BUMP!
Posted on 07/03/2004 11:17:28 AM PDT by Grzegorz 246
A POLISH war veteran – who managed to escape the horrors of Fascist concentration camps – will make an emotional trip to Normandy next month to meet up with his old wartime comrades, writes Paul Reoch.
And Janek Jarmulski (87), who was born in Grodek Jagiellonski — part of the Ukraine since the war — and now lives in Perth’s Gray Street, will also be awarded a veteran’s medal to add to his already impressive collection, earned while bravely fighting the Nazis in World War Two.
Among his awards are the triple award of the Polish Cross of Valour (equivalent of the Victoria Cross) and French Croix de Guerre with Star.
Janek was interned, along with fellow Polish soldiers, by the Germans in Hungary at the start of the war, but he managed to escape to Yugoslavia.
With help from local people he reached the Italian border, and then travelled by train to France where he rejoined his fight against the Nazis.
He was shot in the leg during action on the Maginot Line in May, 1940, and following the fall of France, made it to Lyon in August, only to be arrested by the Vichy Police who forced him to labour in coalmines and on farms.
But Janek’s adventures were far from over.
After escaping from a concentration camp in Perpignan, he walked across the Pyrenees Mountains, only to be captured by the Spanish police near Girona.
He said: “They took me to the railway station and to a concentration camp at Miranda Da Ebro.
“I decided to escape and jumped on a train, went out the other side and hid in bushes for five hours.
“At one point a Spanish gun was within inches of my head, but I remained undetected.
“I made my way over a bridge and reached some woods around 3am. There I met two other Poles, a captain and a sergeant.
“They weren’t too friendly so I made my own way to Barcelona and was helped by a sympathetic Spanish girl.
“She nodded up into the sky and when I looked I saw the Polish Eagle on a building — it was the Polish Consulate in Barcelona!”
Janek was then driven to Madrid in the back of a car before being smuggled over the Spanish/Portuguese border to Lisbon where he met up with 20 fellow Poles.
Janek continued: “We claimed refugee status and were taken to Gibraltar, where we were issued with British uniforms and pay books.
“Eventually some Polish officers arrived there and organised transport to Abernethy, where we joined Poland’s 1st Armoured Division.”
The next few years involved training at various places – including Kinross, Milnathort, Catterick, Scarborough, Wooler and Peebles – before he was shipped off to Tilbury Docks to be embarked for the Normandy invasion in July, 1944.
Janek – who moved through the ranks to become a Major – fought the Germans in Lagarde and then the Battle of the Falaise Pocket.
The 1st Armour Division stormed through north France to Ypres, Ghent, Antwerp and into Holland through Breda, Tilburg, and Nijmegen before reaching Wilmshaven in Germany by April, 1945.
Janek was twice wounded in action and on one occasion left hospital without permission – at the risk of being charged with desertion – to rejoin the fight with his regiment .
After the war, he was appointed adjutant to the Polish Special Branch and helped smuggle Polish families into Germay via Czechoslovakia, as Poland was then under Russian control.
He married his wife, Janina in 1947 and returned to Cotford Camp in Wiltshire where he was appointed quartermaster.
After being demobbed in August,1949, Janek settled in Perth and set up a market garden in Old Scone, which he ran for 30 years.
He ran his own shop in Hospital Street until 1985, when he and his wife opened a guest house called Tatra – named after Polish mountains – in Pitcullen Terrace, before eventually retiring in 1992.
Now, Janek can hardly wait to be reunited with his old army mates.
“I’ve been looking forward to seeing them for so long I know it will be very emotional for us to be there after all this time,” Janek said.
The Poles are some tough SOB's - then, and now in Iraq. Bless their hearts :)
talk about a guy who lived a full life!
BUMP!
are you talking?
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