Information obtained from Lucjan's wife and daughter living in Canada
revealed that he was arrested and taken from his home by the Germans on
July 12, 1942 in consequence of listening to the foreign radio broadcasts
and posession of the clandestine press, which were strictly forbidden.
This occured several months before the whole family was expelled from
Sitaniec in the course of mass expulsions on December 6, 1942. He was
initially jailed in the Zamosc prison (July 12, 1942 - September 18,
1942), then in the Lublin Castle (September 18, 1942 - September 28, 1943)
and in the Majdanek Concentration Camp (September 18, 1943 - April 4,
1944), subsequently in Gross-Rosen (April 5, 1944 - June 4, 1944) and was
finally transferred to the Leitmeritz Camp (June 5, 1944 until liberation
on May 8, 1945).
Gross-Rosen Concentration Camp (KZ) was established in August 1940,
initially as a sub-camp of the KZ Sachsenhausen n/Berlin and then as an
independant camp since May, 1943. The average number of prisoners held
there was ca. 25,000 - majority of them worked in one of the 70 sub-camps.
We do not know exactly, where Lucjan was working. The main camp was
liberated by the Red Army on February 14, 1945.
A Sub-Camp "Richard" of the main camp - KZ Theresienstadt (and KZ
Flossenbuerg) was established on the periphery of the town Leitmeritz (now
Litomeryce in the Czech Republic) in July, 1944. Its purpose was to secure
and house the cheap labor for construction of the underground factories in
former calcite mine shafts; Richard I - Auto Union AG Werke, producing
tank engines; Richard II - Osram GmbH company, production of light bulbs;
Richard III - Phillips Co., producing the radio vacuum tubes. Most of the
factories started production towards the end of 1944. During its existence,
the camp housed 15,000 prisoners, 5,000 of them did not survive the war -
the camp was equipped with its own crematorium! The Camp was liberated by
the American Army on May 10, 1945.
After the war Lucjan served in the American Military Police ("Constabulary")
formation in Germany and in 1949 was granted a Canadian immigration visa.
After arriving in Canada, he went to the western territories and worked on
the railroad, cultivating the sugar beets and as a lumberjack in the
forests in the Winnipeg area. Next year, he came to Brantford, Ontario to
stay with his cousins - Stachurski. Through mutual friends he met his
future wife Bronisława (Bernice) Sokołowski. They got married on September
29, 1951 in the Saint Joseph Church in Brantford. A son Henry was born in
1953 and a daughter Kristine in 1961. Lucjan worked for 25 years in
Brantford as a dryer operator in the Harding Carpets Co, which specialized
in cleaning of carpets. He died on September 27, 1990 and was buried on
September 29, 1990 - which was the 39th anniversary of his wedding
19-03-2023
19-05-2009
