News

Teresa Bielicz and Zygmunt Chodorowski have donated to the Museum a valuable collection of memorabilia of their father, Rifleman Marian Chodorowski (1917-1977), who was a defender of the Hel Peninsula in September 1939,  and a prisoner of German camps during World War II.

In 2011, the donors made a request to the Museum for information as to the prisoner-of-war fate of their father. The query conducted by the staff of our Archive confirmed that in the documents Wehrmachtauskunftstelle für Kriegerverluste und Kriegsgefangenet  his name appears under the POW number 14040. Marian Chodorowski was first taken to Stalag II C Woldenberg, then to Stalag II C Greifswald. In 1941 he was deprived of his prisoner-of-war status and from then on, worked in the German agricultural sector as a forced labourer.

After 10 years, Ms. Tersa Bielicz and Mr. Zygmund Chodorowski contacted our Museum again. This time it was a proposal of donation of extremely valuable memorabilia left by their father. The collection contains official documents concerning the change of his status, i.e. transfer to forced labour as a civilian worker. It includes, among others, a Quittungskarte (receipt card), kept in the context of compulsory accident insurance, and an Arbeitskarte (forced labourer’s work card). The donation also includes 17 photographs taken during his forced labour period and a post-war military book with information on his service record and  time in captivity.

In return for the documents and photographs donated to the Museum, the donors will receive a commemorative album containing copies of the donated originals. These, in turn, will undergo conservation treatment which will guarantee them a long life and preserve them for future generations as a testimony to the wartime fate of the defenders of Poland in 1939.