Next day she came across three men from the A.K. One was the battalion commander another was Ignacy Narewski. She felt very proud when she was accepted into the A.K. as a “łączniczka” (messenger) and given the pseudonym "Diana" in the “Miłosz” battalion.  The battalion was fighting in the area of Plac Trzech Krzyży, Al. Ujazdowskie, Ul. Książęca, in the centre of Warsaw where she had to run amongst the burning buildings carrying messages to the various units.  One day she was hit by a bullet which hit her breast pocket where she kept her documents, which saved her life.

Prisoner of War Camps

My mother went through Pruszkow Transit Camp. We learned recently that on leaving Warsaw she was very ill with a high fever and eventually she was put on a lorry with the sick and injured, as she was unable to walk any further. My father left from Ożarow where the A.K. P.O.Ws. were originally taken after capitulation. They were put on cattle trains to P.O.W. Camps in Germany. Luck had it that they ended up in the same camp, Sandbostel Stalag XB which was near Bremervorde in north-west Germany. It was a large camp for male P.O.Ws. of all nationalities. 525 Polish women from the Uprising were taken there as well, of which 84 were of officer rank. My parents passed letters and notes through the barbed wire fence that separated them, they were also able to see one another by the fence. On 1st January 1945 our father proposed to our mother. He wrote to the Commander of the camp for permission for the wedding which took place in the afternoon on the 7th January 1945. The wedding ceremony was performed by Father Stanisław Kamiński, also a prisoner of war, and it took place in one of the barracks in front of the altar of the Divine Mother of Czestochowa. The choir of Polish P.O.Ws., who had been in the camp since 1939, sang and some 21 A.K. colleagues were also present. The ceremony was followed by a modest lunch for 30 people.

Afterwards, under military guard, they proceeded to the barrack of my father’s battalion where they were greeted with bread and salt.  After a moving speech by one of the officers they were given souvenir letters and a silver plate with their KGF numbers and date of the wedding.  This was followed by a very modest supper.  The tables were covered with white sheets and their friends had saved their morning ration of bread, sugar and marmalade so they could share their supper.  Some 240 of their colleagues were present and sang “Sto Lat" for the newly weds.  After this reception my mother and her friends were escorted back to the barbed wire fence to return to the female barracks.

Our parents decided not to return to a Soviet dominated Poland and came to England with the Polish Resettlement Corps in August 1947 by ship from Hamburg to Clyde Port. They were taken to Haydon Park, Polish Camp in Dorset, near Sherborne. The camp, consisting of Nissen huts, was built during the war as an American Army hospital but was now being used by the National Assistance Board for housing Displaced People. At this time my mother was in her 7th month of pregnancy. Soon after, she was taken to the hospital in Diddington Polish Camp, Huntingtonshire, where I was born on the 24th August 1947. The conditions at the maternity hospital were very basic and she soon returned to her family at Haydon Park. In 1948 our father left us in Haydon Park Camp and went to London to look for work, unfortunately they separated. Our mother began work at the camp Nursery where she was able to look after us as well.

I was christened in Haydon Park by Father Alojzy Finc, the camp's Polish priest.  My godmother, Jadwiga Szczepaniak Plut. Podchorąży (cpl. Off. Cadet) A.K.,  took part in the Warsaw Uprising and was present at my parents wedding in Sandbostel  P.O.W. Camp. She later emigrated to Argentina. My godfather, Tadeusz Gontarek, was also a Home Army soldier in the Uprising and prisoner in Sandbostel Stalag XB.  He married an English girl and they settled in Birmingham.

In June 1951 we were transferred to Fairford Hostel Gloucestershire which had also been used as an army hospital during the war and had similar accommodation to that in Haydon Park.  Our mother continued working at the nursery until 1952 when the nursery was closed as part of the run down of special health provision for Displaced Persons. Finding herself without a job she had to rethink her future.

She heard about a Polish Boarding School for young children at Shephalbury Manor School, Nr. Stevenage in Hertfordshire, and arranged for my sister and me, 5 and 4 years old, to go there while she began to study for a nursing career at the nearby Lister Hospital in Hitchin. She qualified as a State Registered Nurse in 1955, working and living in nurses’ accommodation next to the hospital.

Life After the Camps

Visit to German Prison Camps – September 2010

In September 2010, my sister and I visited Germany, the areas of the P.O.W. Camps where our parents were held during the war. Sandbostel Stalag XB, where they were married, is now a museum and memorial site. We were met at Bremervorde rail station by one of the historians from the Sandbostel Foundation who drove us along the route our parents and other prisoners had to walk to the camp in 1944, which was 10 kilometers away. In Sandbostel camp we were met by the Director, who gave us information on the life and conditions in the camp during the war, showing us the inside of the barracks, bath huts and kitchens.

Barrack No. 90 where our mother and the other Polish women were held was gone as was the barrack where our father’s battalion was held, but we stood on that spot.  In one of the huts there was an exhibit of the Polish P.O.W’s. There was a photograph of the altar of the Divine Mother of Czestochowa, next to which was an article from the Times 1966 about our parents’ marriage in Sandbostel. What a surprise!  We had this newspaper. We visited the cemetery next to the camp which was set in a beautiful forest, there was a big cross in the Polish section, on most of the soldiers’ graves it was written “Name not known”. It was difficult for us to imagine our parents had to endure such a sad place and were married in such diverse circumstances. We took with us copies of documents, letters, notes from our parents wedding and time in the camp. A few days later an article was written in a German newspaper about our visit and our parents under the title “Polish Wedding in Stalag XB”. We also visited the small town of Meppen.

In September 2010, my sister’s son brought back from Poland letters our parents had written in 1945 – 1947 from Germany to our maternal grandmother. In one, our father writes a long detailed description of their wedding in Stalag XB. After 65 years it was wonderful to get this information.

The female P.O.W. Camp in Oberlangen, near the Dutch border, only had a memorial and a cemetery. During the war it was in an area of bog and marshland, now it is surrounded by trees and pretty fields.  On arriving at Lathen Station, we imagined our mother and the rest of the women having to walk so many miles to the camp, it was February, so very cold, they must have also been extremely hungry.

We have our parents' A.K. Armia Krajowa documents, our mother’s armband which she wore during the Warsaw Uprising and their KGF metal tags from the Prisoner of War Camp. In a small brown suitcase, which we found after our father’s death, are all the written wedding documents, letters and notes, with signatures of A.K. colleagues, from their time in Sandbostel Stalag XB. We have taken copies of these to the Uprising Museum in Warsaw.

Our parents told us very little about their experiences during the war, it was after our mother s’ death that we found the documents, letters and articles from which we learned more about their lives at that time. What a pity, there is so much one would have liked to have asked about these events in their lives, which have become such an important part of Polish history.

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