Tomasz Wielgat

Translation of parts of an

interview by Prof. Patalas

I was born in the Osiecznik settlement in Wolyn in 1918. I had five siblings. My father had served in the Polish legion and ran a 350-hectare estate in the area.

Soon after the Russians invaded in 1939, I was forcibly conscripted into a labour battalion of the Red Army. I remained with that unit until the Germans attacked the Russians. General chaos soon ensued, and I was able to get away and make my way home to my parents.

When the Ukrainian massacres started, my family moved to Lublin, but I stayed behind as a member of the Home Army (AK). As things intensified, our unit grew in strength, and similar detachments began to form near Luck, Włodzimierz, and Kowel. Together, we formed the 27th Division of the Home Army, and our numbers quickly swelled to 6,000.

Protection of the Polish population against the Ukrainian Insurrection Army was only one of our objectives. Another was the sabotage of German transports to the eastern front.

After the war, I married a girl I met in the Lublin district. My parents moved again, near Grudziądz, where they got an abandoned German farm. Since my wife was Czech, we decided to settle in Czechoslovakia. We soon came under the suspicion of the Czech Secret Police, so we escaped to Allied Occupied West Germany.

A friend in Canada arranged for a Manitoba farmer to sponsor us, and we emigrated to Canada arriving in Manitoba in 1950, the year of the devastating flood.

I worked at a series of jobs, until I was hired by the Canadian National Railway, and worked there until I retired. And so, my wife and I raised our son and daughter in Winnipeg.