Battle of Tomaszów Lubelski

This video shows the beginning of the conflict that resulted in Franciszek Raczkiewicz’s (my great uncle) death four years later. It is about the Battle of Tomaszów Lubelski which occurred 18 September to 20 September 1939. According to the Youtube post, it was the second largest battle of the Invasion of Poland and also the largest tank battle of the campaign. It resulted in the surrender of Army Krawko on 20 September 1939. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCejwWM2N1E (link is active on the Facebook page)

Looking Back at World War II

Rotunda's gate. The temporary camp for the prisoners of Security Police. ***** I asked Andrzej Dubiel (my 2nd cousin) about family history during WWII. “My father didn't talk about it. My mother sometimes mentioned that her aunt's house was burnt by Germans and they had to run off and had to hide. It was in Sumin, a village near Sabaudia, located about 10 kom north of Sabaudia on the way to Zamość.” ***** Between November 1942 and March 1943, the Germans forcibly removed Jewish people from the area around Tomaszow Lubelski. They were taken to a camp in Zamosc and from there it was determined if their next step was slave labor or a concentration camp. Children were separated from their families. ***** I asked Andrzej what he knew about the Jewish community within the area. He told me, . “When I was younger I didn't realize that there lived so many Jewish here. The Germans destroyed almost all evidence of their lives. The synagogue was torn down, the cemetery was devastated and people forgot about them.” ***** The link about this part of polish history is active on the Facebook Page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing_of_Zamojszczyzna_by_Nazi_Germany ***** Here is an interesting website about Jews in Tomaszów.(issues even before 1943) https://sztetl.org.pl/en/towns/t/51-tomaszow-lubelski/99-history/138161-history-of-community ***** Image: By Aung - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1998069

Franciszek Raczkiewicz (brother of my Grandpa) Was Shot By Germans in the Rotunda in Zamosc

My Mom has a memory about hearing what her fatherś family was experiencing in Poland. She told me, “There were letters that came back and forth from Poland. Occasionally the relatives in Poland would send mushrooms to my Dad. What I remember is my mom said that Dad’s brother got shot or killed stealing his own corn for food. They were under siege to the point they couldn’t take their own food. That is all I know, not sure what brother it was. My mom wasn’t telling me that -- I am not sure who she was talking to and I heard the story. I was a kid at the time.” ************************************** I was curious to see if this story could be verified but I did not really know how to go about it. Recently, I read this account on the family tree of Andrzej Dubiel: (Janina Bender's testimony - my grandmother's on August 25, 2010.) The people who had been settled in Savoie, called Czarnuchy or Romanians, were given their fields and Poles were not allowed to harvest them. She was in danger of dying for harvesting her crops. Franek and his wife left for Łaszczów. After some time he returned to silently take something from the field. According to aunt Wana (report of August 25, 2010) he went for apples, potatoes, maybe grain and loaded them onto a wagon. He was caught under the statue. And then the grandmother's story: Franek loaded the car in the evening and left in the morning, but MINKA (I DON'T KNOW IF THERE IS ANY PERSON, AS MUCH AS I REMEMBER THIS) caught him at the bend near Bogdan, just like the road, and was arrested. There was an investigation and he was asked who was with him, but Franek did not give up anyone, for which he ended up at the Rotunda. Further Wanda's account: My mother (Frank's sister) used to visit him in Zamość. They read him the death sentence. He bit his fingers out of fear. He was shot. ***************************** I asked Andrzej about this and he told me the story was from the grandmother of Tomasz Raszkiewicz. She was married to Boleslaw, the youngest brother of my Grandfather. Andrrzej didn't know about this story before. He told me: My mom often said something about "czarnuchach". They were called "czarnuchy" because of their uniforms, but they weren't German soldiers, they came in order to take farms here. **************************** Franciszek died in 1943 at the age of 45. His mother died the following year in 1944 at the age of 73. His brother, Anthony (my grandfather) was a machinist at the time, living at 501 Milwaukee NW. He was two years older than his brother Francis. I wonder how and when he found out about his brotherś death. ------------------------- I attempted to understand what was going on in this time period in order to understand Franciszek’s experience of being forced to steal his own crops to survive and being shot in the Rotunda in Zamosc for it. I found an article that is about the German invasion in the area my family was from. It is written from the Ukrainian perspective. It sounds like after Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, German troops occupied the area. Ukrainian cultural activity did well under their regime and they resumed control of some churches which had become Roman Catholic,there was more use of their language and they had some positions of leadership. In 1942, the Polish underground fighters attacked the Ukrainians who retaliated. Whenever a country took over, they moved out many of the people living in the area and chose who would move in as settlers. “In 1943 the Germans began forcibly deporting the inhabitants of many Polish and Ukrainian villages in Zamość and Tomaszów Lubelski counties with the aim of resettling Germans there and undermining the popular base of the undergrounds.” The forcible deportations led to an increase in Polish resistance. **************** “On 3 September 1944 the Polish-Soviet authorities had signed an agreement in Lublin on the voluntary resettlement of Ukrainians living in Poland to Ukraine and of Poles living in Soviet Ukraine to Poland. The population transfer began in October 1944.” In this the Poles and Ukrainians were united in opposition but did not succeed.****************************************** From Wikipedia: 8000 people died in the Gestapo Rotunda camp in Zamość.[2] Nobody was judged for those crimes. During Generalplan Ost and Ethnic cleansing of Zamojszczyzna by Nazi Germany from Zamość Region Germans resettled 297 villages, about 110,000 Polish people, including 16,000 to Majdanek concentration camp, 2,000 to KL Auschwitz-Birkenau. 30,000 children were resettled. 4,500 Polish children from Zamosc Region deported to Germany in order to be Germanized[3] The gate which leads to the yard has the original doors with an inscription in German which reads: The temporary camp for the prisoners of Security Police. In German: Gefangenen-Durchgangslager Sicherheitspol. Last execution took place on 20 and 21 July 1944, when 150 people were shot[4]************************ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotunda_Zamo%C5%9B%C4%87 By Ziuteknowocz - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=66983474 Ziuteknowocz, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons Ziuteknowocz, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons By Ziuteknowocz - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=66945992

A Polish & American Hero Born on February 4

Thaddeus Kosciuszko is a Polish hero that many Americans have heard of at least those of us who grew up in cities with a large amount of Polish immigrants. Grand Rapids has a Kosciuszko Hall -- near Sacred Heart Church where my grandfather married his first wife. It is one of the many halls started in Grand Rapids to support the immigrants in different ways. Detroit has a statue of him and also of Casmir Pulaski. Right now in the United States many questions are coming up about statues and if the people commemorated are really heros. I suspect there will be no question about the Polish ones in Detroit. Koscisuzko was born in 1746. He came to America in 1776 and used his engineering skills to help the colonies in their desire for independence. He went back to Poland and was a national hero of the 1794 insurrection.