Jan was born to Jozef and Anna (nee Las) Pasierbek on 12 November 1922 in the village of Antoniowka, near the town of Zurawno, 60 kms south of Lwow, in south-eastern Poland. His siblings were: Stefania, Marysia, Marian, Kazimierz, Władyslawa, Helana, Tomasz, and Aniela.

 

Jan’s father and uncles Klimek and Wojtek had fought alongside Józef Piłsudzki in 1919.

 

In 1937 Jan joined the Cadet Corps in Zurawno at the age of fifteen. After completing his second grade of military training he was assigned to a national defence unit and later reassigned to the National Defence headquarters in Stryj. In April1939, Jan was drafted into the Polish army as a member of the 52nd Infantry Regiment.

 

When Germany attacked Poland on 1 September 1939, Jan’s regiment was given orders to pull back towards the Romanian border. However, on 17 September the Russians attacked Poland from the east and Jan and his fellow soldiers were  taken as prisoners of war by the Soviet Red Army.

 

On 12 February 1940, the High Court of the Soviet Union sentenced Jan to five years of hard labour for conspiring against the Soviet Union and the Ukrainian nation. He was 17 years old at the time. Jan and other Polish soldiers were then forced onto freight trains destined for Siberia. The trains stopped in Taigi Nizina on 26 February 1940, and the men then had to travel by foot for sixteen hours to Sosnowska (approximately 3,600 kilometres east of Warsaw). When they arrived at dawn, they were housed in barracks that “looked more like dilapidated barns.”

 

Once the Polish POWs built additional barracks, they were put to work in the Voroshilov platinum mine that was located four kilometres from the camp. Jan worked in this mine for seven months before being moved to work in an area known as the Lenin mine. Jan and his fellow soldiers laboured every day, under terribly primitive conditions, never knowing if they would ever see their families or homeland again.

 

On 22 June 1941, Germany attacked the Soviet Union and, as a result of diplomatic negotiations, the Poland now found itself allied with the Soviets against their common enemy – Germany. On 10 July 1941 the Polish Government-in-Exile based in London, England, and the Soviet Union signed an agreement for mutual aid in the war against Germany. The Soviet authorities granted an ‘amnesty’ to all Polish prisoners in the agreement. A Polish Army was soon organized by General Władysław Anders, who had just been released from a Moscow prison.

 

After many months of imprisonment as slave labour, Jan and his fellow Polish soldiers were finally released as free men. In October 1941, they marched from the Lenin Mine to Taigi Nizina and boarded a freight train to the Russian city of Sverdlovsk. From there they continued south to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, where Jan joined the 5th Kresowa Infantry Division in November. Once the soldiers completed their three months of training Jan, at the age of 19, was assigned as the group leader of the first company of the 14th Infantry Regiment, 5th Kresowa Division. The troops were then transferred to Blagowieszczanka, Uzbekistan, where they began training with new British weapons.

 

While Jan was in Uzbekistan, he miraculously reunited with his sister Marysia at the base camp in May 1942. She told Jan that back in February 1940, their parents and eight children had been deported from Poland to a labour camp deep in Russia near the Ural Mountains. Sadly, however, their father had been arrested along the way and was never seen again. Since Jan’s family was living in a camp only thirty kilometres away, he was able to obtain a pass to visit them. When he finally reunited with his family a few days later, Jan found both his mother and sister, Helena, gravely ill. Within a few days both died and Jan and his siblings had to bury their mother and sister together.

 

In June 1942, Jan registered his four youngest siblings with an orphanage organized by the Polish Red Cross. Jan was very grateful that Kazimierz, Władyslawa, Tomasz, and Aniela, were now going to be taken care of. They would soon be evacuated from the Soviet Union to a Polish orphanage in South Africa, the country that would eventually become their permanent home. Since Marysia, Stefania and Marian were older, they soon joined different Polish service units that were being organized in the Middle East.

 

In July 1942, Jan’s division crossed the Caspian Sea from the port of Krasnowodsk in Turkmenistan and arrived at the Persian port of Pahlevi. From there they travelled to Kana Kin, Iraq, where the Army officially became the Polish 2nd Corps under the command of the British 8th Army. Jan’s battalion, part of the 5th Kresowa Division, set up camp and was assigned to guard the oil pipelines from Mosul to Kirkutsk and the Kana Kin refinery region.

 

In July 1943, Jan’s division was transferred to Palestine to complete its military training. In February 1944, the Polish 2nd Corps sailed from Egypt to Taranto, Italy, and Jan’s battalion soon established a defensive position along the Sangro River in central Italy. Shortly after arriving there Jan was wounded by German gunfire. He spent three weeks recuperating in an army hospital and then returned to his unit in March.

 

During the Polish Second Corps’ preparation to attack German positions at Monte Cassino in April-May 1944, Jan’s battalion moved to San Pietro, which was south of Monte Cassino. As 2nd Lieutenant, he served in his company’s first front-rank platoon. During the battle of Monte Cassino Jan was wounded in the chest by German gunfire a second time and spent three weeks recuperating in the 3rd Polish Field Hospital.

 

In June Jan returned to his battalion which now occupied a sector by the Adriatic Sea. In July 1944, the Poles captured Ancona after three days of heavy fighting. They then captured Loreto and moved on to Palacio Del Canone. Their next order in April 1945, was to seize Gaiano, the last German line south of Bologna. During this battle Jan was wounded by German gunfire a third time and spent another three weeks in a field hospital. Shortly after, in May 1945, Germany surrendered.

 

Jan was awarded the following medals:

Polish medals:

• Cross of Valour (3 times)

• Silver Cross of Merit

• Army medal

• September 1939 Campaign medal

• Monte Cassino Cross

British medals:

• 1939-45 Star

• Africa Star

• Italy Star

• Defence Medal

• War Medal 1939-1945 with 3 bars (for being wounded)

 

 

Following his recuperation Jan rejoined his unit in Bologna and looked forward to returning to his homeland to help rebuild Poland. However, the Allied powers had shifted the eastern border of Poland 160 miles to the west which meant that Jan’s hometown was now in the Soviet Union (present day Ukraine). To add insult to injury Poland and other countries in Eastern Europe were now governed by communists who were under the influence of the Soviet Union. The Polish communist government had become very unsympathetic to the Polish soldiers wishing to return home and even stripped General Anders of his Polish citizenship in 1946.

 

Jan and his fellow soldiers were stunned. They had spent years fighting for Polish freedom as well as freedom throughout the world, and now they were not even welcomed back home. Where were they supposed to go?

 

At this time the British government informed the Polish soldiers that they had a few options: they could return to a ‘free’ Poland, remain in Italy, or settle in Great Britain, Canada or Australia. Jan’s brother, Marian, decided to move to Australia, while his sister, Marysia, returned home to Poland.

 

 Jan had long discussions with his close friends, Klimek Mitoraj, Teodor Gnidec, and Antek Sawicki, about what they should do. Jan initially wanted to move to England, where his sister, Stefania, now lived and he wrote to her for advice. She, however, informed him that the English people were against additional Polish immigrants since they could now return home to a “free” Poland.

 

In 1946 the Canadian government agreed to permit Polish ex-servicemen to immigrate to Canada and Jan decided to emigrate to Canada along with approximately 4,500 soldiers from the Polish 2nd Corps. The Canadian authorities placed a condition on their immigration. It required each soldier to commit to a two-year labour contract in farming, mining or forestry. This was the price that Jan and other Polish soldiers were willing to pay for freedom and a new life in Canada. Approximately 500 of them agreed to work on farms across south-western Ontario. Many of these men replaced German POWs who had been freed and sent back home to be reunited with their families.

 

In the summer of 1946, Jan’s group, called ‘Camp Canada,’ was transported to Cezena where they took a course in farming. At the beginning of November 1946, the Polish soldiers bound for Canada boarded an old ship, in terrible condition, called the “Sea Snipe” in Naples and sailed for twelve days before arriving in Halifax, Nova Scotia. When Jan disembarked, he had to turn over all his military belongings with the exception of his uniform, boots, knapsack and one blanket. Jan had three hundred English pounds he had received as soldier’s pay in his Polish Army bank account but this money was now frozen by the Canadian government. He was told he would receive a small monthly allowance from his account and that the balance of the money would be released to him once he completed his two-year contract.

 

From Halifax, Jan’s group travelled by train to Camp Fingal located southwest of London, Ontario. They endured fourteen days of quarantine and medical examinations at Westminster Hospital in London. In late November the men attended a work assignment meeting, and this is where Jan first met Andy, the farmer he would be working for in Mount Bridges. Jan signed a two-year contract, and his wages were forty-five dollars a month plus food. At the age of 24 Jan now began his new life in Canada.

 

Jan’s first task on the farm was to cut down trees in a nearby bush. Since the only coat Jan had was his army uniform, he asked the farmer to take him to a store where he could buy some work clothes. The farmer took Jan to the barn, showed him two black overalls hanging on a wall with the letters WP (War Prisoner) and told him he could wear these instead. Jan became quite upset and told the farmer that he wasn’t going to wear some left-over German POW hand-me-downs. The farmer replied that the German boys had worn the overalls without complaining. Jan became quite angry and reminded the farmer that he wasn’t a German prisoner but a free man. The next day the farmer took Jan to a store in Strathroy where he purchased some work clothes.

 

Soon after Jan signed up for an English language course taught at a school in Mount Brydges. Although he had to walk four miles each way, Jan was eager to improve his English and to meet some of his friends who were working on other farms in the area. Unfortunately, Jan’s work schedule soon made it impossible for him to continue with this class. He started working early in the morning and finished late in the evening, twelve hours a day,  seven days a week. Even when Jan had some free time the farmer often sent him out to help neighbouring farmers with their ploughing and other farming tasks. Although Jan was grateful for the opportunity to live in Canada, the farmer was clearly taking advantage of Jan’s situation. Eventually Jan went to the Work Bureau office in London and expressed his concerns regarding his working conditions to an office manager. Within a few days Jan noticed that the farmer’s attitude had changed for the better and the food had even improved somewhat. Throughout it all Jan kept a positive attitude and worked hard until his two-year contract ended in November 1948.

 

 Jan married Waclawa (nee Choja) in London, Ontario, in October 1949. They had two children, Krystyna and Henry. Waclawa passed away in January,1990. During the 1970s Jan’s brothers, Kazimierz and Marian, passed away. In 1992 Jan and his five surviving siblings, Aniela, Stefania, Marysia, Władyslawa and Tomasz, reunited in Cape Town, South Africa, for the first time since their family was separated during the war 50 years earlier.

 

When he moved to London in 1946, Jan had joined the Polish Combatants Association, Branch #2, He helped to build the London SPK Hall and was President for nine years. Jan designed the first flag standard for the Branch and designed the SPK Monument in St. Peter’s Cemetery. He also helped to build the Polish church and was on the Board of Directors for London Polonia Towers.

 

Jan passed away in London, Ontario on 13 March 2020 in his 98th year. He was buried at St. Peter’s cemetery.

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Copyright: Pasierbek family

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