Europe celebrates the End of World War II on May 8, 1945, although this date is arbitrary. The fighting was over much sooner in some places, and elsewhere, it continued even after the armistice was signed.
In this story, we follow the destinies of four people, why or how they participated in the war, and when it ended for them.
Tadeusz Pęcak - Polish army soldier.
Eleven-year-old Rayne Pensak wrote an essay for the Royal Canadian Legion and won a Remembrance Day contest. It is a remarkable story, and well-written:
“Imagine your entire life, your country, your home, your friends, and your trust changed overnight. This is the story of my grandfather, Tadeusz Pęcak, fourteen years old, whose family lived in Poland when the war began.
In Poland, no one knew that Russia, rather than protecting Poland, would soon be attacking from the east. Russian soldiers arrived at my grandfather’s farm. The family was given 24 hours to pack what they could carry and leave. Your life is irrevocably changed. Your property. Your home. Forever gone….”
They walked for days, at gunpoint, before being put into railway cattle cars equipped with bunks for sleeping and buckets for defecating; a precursor to how Germans later transported Jews to extermination camps.
“They were ordered off the train in Siberia. After his father and the youngest brother died of starvation, my 16-year-old grandfather dug their graves. He was now solely responsible for his family. He found work as a lumberjack to feed his frail mother and five younger siblings.
Still, the family was starving. As the eldest son, he had to do something. Hearing about a Polish army base, he walked for days to find it, unsure it even existed. The recruitment center was in Chok Pak, Kazakhstan…. He walked in and said: ´I am Tadeusz Pęcak, and I would like to join the Polish Army!’”
In his memoirs, Tadeusz describes the scene: When taking the medical examination, the doctor remarked: ‘You know, Pęcak, I am happy to say that your health is excellent, but my turkey in Poland weighed more than you do!’
‘Does that mean I am accepted?’
‘Yes, you are, but you badly need a bath.’
Rayne ends her story by writing, “Afterwards, he sent care packages to his family via the Red Cross every week. Without them, they would never have survived."
*****
Fully trained, the Polish units were attached to the British Army close to the German Gustav Line, a formidable defensive fortification spanning Italy from the Tyrrhenian to the Adriatic coasts, centered on Monte Cassino, which the Allies had to breach to advance towards Rome.
The final battle fell to the Polish Corps. On the evening of May 11, 1944, the Allies unleashed a massive artillery bombardment. In a chaotic night fight, the Poles threw themselves against German defenses. They were cut down by machine-gun fire and mortars. They had to withdraw. But after the British seized Route 6 south of Monte Cassino, the Polish Kresowa Division attacked Phantom Ridge and drove off the German defenders. On May 18, 1944, the Podolski Lancers claimed Monte Cassino and raised the Polish flag.
“The gallantry of the Polish soldiers was beyond praise,” said British General Alexander in the ensuing press conference. Tadeusz earned the Cross of Valour.
There was more fighting yet, but none of the battles were as vicious, bloody or legendary as Monte Cassino, the Polish “Vimy Ridge.”
Germans capitulated on May 2, 1945, in Italy, and for Tadeusz, the war ended.
Mílo Jiránek - Czech concentration camp survivor.
In the 1920s, Mílo was enrolled in university ostensibly to study law, but in reality, had more fun socializing. He was a dashing man who attracted the most glamorous girls in town. Slim and handsome, his black hair slicked back and parted like Fred Astaire’s.
He was the protégé of a newspaper magnate, a wealthy Jew converted to Christianity. Mílo became a director of the daily Lidové Noviny, the most influential paper in the country. He was the most eligible bachelor in town.
In 1939, Mílo met Eva, a member of a notable Prague family. A competitive skier and also attractive, she graced the covers of popular Czech magazines, leading a charmed life.
However, Czechoslovakia was already annexed by Nazi Germany and made into a Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. The clouds were gathering on the horizon. World War II officially started in September with the invasion of Poland.
Milo and Eva were married in 1942. On their wedding night, at 3:00 am, the Gestapo came for Mílo. They were arresting prominent Czechs after the assassination of Reich Protektor Reinhard Heydrich. Mílo spent the next three years in a concentration camp in Gross-Rosen, Poland.
It was a bad camp, but not an extermination camp. Jews received the worst treatment. Next were the prisoners associated with Jews, like Mílo, whose ex-employer had Jewish ancestry. Real criminals, thieves and murderers were the foremen in the factories or capos in the camps.
Death was ever-present. Executions happened daily, usually by public hanging during roll call.
There was also sadistic, psychological torture. Once, Mílo had to line up with six Polish officers and two Russian officers, who were all shot dead. He expected to be next. But they let him stand there for twelve hours and then said: “You can go.”
He never talked about the camp, but after his stroke in 1984, he was able to recount:
"In the winter of 1944/1945, the Russian army neared our camp. We were forced to march to Flossenburg in Germany, roughly 500 km away. Sleeping rough, with very little food. We were starving. Those who couldn’t walk any further were shot.
Our ranks were thinning. In the end, I barely dragged my feet. Other prisoners supported me, but I was still falling back. The end was near. Then, the sound of shuffling feet stopped suddenly. We were left alone, just standing there wondering if it was some sort of a trick.
But our guards were gone. Over the top of the hill came Jeeps. First, we saw the roofs, then the windshields, and eventually, entire vehicles appeared on the horizon. Americans. They were strong young men, smiling.
An officer asked if we wanted to go hunting. The willing prisoners were given guns and ran into the woods after the SS. I think I heard several shots; perhaps I was hallucinating.
I collapsed. One soldier gave me a can of condensed milk. It saved my life.”
Mílo’s war ended on the road in Bavaria in late April 1945.
Ken McKinnon - Officer in RCAF Bomber Command.
Ken grew up on a dairy farm in Cloverdale, BC. He had to lie a bit about his age to enlist (Can you include his age when he enlisted? I think I remember it was 17?). He joined the RCAF on November 13, 1942.
It took two years and forty-eight days to become a tail gunner on a Lancaster bomber. The tour of duty at that time was 30 sorties, but the average crewman had a life expectancy of 11, and the tail gunners, only five. The odds were terrible, but as a teenager he felt immortal.
Ken credited his survival to having been assigned to a great crew and the best pilot in the force. They had difficult assignments, to bust dams or to attack well-defended submarine pens in Norway.
He told a story about a particular raid- the marshaling yards at Karlsruhe:
"All six groups of the bomber command were flying that night, probably 800 bombers. The weather prognosis called for the high cloud to be at 14,000 feet and the low cloud at 6,000, giving us 8,000 feet of clear air to bomb.
But by the time we arrived, the clouds had moved. All we had was 4,000 feet of clear air. The German fighters were waiting. It was like a shooting gallery, 200 German night fighters and 200 Allied bombers of our group mixing it up in that narrow space. The tail gunner’s job was to report the bombers going down. Barely seven minutes into the battle, I called in my sixteenth downed bomber.
There were many other sorties, but none trumped the Karlsruhe raid. Afterwards the crew stopped flying sorties as the war was winding down. Little bored by inactivity, other than the training flights, we became mischievous.
Returning to the base one day, approaching Grantham, where one of our crew member's girlfriend lived, he asked the pilot to fly lower and see if she might be out walking. The bomber flew as low as 30 feet above the ground. People scattered like chickens. It was a damned fool thing to do, to be so cocky.”
Unbeknownst to them, a Wing commander lived on the hill and turned them in. He testified at the court martial that he could read the numbers of the plane on the top of the wings! Fortunately, before the court martial convened, the war ended for Ken on the 8th of May 1945.
Bruno - Czech toddler.
While the Red Army raced west to Berlin through the plains of Poland, the German Wehrmacht still held on to the traditional Czech lands they had annexed six years earlier.
On May 9, 1945, four-year-old Bruno sat on the railing in front of his family’s cottage. He had a clear view across the dirt path behind the fence, the large grassy field sloping down to the village and the hills beyond. In the distance, he saw the crumbling tower of a medieval fort peeking above the trees. This valley has been a strategic passage for armies crossing from Moravia to Bohemia since the Middle Ages.
Something unusual and interesting was happening in the village. A column of tired and dispirited men marched west on a road that was meandering steeply to reach the mountain plateau above. They were German soldiers in their olive-coloured uniforms. Abandoned cars were burning in the ditches.
Suddenly, small bands of much perkier soldiers, men and women in bright green uniforms, appeared on the narrow path in front of the property. They had weapons slung over their shoulders. The girls waved at him and blew kisses. It was the Red Army making sure the Germans would not spill out into the woods.
The two armies had a brief battle the next day, further up in the hills. Many still needlessly died. On the same day, only ten miles away, Oskar Schindler of “Schindler’s List” movie fame, spoke to the Jews he had saved from the gas chambers by employing them in his ammunition factories:
"In his proclamation today, British Field Marshal Montgomery has declared that we must deal with the defeated humanely….
Think about what many people who live around this factory have done for you in terms of providing additional food and clothing. Do not go into the houses around here to forage and steal. Show yourselves to be worthy of the sacrifice of millions from your ranks and avoid every act of revenge and terrorism. In conclusion, I ask all of you for three minutes of silence to remember the innumerable victims who have fallen in these terrible times……”
In this little enclave in the middle of Moravia, the war ended on May 9, 1945, for the Czech boy Bruno, the German Oskar Schindler, and his 1,200 Jews.
*****
In 1946, Tadeusz left the army and immigrated to Canada. He distinguished himself as a prolific inventor in the electronic field.
Milo immigrated to England after the communist takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1948, worked for the British Foreign Office and was an advisor to future President Havel.
Ken returned home and opened several very successful factories on Vancouver Island, becoming a leader in the industry.
Oskar Schindler died on October 9, 1974, in Hildesheim, Germany, and was buried in Jerusalem on Mount Zion, the only former member of the Nazi Party to be honoured in this way.
And Bruno is just the Bruno you read about in Unison News from time to time…
