Wladyslaw Szyszko

Polish 2nd Corps Cadet

Their story begins at the end of World War One when Poland became an independent state following over 100 years of being partitioned between Prussia, Russia and Austria. In 1919-1921, Poland fought and won a war against the emerging Soviet Union and established her eastern border about 150 miles to the east of where it is now on lands that had historically formed part of Poland.

The Polish government encouraged soldiers who fought in that war to settle in the east of the country by offering them plots of farmland to help establish the revived Polish nation. Wladyslaw Szyszko’s parents, Karol and Rozalia, were two of these settlers, being rewarded with a 40-hectare farm in a village called Wołowiel, which is shown on the modern map in red.

Wladyslaw was born in 1927. He had three brothers: Antoni, Wiktor and Piotr, and a sister Jadwiga. Their peaceful life in the countryside was shattered by the outbreak of war in September 1939. Two weeks after Hitler invaded Poland from the west, Stalin invaded Poland from the east in a secret pre-arranged plan to divide Poland between them. Worse followed in February 1940 when the Soviet Union took action to destroy the Polish state by deporting to Siberia anyone considered a threat to them. These included the military, teachers, civil servants and settlers. With a few hours notice, whole families were told to pack and were loaded onto cattle trucks heading for forced labour camps in Siberia. Between one and two million people (estimates vary) were affected, but many tens of thousands never got as far as Siberia. Many military officers were murdered in cold blood and many other people died on route to Siberia in the harsh conditions.

At just 12 years old, Wladyslaw and the rest of his family were sent to Siberia, and he was put to work straight away sawing wood in bitterly cold conditions for export to Germany. Work only stopped when the temperature dropped below minus 50. Many died through cold and disease. Their eyesight became poor in low light because of vitamin deficiencies.

This harsh life continued until the spring of 1942 when the captive Poles were freed. This was the result of negotiations between the Allies and Stalin following Germany’s attack on Russia in the previous year, which agreed to form a new Polish Army in Persia under the command of General Anders. Although now free, the Poles had to make their own way south to find the Polish army. Many remained; many died on route. Of the million or so Poles that were deported to Siberia, just over 100,000 made it to Persia.

Wladyslaw travelled through Kazakhstan and Tashkent in Uzbekistan to Pahlevi in Persia. As they travelled south, they were able to supplement the poor diet they had had in Siberia with mulberries and apricots, but they also caught diseases like malaria and had no quinine to treat it. This did not clear properly until a better diet improved their general health. Many also died of dysentery.

After reaching Persia at the age of 15, Wladyslaw joined one of several Polish 2nd Corps Cadet Schools there. These schools were moved to Palestine, where he resumed his education. There was also a Polish girls’ school in Nazareth.

The cadets were issued with British uniforms with Polish army badges. Wladyslaw continued his education there and later worked on repairing British army vehicles in Sarafand (in present day Lebanon).

While Wladyslaw was studying in Palestine, his eldest brother and his father fought in the Polish 2nd Corps in Italy. His brother was awarded the Virtuti Militarii medal, the highest Polish award for bravery for his role in the decisive battle at Monte Cassino, which led to the fall of Italy.

While he was in the Middle East, Wladyslaw was also able to visit Cairo to visit his father, who had been wounded in action and was recovering in a Polish military hospital. Wladyslaw was in Palestine until 1947 when the state of Israel was formed and the British pulled out of the country. Several thousand Polish Jews were allowed to desert the Polish Army and stay in Israel, but many other Jews lost their lives fighting in the Polish 2nd Corps in Italy as is evidenced by the graves in Polish military cemeteries in Italy.

When the British left Palestine in 1947 they took the Polish cadets with them to Britain, arriving by ship at Southampton. Wladyslaw spent his first couple of months in England in a British army camp at Hursley between Winchester and Southampton. He was then moved to Salisbury for a year and to an air force camp in Newquay where he was demobilized.

Wladyslaw was now ready to start a new life working in England. It was not possible to return to Poland, which was now dominated by Russia and the communist party. Anyone who had been a member of the Polish 2nd Corps would be treated like a second-class citizen or worse, and he had already had a taste of what that could be like in Siberia. Moreover, the village he grew up in was no longer in Poland. With the changes to borders made in the post-war settlement, it was now part of the USSR.

Wladyslaw’s first job in England was working on a farm with other Poles using a digger and loading soil onto a lorry. While he was there, he broke his leg playing football and it took three months to heal. As a result of this he lost his job, which was taken by another Pole.

Wladyslaw then moved to the Polish Hostel at Marsworth because his parents were already there, having arrived from Beirut, Lebanon. He used his engineering training to get a job in Dunstable for a company developing and tools and machines for making cars. The company was eventually taken over by Honda. After 29 years working for the same company, Wladyslaw was made redundant. He was offered a job in Hemel Hempstead at a contact lens factory by a friend who was a manager there and had previously worked with Wladyslaw in Dunstable, again building precision machines for the production line.

One of the biggest problems for Wladyslaw when he first came to England was the language. For two years he attended college in Aylesbury after work to learn English. Additionally, he was used to metric measurements and had to learn imperial measurements for his work.

Wladyslaw was the last person to leave Marsworth Hostel when he moved to Pitstone in 1964. Five or six other Polish families from Marsworth camp lived and worked in Pitstone and Ivinghoe, many as builders.

Wladyslaw met his first wife, Rozalia Dziadura, in Marsworth Camp. Rozalia was sent to Siberia when she was only three years old. Her mother died there, but Rozalia made her way to Persia in an orphanage with her sister.

In 2004, Wladyslaw was presented with the medal for survivors of the exile in Siberia by the Polish Embassy.