News
Memorabilia left behind of a Polish Guard Company soldier go to the Museum
The Museum’s collection got enriched in March by memorabilia of Ensign Mieczyław Czapla, thanks to a donation of Bożena Markiewicz. Their inventory and processing is pending now.
Mieczysław Czapla (born in 1919 in Zawiercie), soldier of the 74th Upper Silesian Infantry Regiment, from November 1939 to May 1940 was a prisoner-of-war in Stalag VIII B Lamsdorf. Later he was also held in Stalag XII A Limburg an der Lahn and XII C Wiebelsheim, and from October 1941 to March 1945 he was forced to work in the POW construction and building unit 42 Mannheim (Kriegsgefangenen Bau - und Arbeitsbataillon 42 Mannheim). After the end of the Second World War, until 1947, M. Czapla served in the Polish Guard Companies of the American army in Germany, and stayed in a camp for "dipis", and in 1950, together with his wife Helena, emigrated to the USA.
The vast majority of the collection consists of official documents, identity cards, notes concerning service in the Polish Army and further life in Allied-occupied Germany. Photographs (166) from that period are an important supplement to the collection.
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