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Seweryn was born on 18 March 1907, the son of Jacob Ehrlich and had one sister.

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In 1931, he graduated from the Faculty of Medicine of the Jan Kazimierz University in Lwow. As a doctor, he specialized in children’s diseases.

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He served in the Polish Army and was promoted to the rank of second lieutenant. In 1934 he worked in District Hospital No. 6 in Lwow. After the outbreak of World War II, the September Campaign, and the aggression of the USSR on Poland on 17 September 1939, he was arrested by the Soviets and was imprisoned in the Starobielsk camp.

 

In the spring of 1940, when most of the Polish prisoners became victims of the Katyn massacre, he was not executed but, with a handful of survivors, was transported first to the Pawlichew Bora camp, and then to the NKWD POW camp in Griazowiec.

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Under the Sikorski-Majski Agreement of 30 July 1941, he regained his freedom, after which he joined the Polish Army in the USSR under General Władysław Anders. After the evacuation to Persia (now Iran), he was an officer of the Polish 2nd Corps, serving in the Middle East and in the Italian Campaign. In 1946, he wrote a memoir about his imprisonment and included a list of missing prisoners who were victims of the Katyn massacre. He also organized the Polish medical service in England.

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In 1949, he moved to Canada and joined the Saskatchewan Hospital in North Battleford, taking up the duties of psychiatrist and lecturer in 1951. With his wife Irena, and three daughters, he moved to Winnipeg with his family in 1965. He wrote poetry under the pseudonym "Sindbad".

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Seweryn Ehrlich passed away in Winnipeg on 9 September 1968, at the age of 61 years.

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Copyright: Ehrlich family

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