2009-10-15 11:06

Honoring General Maczek's soldiers in the Archives of Spoken History

Recording the lives of the last living soldiers of Gen. Stanisław Maczek's 1st Polish Armored Division is the aim of the newest project - "General Maczek's soldiers - 65 years after liberating Belgium and Holland" - created by a team from the KARTA Center's Archives of Spoken History and the Dom Spotkań z Historią (House of Meetings with History). "There is no other archive in Poland, that has gathered together stories from the soldiers who fought under Gen. Maczek, one of Poland's greatest World War II commanders" - said Dr. Jarosław Pałka, one of the projects authors from the Archives of Spoken History.

Dr. Pałka reminded how during the September campaign in 1939, the 10th cavalry brigade lead by Gen. Maczek "was the only Polish military unit to pass the Polish-Hungarian border as one". Maczek himself would remind, that his brigade crossed the Hungarian border "in a parade column".
 
In 1940 his soldiers (as the 10th armored cavalry brigade) participated in the French campaign, and then later joined the 1st Polish Armored Division in Great Britain. The unit that from August 1944 till April 1945 "was always in attack to liberate cities in northern France, Belgium and Holland".

According to the historian, the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Belgium and Holland from Nazi German occupation "is the best, and possibly the last chance to fill in the gap in the knowledge of Poles, Belgians and Dutch and tell them about the role of Polish soldiers in liberating western Europe".

The Archives project plans to record 20 relations of the soldiers who fought in the 1st Polish Armored Division (15 audio and 5 video), that will later be placed on the internet site www.audiohistoria.pl , and also in a separate internet presentation and DVD in Polish and Dutch, this was specially designed for this occasion.
 
"In our archives, we have already recorded some interviews with Maczek's soldiers, such as Adam Kreutzer from the supply company of the 3rd Rifleman Brigade, Zofia Rusecka, a home army soldier, who after being liberated from the female Oberlangen joined the 1st Polish Armored Division and served in supply units, and also lieutenant colonel Kazimierz Bernaczyk-Słoński, who is one of the last living cichociemny (Polish special unit)" - said Pałka.

PAP - Science and Scholarship in Poland, Norbert Nowotnik, tr. ajb

hes/ mjs/ dym/ bsz

Print     Tell a friend