Veteran of Three Wars
My grandfather, Edward Pach, Austrian born in Vienna, had seen action in three major wars before the age of 50. The Battle of Kock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kock_(1939) outside the city of Lublin would be his last. The content of the letter from the Sikorski Institute in London is self-explanatory. This information arrived around the same time I received, in response to a request to the Polish Military Archives in Warsaw, my grandfather’s service record up until 1936. I intend to have this translated but it will be a difficult task as the writing is small and parts not very legible as it has been photocopied more than once. Briefly it outlines his military activity from 1912 in Lwów (present day Lviv in Ukraine) when he joined the Riflemen’s Association, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riflemen%27s_Association in effect a paramilitary organisation formed to campaign for Polish independence. In 1912 Lwów or Lemberg as it was known then was a major city of the province of Galicia, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
From 1914-1918, he served in the Austrian Army in the Italian and Serbian campaigns. From the Polish military archives, it states that he served in the 58th and 30th infantry regiments with the rank of captain. (The latter regiment would later be confirmed when I visited Lviv in 2014.
In 1919, by which time Poland had reacquired its independence, he was assigned to the 20th infantry regiment in Kraków. The eastern borders of the new Second Polish Republic were never formally defined, complicated with the fact that the Russian Revolution had resulted in a civil war in the USSR from which Ukraine and Belarus were trying to secede. Poland had laid historical claims to a chunk of the territory in these areas while the Red Army was trying to spread the revolution westwards and so began the Russo-Polish war or as the Poles refer to it, the Polish-Bolshevik War. My grandfather saw action in Ukraine, Silesia, Belarus and Lithuania and during this time he was promoted to major and received decorations for bravery. The war led to a Polish victory giving the country breathing space to attend to the business of governing itself.
In 1933, he was awarded the highest Polish military honour – The Virtuti Militari and in 1934 transferred to the 82nd infantry regiment based at Brześć-nad -Bugiem (present day Brest Litovsk now in Belarus) as garrison Quartermaster. In September 1939, he was transferred to the special unit as described in the extract above from the Sikorski Institute in London. The unit repulsed the German Army repeatedly until it was forced to surrender as it had run out of ammunition. On the scale of things, a prisoner of the German Army was a stroke of luck, as the officers left behind at Brześć-nad -Bugiem, would later surrender to the invading Red Army and be handed over to the NKVD, the state security division of the USSR. These officers would then be shot as part of a general purge of Polish military officers and intelligensia either at Kharkiv prison (in present day Ukraine) or at the infamous Katyn Forest Massacre in 1940 in present day Belarus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre. My grandfather was held at Oflag VII A (an officers POW camp) at Murnau near Munich where he spent the rest of the war until the camp was liberated by the American Army in May 1945. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oflag_VII-A_Murnau
Liberation did not mean he could go home. His first thoughts were to try and find his family. My father was still in Germany but the Polish forces then formed part of the Allied army of occupation with my father in northern Germany and my grandfather in the south of the country. the following two years would be a continent on the move. it was not just soldiers, sailors and airmen making their way home as in Britain. Continental Europe was all of humanity trying to get home. We in Britain cannot fully comprehend the full extent of the Nazi Terror visited on the whole of Europe, Germany included. My father and grandfather did manage to write as shown on the next set of copied original letters, all from my grandfather. The translations are ‘rough’ but you will get the idea. The letters stopped in 1946, by which time my father assumed that his father had died. My father had told me that towards the end of the war that his father had been treated for appendicitis in the POW camp, but owing to the lack of proper medical equipment and medicines the operation was not as straightforward as it otherwise might have been. he had base his assumption on this fact. This was not the case as will be described in future blogs.
Translation of letter dated 18.09.1945.
Dear Ricky! 18.09.45
From 18th September this year I am in Dössel camp in English occupation zone. Because there were few places left, I moved here to be closer to you. I don’t know if you will be happy about this.
Richard, don’t think that I would like to make a pressure on you and be the ballast for yourself. No, it’s not that bad with me. I want only to see you and talk to you, that’s all.
Could you write and confirm if I could come to you, because now it is much closer for me than from Bavaria. Because of my bad legs condition (I’m suffering since my operation), I don’t want to travel unnecessarily. The next letter I will send to Mum, to let her know where I am and to not worry about us. I will send this letter through you. I have a big worry because of Mum and moving her to Europe. II Corps in Italy was dealing with this case before, but because the Corp was moved to England, I think the case has collapsed. Now I don’t know whom should I ask for help. I will still be looking for and asking, maybe someone will help.
My current address:
Mjr Pach Edward
Polish ………..
Dössel
21a Kreis Warburg
Germany
That’s it. Kisses.
Father
Translation of letter dated 15.08.1946
Dear Ricky! 15.08.46
I’m writing to you because I want to let you know I’ve enrolled to a building course. This course is taking place in Esslingen, on the East of Stuttgart. If you would like to enroll to the mechanical or electro-technical course as well, I could register you. They are registering for all three courses people with the ‘small secondary school certificate’ and then you are going through the next course. The whole thing takes 5 semesters (terms). You have to enroll till 17 August, announcement of registered persons – from 23 till 25 August. Beginning of the course – 1 September. 28 August – department from Ingolstadt to Esslingen. If you are keen to do this, write to me (telegram) till 18 August, 13:00 on my address: Pach Edward, Ingolstadt, Auf der Schanz Strasse 22.
I volunteered to go to ……………… to the camps as well, but probably I will not go, because I would like to have a decent job for my old age.
Mum has written. Could you look for Henryk Sucharski in England and find out if it’s possible to get Mum back to us. Henryk didn’t write to me at all, I tried to take Mum back through II Corp. I gave them all details, information and it didn’t help. Please help me get Mum back from there through Henryk. She shouldn’t be in those tropics over there. Henryk went to these hot countries and sank in the wine and he didn’t do anything. I have a grievance against him.
Coming back to the course. This is a Higher Technical School, something like Wawelberg School. Students will be placed in dormitory, Schelzthorstrasse 54, there will be a full accommodation and some benefits for working persons. School address – Kanal Strasse 3.
That’s everything. Please give me a quick decision and send a telegraph. Try to get a paid leave for your studies. Although I am old I’m keen to study.
Kisses.
Father
Translation of letter dated 21.11.1946
Dear Ricky! 21.11.1946
Two weeks ago I sent you a letter and my photographs. You are not writing and I don’t know if you received them. Moreover from tomorrow starts ………….. (change) here and we are moving into DP status (I think this is Displaced Person’s Camp). I’m not worry about this, I have already been going through this in …….. (Konskiej) zone. Let me know if I should be prepared for moving with you to the new fatherland or not. Because repatriation missions will finish 31st of December, I would have to decide where I move – that means either with you or I will come back to the country. I want to be sure if I am included on the list of people who are going to England. Could you check it for me and write immediately.
Mum wrote a sad letter. But maybe something can be done in her case.
Kisses.
Father
This was not to be the case as will be discovered in future blogs. This was the final time my father had any contact with his father and as far as the former was concerned that was that, for the next twenty five years when my father began to make inquiries about his family. You need to understand that information from Poland, as with other countries in the USSR sphere of influence was difficult to access, on some occasions letters went unreplied. My grandmother and my aunt’s fate will be published in the next blog.
End
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