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Feliks Czenkusz In Junaks Uniform 1939
Feliks Czenkusz In Junaks Uniform 1939
Feliks Czenkusz in Junaks Uniform 1939
Map Of The German Invasion Of Poland In 1939
Map of the German invasion of Poland in 1939
Feliks Czenkusz In Junaks Uniform 1939Map Of The German Invasion Of Poland In 1939

An extraordinary journey to work in Salts Mill – Feliks Czenkusz’s story

Feliks Czenkusz was born on June 4 1920 in a village called Lakorz, in Poland, just 2 kilometers from the German Border. Due to very high Unemployment at that time (1938) Feliks joined the Polish Cadets (the Junaks) but was not training to be a soldier, his training was to be a civil engineer. Feliks was stationed at Wilno in North East Poland when Germany invaded from the West, the North and the South. Feliks knew that war had started when German planes were flying over Wilno and he had no idea what would happen to him and his fellow cadets, he was 19 years old. Feliks and a group of men decided to try to cross the border into Lithuania. Lithuania was still neutral but had been compelled to form a Soviet Form of Government.

After some months in a camp in Lithuania, Feliks and the men were loaded onto trains and stopped first at Molodecczno where Soviet officers began segregating officers from soldiers. Feliks and fellow prisoners did begin to receive censored mail from their families in Poland. The letters hinted at massive concentrations of German troops on the Russian Border and as rumours in the camp grew, the men were told that they were to be transported elsewhere in Russia. The men were afraid they would be going North to Siberia. Feliks boarded a train on his 21st Birthday – it was the worst day of his life!

Germany invaded Russia on 23 June 1941 and Feliks and the men were marched off again to board a ship called the Clara Zetkin. After disembarking the men were put on a train and began to travel south. Feliks recalled – ‘we didn’t know it but this was our first step to becoming free men’. He was on the train for a few days and eventually arrived in a prepared army camp and the men realised they were now in the Polish Army under General Anders who was a commander of the free Polish Army. On August 5th they set sail, stopping first at Krasnowods on the Caspian Sea. They then sailed to Pahlevi in Persia (now Iran). After 3 days in Persia, the men were transported in lorries to Iraq, dropped on an empty desert area and set to work to build a camp – it was unbearably hot.

Feliks spent a year in Iraq and the Polish group were reorganised on British Army Lines and received British arms. The men, after training, travelled to the Allied front in the South of Italy, landing first at Tarranto. The Axis surrender in North Africa in May 1943 was followed by an Allied invasion of Sicily and Mussolini was deposed. The Allies thought they would soon take Italy, but they found the terrain and a lack of supplies very difficult. The Polish soldiers heard about the fierce fighting and where the allies had become stalled at Monte Cassino. Feliks had been trained in wireless communications and was amongst the Polish troops who were to take the heights of Monte Cassino, after many casualties.

Polish troops then marched to the Apennines and went on to capture Predappio – Mussolini’s birthplace. After other, hard-fought battles, Polish troops moved towards Bologna and Feliks recalled that ‘we knew that as organised Polish troops we would not be able to return to Poland’. ‘I listened on the radio to news of the debates in the British Parliament about what to do with us’ Fortunately, Feliks was not returned to Poland which became part of the Soviet Bloc (many Polish ex-soldiers were killed there). Instead in 1946, Felix’s group were transported in the ‘Empire Pride’ to the UK – landing in Liverpool.

Read about the continuing journey of Feliks in a separate post (available from 21 April 2019).

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