgeon, held his colonel's commission as of June 1919 in Torun, and at some point settled in Lwow. He was arrested in December 1939 and shot at Katyn in April 1940, as was a son by his first marriage. Both families were deported that same month to labor camps or collective farms in the Far East, including a son by his first marriage, the colonel's second wife, his two daughters, and the girls' aunts, uncle, and an uncle by marriage. Remarkably, all the deportees survived, and they even added two babies to the family, one of whom I am also in contact with. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

[Mariusz]

Thank you for shearing the story, last week I heard about 4 officers murdered near Katyń, this is 5th person that was murdered by NKWD. Is it possible to post picture of colonel, Polish hero, veteran of 1920 and 1939.

[Oldpilot]

I will try to do that later, if I get his daughter's permission.

His son was an artillery lieutenant--probably a reserve officer mobilized in the summer of 1939 at which time he was about thirty years old. Since the son seems to have been a PW at Kolesk camp in Russia, while the father was an arrestee and probably sent much later to a camp in Ukraine, they probably didn't meet. I don't know whether it would have been easier or harder to have company in that last journey to Katyn!

I highly recommend the Polish movie with the same title: Katyn. I got it from Netflix, and it is also available for purchase on Amazon.com. It was the film that inspired me to look for my Polish friend after a lapse of 55 years. I found her name in a list of evacuees from the USSR to Persia in 1942, along with the name of a nephew born in exile. Happily his name was unusual and Google revealed his address to me, and he put me in touch with his aunt. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

[andrzejku98]

Hi Dan,

If you would like to pass the details of the Colonel to me I would be able to check his details in the Oficerski Rocznik 1923, 1924, 1928, 1932, plus the Reserve Officers Yearbook for 1934, plus the Army orders. What ever I can do for you would be a pleasure.

Hear from you soon

Andrzejku