Father Rafal GRZONDZIEL

Polish 2nd Corps

He was born to a mining family on 19 October 1912 in Panewniki, Poland. He had one sister and five brothers. He attended school in Mikolow and Katowice. He joined the Polish gymnastics Association „Sokol”, as well as the Scouting organization.

In 1936 he became a graduate (philosophy and theology) of the College of St. Antoni in his native Panewniki (today Katowice). He graduated from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan in 1939. Until the outbreak of World War II, he was a junior assistant at the Department of Polish Literature of the University of Poznań.

When Hitler invaded Poland, Grzondziel became the chaplain of the General War Hospital in Zbaraż. When Stalin invades Poland on 17 September, a young priest is arrested by the Soviets but in 1940 he manages to escape to his native Silesia, where he became a vicar in Klimzowiec. However, because his older brother was arrested and he himself was wanted by the Gestapo, he fled to Vienna, and from there through Hungary he travelled to Greece, where he became a chaplain in Athens.

In December 1940, he was evacuated to Lebanon, and there assigned to the Headquarters of the Polish Army in the East.

Soon after the fall of France, Grzondziel moves to Palestine, where he finds himself in the ranks of the Carpathian Brigade of the Polish 2nd Corps.

In the rank of captain, he served as the Head of the Pastoral Care and Chancellor of the Field Curia in the East (Military Field Curia) in Baghdad. He took part in all the combat activities of the Second Corps in the Italian campaign, from Tarente to Monte Cassino to Bologna, the last enemy stronghold. He was made an honorary citizen of Bologna, whose Senate struck a special medal with his name, and the local university awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1946. By then, he was already fluent in 5 languages.

In parallel, Grzondziel was a well-deserved scout activist. He was the organizer of the ZHP Council in the East (Palestine, 1940), the 1st Instructor Conference in Como (Italy), and the General Meeting of the ZHP Council in Rome (1946).

He could not return to post-war Poland. He was wanted for fleeing the NKVD, for writings about Katyn, and the murder of scouts from the parachute tower.

In the rank of Major, he arrived in England in 1946, where he took an active part in organizing schools and enabling education for former soldiers. He continued his education in postgraduate studies in experimental psychology at Oxford University (1946-48) and then in the U.S. (1949-50) becoming a graduate (MA) of the Department of Social and Political Sciences of Western Reserve University in Cleveland (Ohio). He undertook work as a lecturer (1950-51) and then a head of the Faculty of Political Science of the Catholic Quincy College, Illinois (1951-52).

He moved to Canada permanently in May 1952. Three years later, he received a baccalaureate in canon law at the University of Ottava. In 1965, he took part in the Second Vatican Council, and in 1968 he moved to the diocese in Sarnia. He was the parish priest of the Polish Mission of St. Cross in Woodstock (Ontario). He built a church in which Cardinal Karol Wojtyla dedicated a special cross.

For most of his time in Canada, Grzondziel was associated with the Kaszuby region, considered the cradle of Polish settlement in Canada. In the 1950s, infatuated with the surroundings of the town of Barry’s Bay, he settled in the place where in 1858 the first group of (18 families) immigrants from Poland arrived, all from Kaszuby. A year later, the first 14 Kaszubian names were recorded in the registers with an annotation of being of Polish nationality.

His passion was working with young people. From1953 Fr. Grzondziel organized the first camps for children of Polish immigrants there, on his own farm. He founded the Youth Centre for Recreation and Sports “Kaszuby”, and soon after he built a chapel and a “Cathedral among the Pines”. He also he built a ski-lift, alongside which operated the "Kaszuby Ski Club”, and established the Hallerch Circle in Barry’s Bay.

He introduced electricity and telephones to the area and organized a post office, of which he became the first postmaster. It was thanks to the efforts of this Polish Franciscan in 1960 that the Office of Geographical Names of Canada approved the name “Kaszuby”.

Today it is a place well known to all Polonia. The activity of Grzondziel attracted not only scouts or retired soldiers investing in summer houses in Kaszuby. Over time, Polish churches, schools, monuments, permanent camps and scouting stations, and an open-air museum appeared there, together constituting a clear enclave of Polishness in Canada.

He lived to see the free Poland he had dreamed of. In the early 90’s, he visited his homeland, bringing back the banner of the Podhale Rifle Division, which he laid in the museum in Warsaw.

He was awarded the following honours:

Polish:

Order of Virtuti Militari, V Class (# 12309)
Cross of Valour (twice)
Monte Cassino Cross
Gold Cross of Merit with Sword
Silver Cross of Merit with Swords
Army Medal
Order of Polonia Restituta

British:

Star of Africa
Star of Italy
1939-1945 War Medal

Italian:

Corona d’Italia
Valor Militare

Father Grzondziel died on 22 December 1998 and was buried at the Saint Mary's Cemetery (the old cemetery of pioneers adjoining the church) in Wilno, Ontario. In 1999, a year after his death, an obelisk dedicated to the priest who did so much good for this region was unveiled in Kaszuby.

Translated from Tomasz Piwowarek’s Polish text.