Warsaw Uprising Insurgent Turns 107

[henryk]

https://www.polskieradio.pl/395/7789/Ar ... -turns-107

Oldest surviving insurgent of 1944 Warsaw Uprising turns 107
Polskie Radio 15.02.2021 14:48

The oldest surviving insurgent of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising has celebrated his 107th birthday.

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Kazimierz Klimczak. Photo: PAP/Rafał Guz see source

Kazimierz Klimczak was born on February 15, 1914, and started serving in the Polish armed forces in 1936. He took part in the September campaign, the defensive war after Poland was attacked by Nazi Germany on September 1, 1939, and then by Soviet Russia on September 17 that year. He was severely wounded in battle. He took part in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, the largest armed resistance operation in Nazi-occupied Europe. As a sergeant in Poland’s underground Home Army, he fought in the Warsaw districts of Ochota and Wola.

In 2017 he was promoted to the rank of colonel. A special mass was held at the Field Cathedral of the Polish Army in Warsaw on Sunday in honour of the distinguished veteran.

[Futurist]

Happy 107th birthday to him! May he become a supercentenarian three years from now!

[henryk]

https://www.polskieradio.pl/395/7789/Ar ... ies-at-109

Poland’s oldest surviving Warsaw Uprising fighter dies at 109
Polish Radio English Service 17.07.2023 00:30
(See soure for photos and additional information.)

Col. Kazimierz Klimczak, the oldest surviving Polish fighter in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, has died aged 109. Klimczak, nom de guerre Szron (Frost), was born on February 15, 1914, and started serving in the Polish armed forces in 1936. He took part in the September Campaign of 1939, the defensive war after Poland was attacked by Nazi Germany on September 1 and then by Soviet Russia on September 17 that year.

Heavily wounded in the battle on the Bzura River, he was evacuated to Warsaw and worked in a tobacco factory. He joined Poland’s underground Home Army. After the fall of the Warsaw Uprising in October 1944, he managed to escape while being transported to a German POW camp. He returned to Warsaw, which was then a city of ruins, after hiding in the countryside for a year. He was interrogated by communist secret police. He was promoted to colonel in 2017.

When Klimczak celebrated his 109th birthday in February, Polish parliamentary Speaker Elżbieta Witek recalled some of the momentous events he witnessed in his life. “You witnessed the rebirth of the Republic of Poland" in 1918 "and the great victory of 1920" in the Polish-Soviet War, Witek wrote in her greetings to Klimczak at the time. "You took part in the September Campaign as a Polish Army soldier and crowned your clandestine activity in the Home Army with a heroic participation in the Warsaw Rising," she added.

Witek also said that Klimczak “carried the tradition of independence deep in his heart, as he did his commander’s order to pass on to successive generations the truth about the Warsaw Rising, the sense of patriotism and the deep meaning of the [traditional Polish] motto ‘God, Honour, Homeland.’”

After last year’s death of Stanisław Kowalski, Klimczak was Poland’s oldest living man, broadcaster RMF FM reported.

(mk/gs)
Source: polskieradio.pl, rmf24.pl