Strzelec Jozef Szybkowski
Polish Army 3rd Coy. 37th Battalion
from:Morawce
My great grandfather Jozef was conscripted into the Polish military in 1938, being assigned to the 37th 'Leczycki' Regiment located in the city of Kutno. Prior to this he had worked as a farm labourer in the village of Morawce. He participated in what is now known as 'The Battle of Bzura' or 'The Battle of Kutno'.
He surrendered along with the remainder of his regiment at Ilow on 18th September 1939. From here he was transferred to Stalag XA and designated as Prisoner No. 339P, where he remained until 5th January 1941, when he and seven other men from the camp were 'Released for civilian work' and assigned to a farm in the area of Handewitt, known as Handewitt Field, the employers' name was M. Clausen. Here he remained, and met my great grandmother Antonina Jeremenko, who had been deported from the occupied territory of Ukraine in 1943 as an 'Ostarbeiter' to perform domestic duties at the Clausen household.
When Flensburg fell to the allies they were placed in the Wentorf DP camp and married on 28th July 1945 in the Flensburg Registry Office. Over the course of the next few years the pair were transferred to various DP camps. Jozef joined the Civil Mixed Labour Organization and later the Watchman service within the British Zone, and Antonina gave birth to three children, one of whiom suffered an accidental death at the Wedel DP camp.
They had initially intended on leaving for Morawce, but decided otherwise because of the Soviet presence. They applied for assistance from the IRO and on 8th July 1950 they left Bremerhaven harbour aboard the SS Fairsea bound for Australia.
The family spent some time in a refugee camp at Somers in Victoria, where Jozef had to work on contract in exchange for the family's asylum. Eventually the family was released and they settled in a nearby town with three new children. Jozef returned to Poland for the first time in 1973 to attend his mother's funeral, he died in 1990.
