The Wartime Memories Project - The Second War

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260591 Pte. Leon Czajka Polish Army 5th Transport Unit from:Chobot, Poland My great-grandfather was Leon Czajka Sr., and as little as it's known he was surely born on 12th December 1903 in a village called Chobot in Poland. His parents' names were Franciszek Czajka and Katarzyna Dziura. He got married right before the outbreak of WW2 to Maria Nowak and had never met his son, who happens to be the best grandpa in the world, Leon Czajka Jr. From my grandfather's stories, I've heard that he went missing in the first months of the war, probably still in 1939 during the so-called September Campaign. Nobody knew whether he was dead or still alive in a camp until 1942 when his wife Maria received a notice from the Red Cross. Maria discovered that her husband had been killed in one of the camps somewhere in Germany. A few years later, she had met a man who claimed to be Leon's friend and knew more about his death. So he told her the following story, which became a family saga. 'Leon was a good man, but one day they came for him. They tortured him so badly but he didn't say a word. Suddenly, one of the officers got so mad that he threw Leon onto the floor and started jumping on him so savagely that he broke all of Leon’s ribs and caused his internal organs to burst out through his mouth.' Now it's time for a little twist. Recently, I came across some information about my great-grandfather on the IPN website (official National Memory Institute organization), and it's written there that he was held captive in Stalag V-A and V-B (prisoner ID 3884) and was freed on 31st July 1940. I tried to straighten things out, as there is also a spelling error in his birth place, but I have had no response. So what is the truth? What really happened to Leon Czajka Sr.? Dominika Add to this record.  Related Content: 5th Transport Unit (Dywizjon Taborow), Polish Army Stalag 5A Prisoner of War Camp Stalag 5B Prisoner of War Camp Can you help us to add to our records? Add a record to our website. The names and stories on this website have been submitted by their relatives and friends. If your relations are not listed please add their names so that others can read about them Did you or your relatives live through the Second World War? Do you have any photos, newspaper clippings, postcards or letters from that period? Have you researched the names on your local or war memorial? Were you or your relative evacuated? Did an air raid affect your area? If so please let us know. Help us to build a database of information on those who served both at home and abroad so that future generations may learn of their sacrifice. Contact us. Celebrate your own Family History Celebrate by honouring members of your family who served in the Secomd World War both in the forces and at home. We love to hear about the soldiers, but also remember the many who served in support roles, nurses, doctors, land army, muntions workers etc. Please use our Family History resources to find out more about your relatives. Then please send in a short article, with a photo if possible, so that they can be remembered on these pages.

The free section of the Wartime Memories Project website is run by volunteers. We have been helping people find out more about their relatives wartime experiences since 1999 by recording and preserving recollections, documents, photographs and small items. The website is paid for out of our own pockets, library subscriptions and from donations made by visitors. The popularity of the site means that it is far exceeding available resources and we currently have a huge backlog of submissions. If you are enjoying the site, please consider making a donation, however small to help with the costs of keeping the site running. Hosted by: The Wartime Memories Project Website is archived for preservation by the British Library Copyright MCMXCIX - MMXXIV - All Rights Reserved We do not permit the use of any content from this website for the training of LLMs or for use in Generative AI, it also may not be scraped for the purpose of creating other websites.