english version

19-03-2023

03-11-2018

wersja polska

Zbigniew Ireneusz Wajszczuk (0062) – Siedlce


Diploma - 1938 - "Państwowa Szkoła Techniczna w Wilnie im. Marszałka J. Piłsudskiego"
Mobilized – 1939 - 6 Batalion Saperów / 6th Sapper Battalion, Brześć
German attack on Poland – 1.IX.1939
Soviet attack on Poland – 17.IX.1939
Soviet POW - 18.IX.1939, Tarnopol
5.X.1939
Wstecz/Back Szepietówka Wstecz/Back sub-camp?
„Amnestia” – released - 2.X.1941
Wstecz/Back Polish Army Wstecz/Back station Tockoje?

Mobilization plan „W” (in Polish) https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_mobilizacyjny_%E2%80%9EW%E2%80%9D

Deployment of the Polish Army Divisions in 1939 – very few were positioned along the eastern (Soviet) border.


Universal mobilization notice


http://www.1939.pl/organizacja/wosjko-polskie/mapa-rozmieszczenia-wojsk-1939.html
Deployment of the Army-level groups. Pink – main forces, gray – reserve formations

Translation of a Russian document – received from the Central Military Archives in Rembertów https://www.wajszczuk.pl/polski/drzewo/tekst/0062zbigniew/caw.htm

6 Batalion Saperów (II RP)

6 Batalion Saperów (6 bsap) – oddział saperów Wojska Polskiego II RP.

Batalion (pułk) był jednostką wojskową istniejącą w okresie pokoju i spełniającą zadania mobilizacyjne wobec oddziałów i pododdziałów saperów. Spełniał również zadania organizacyjne i szkoleniowe. Stacjonował w Brześciu. W 1939, po zmobilizowaniu jednostek przewidzianych planem mobilizacyjnym, został rozwiązany.

6 Sapper Battalion (II RP – 2nd Polish Republic)

This battalion (regiment) was a military unit during the peace-time and its role was to mobilize the units or sub-units of the military engineering (sapper) forces. It also carried out organization a training duties. It was stationed at Brześć (Brest Litovsk). In 1939, after activating the planned units, it was dissolved.
 

 

POW Camp in Szepetówka (Szepietówka) in 1939


NKWD polish POW camps – 1939 (website is in polish, excerpts in english - below - https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obozy_NKWD_dla_je%C5%84c%C3%B3w_polskich

These were the sites of isolation of the three groups of the polish POWs. (…) These camps were sub-divided into:

1) POWs proper, where the international convention laws were observed by the Soviet authorities and the prisoners were not enslaved and forced to work and

2) POW labour camps, where the POWs were forced to work. Special and segregation camps were created for housing prisoners in the first group and transitional and post-amnesty camps were created for those in the second group. (…)

POW forced labour camps

The best known were those POW forced labour camps

  1. camp in Równe/Rivne (since December 1939 also called a Lwów/Lviv camp) – a system of ca. 20 individual camp locations along the build at a murderous pace strategic road Nowogród Wołyński (Nowograd Wołyńskij) – Lwów via Równe (Rowno), Dubno and Brody; komendant: Iwan Fediukow; 15 500 men were directed there, in December 1939 - 14.211 Poles, including 12.482 privates and 1364 junior officers

  2. camps fulfilling the needs of the iron and limestone mines of the „Nikopol-Marganiec” Co-operative in Ukraine, which was administered by the Peoples’ Commissariat of Metalurgy and Iron;

    • Krzywy Róg / Kryvyi Rih camp in the Dnipropetrovsk region of Ukraine; about 6800 POWs;

    • Yeleno-karakub camp; about 1900 POWs;

    • Zaporoże / Zaporoz’e / Запорожжя, Ukraina); about 1600 POWs. (...)

(Forced Migration in Central and Eastern Europe, 1939 -1950, p. 31 https://books.google.com/books?id=wUOMAQAAQBAJ&pg=PT39&dq=Yeleno-Karakub&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjn5KPiocXeAhXi7YMKHYCgCJgQ6AEILDAA#v=onepage&q=Yeleno-Karakub&f=false)


Indicated on a GOOGLE map are: location of the strategic road from Nowogród Wołyński to Lwów, under construction in 1939 - 1941 by the Polish POWs, Trembowla (town of residence of Stefania “Stenia” and her fmily, before deportation to Kazkhstan) and location of Zbigniew “Zbyszek’s” POW camp in Szepietówka

POW forced labour camps (Lwów)

Lwów / Lviv camp – (until December 1939 called Równe camp) – was used to continue forceful construction of the strategic road Nowogród Wołyński – Lwów, after June 22, 1941 (German attack on the Soviet Union), its 14,000 inmates (including 11,000 Poles) were evacuated to the (vacated by the “Katyń massacre”) Starobielsk camp – victims of this evacuation are estimated to be about 1900 people (1328 of them were identified by the “KARTA” Center (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KARTA_Center).


Równe POW forced labour camp /NKWD construction #1/

Shepetivka / Szepetówka - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepetivka

Shepetivka (Ukrainian: Шепеті́вка; Polish: Szepetówka, Russian: Шепето́вка, Shepetovka) is a town located on the Huska River in the Khmelnytskyi Oblast (province) of Western Ukraine. The city's population is 43,379 (2013). Shepetivka is a town of oblast subordinance, and the administrative center of Shepetivskyi Raion (district).

Shepetivka is an important railway junction with five intersecting transit routes. It is located 100 km away from Khmelnytskyi, the oblast's capital. The city is known as one of the principal settings of author Nikolai Ostrovsky's classic novel How the Steel Was TemperedThe first written mention of Shepetivka was in 1594. In 1795 it became part of Iziaslav County, Volhynian Governorate. The first railway station was built in 1873.

In 1923 it got the status of a town, becoming the capital of Shepetovka district. In 1932 it became the capital of Shepetivka Raion, Vinnytsia Oblast. In 1937 Shepetivka Raion became part of Kamianets-Podilskyi (since 1954 Khmelnytskyi) Oblast.
 

History - settlement called Shepetivka, belonging to the prince Ivan Zaslavsky, was first mentioned in a written document in 1594. In the 16th century Shepetivka didn’t differ from other settlements of Wolhynia. The settlement had a community and a windmill. It was given Magdeburg Rights at the end of the 16th century. This contributed the settlement’s expansion and growing population. At the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries the peasantry was intensively enslaved. Population of Shepetivka also suffered from frequent attacks of the Crimean Tatars. Peasants and craftsmen responded to the feudal oppression with the revolt in 1591-1593, led by Krzysztof Kosiński, and the revolt in 1594-1596, led by Severyn Nalyvaiko. When during the Ukrainian war of liberation from Poland in July 1648 peasant-Cossack regiments of Maxym Kryvonis had conquered Polonne, the inhabitants of Shepetivka joined the troops. At the end of the 17th century Shepetivka became property of Lubomirski family, and in 1703, of the Sanguszko family. And at the end of the 18th century it became part of Iziaslav county, Volhynian Governorate. In 1866 Shepetivka became the capital of the county.

   

Notable residents - Ignacy Jan Paderewski, pianist, composer, and Polish prime minister, lived near Shepetivka as a child.

Poles in Szepetówka - https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Szepet%C3%B3wka - (Summary). Ethnic cleansing and Soviet deportations in the 1930-ties significantly decreased the population of Poles. Recently (2001), there lived over 2,000 Poles there (ca. 5% of the total town population), and a ca. 10,000 in the region, which is ca. 25% of the total Polish population in Ukraine. There are polish organizations: Związek Polaków na Ukrainie, Stowarzyszenie „Wspólnota Polska” and polish language classes in a few schools and a few polish school are under construction.

 

   


Drawing of Szepietówka by Napoleon Orda


Town street


Locomotive - monument 9P-610 (Ostrovsky Museum)


Shepetivka park


Church of Nativity in Shepetivka


Railroad station - By Andrey_76 - Залізничний вокзал станції Шепетівка - 6 / 7 – Wikimapia, CC BY-SA 3.0
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49881578

The quarries
https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=ZV3fW--7JY-JjwTftb_QBg&q=kamieniolomy+na+Ukrainie&btnK=Google+Search&oq=kamieniolomy+na+Ukrainie&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0i22i30.986720.1011095..1016084...4.0..0.343.2714.29j1j1j1......0....1..gws-wiz.....0..0j0i10j0i30j0i13j0i13i30j0i8i13i30.49DVKpL-5dI (Polish)

During his recollections from the Soviet imprisonment, which he shared with his immediate family, Zbyszek was telling them about the initial short stay in a (segregation?) camp in Szepietowka, where he was probably assigned to a POW labour camp of the Równe-Lwów group for road construction. He did not mention any other location od address, except for his work in a quarry(ies?), which one?, before his release to the General Anders’ Polish Army in 1941.

We know that in 1938, shortly before the beginning of the Word War II, he graduated from a Highway Construction Department of the State Technical Institute in Wilno. He was then drafted (when?) to the Army, probably as a junior/non-commissioned officer, being a specialist – sapper.

It was noted that after the capture he was registered (or had himself registered) as a private!

Recently, while looking for information on POW camps and stone quarries in Ukraine, we have found in the Internet a website of the Akademia Górniczo-Hutnicza in Krakowie. They organize annually for their students summer vacation training field trips – one of such trips was to Ukraine in 2004 - „Praktyka terenowa UKRAINA 2004”- http://www.geol.agh.edu.pl/~zzss/praktyka2004.htm It provided us with interesting and pertinent information, as well as the map and picture, above. But…, we still do not know exactly, which of the quarries were open at that time and where did the POWs work?
 


Multiple locations of the stone quarries in the area near Szepietówka (in 2004)


Photograph of one of the quarries near Szepietówka

Totskoye - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totskoye - Totskoye (Russian: То́цкое) is a rural locality (a selo) and the administrative center of Totsky District of Orenburg Oblast, Russia. Population: 6,898 (2010 Census);[1] 7,201 (2002 Census);[2] 7,095 (1989 Census).[3]

During World War II, it was the site of a prisoner-of-war camp for Polish prisoners. In 1941–1942, it was one of places for the formation of the Polish Armed Forces in the East by Władysław Anders. A monument for Polish soldiers is erected there.

In 1954, the Totskoye range was the site of the Soviet nuclear tests. Totskoye is also the site of the Totskoye air base.

The garrison of the 27th Guards Motor Rifle Division, 2nd Army, Volga–Urals Military District, relocated from the former East Germany in 1990-1993, is located in Totskoye.

Anders' Army - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders%27_Army

Polish volunteers to Anders' Army, released from a Soviet Gulag camp (“Armia Zebrakow”)

On 4 August 1941 the Polish prime minister and commander-in-chief, General Władysław Sikorski, nominated General Władysław Anders, just released from the Lubyanka prison in Moscow, as commander of the army. General Michał Tokarzewski began the task of forming the army in the Soviet town of Totskoye in Orenburg Oblast on 17 August. Anders announced his appointment and issued his first orders on 22 August.

The formation began organizing in the Buzuluk area, and recruitment began in the NKVD camps among Polish POWs. By the end of 1941 the new Polish force had recruited 25,000 soldiers (including 1,000 officers), forming three infantry divisions: 5th, 6th and 7th. Menachem Begin (the future leader of the anti-British resistance group Irgun, prime minister of Israel and Nobel Peace Prize winner) was among those who joined. In the spring of 1942 the organizing center moved to the area of Tashkent in Uzbekistan and the 8th division was also formed.

The recruitment process met obstacles. Significant numbers of Polish officers were missing as a result of the Katyn massacre (1940), unknown at that time to the Poles. The Soviets did not want citizens of the Second Polish Republic who were not ethnic Poles (such as Jews, Belarusians and Ukrainians) to be eligible for recruitment. The newly established military units did not receive proper logistical support or supplies. Some administrators of Soviet camps holding the Poles interfered with the already authorized release of their Polish inmates.[citation needed] (…)

Zbyszek’s war travels

1939/40 (green ): I Corps Wstecz/Back Rumunia, Węgry Wstecz/Back 1. Homs (Syria), Wstecz/Back 2. Palestyna,
Wstecz/Back 3. Tobruk, Wstecz/Back 4. Ain El-Ghazala, Wstecz/Back 5. Egypt, Wstecz/Back 6. Palestyna, XII 1943 R. – IV 1944 R.
Wstecz/Back (6) Tarent, Wstecz/Back (7.) Monte Cassino, Wstecz/Back (8.) Ankona, Wstecz/Back (9.) Bolonia

1939 – 1941 (red):
II Corps
Wstecz/Back JEŃCY, GULAG Wstecz/Back 1. Buzułuk, 15 I – 25 II 1942 Wstecz/Back 2. Azja Środkowa,
Wstecz/Back
3. Krasnowodsk, Wstecz/Back 4. Irak, Wstecz/Back 5. Syria i Palestyna, XII 1943 R. – IV 1944 R. Wstecz/Back 6. Tarent,
 
Wstecz/Back 7. Monte Cassino, Wstecz/Back 8. Ankona, Wstecz/Back 9. Bolonia

http://www.polskicmentarzbolonia.pl/pl/szlak-2-korpusu-polskiego.html


Prepared by: Waldemar J Wajszczuk & Paweł Stefaniuk 2023
e-mail: drzewo.rodziny.wajszczuk@gmail.com