Kraków, 28 August 1989
Editorial Office of „Zorza”
Mokotowska Street 43
00-551 Warsaw
In connection with the appeal to send in additional data, more complete information and clarifications concerning Polish prisoners of war murdered in Kozelsk, which was published in your widely read journal, I wish to submit information regarding my brother, who was killed in Katyń.
He is featured on the list of the Katyń victims under no. 4020: “Szpak Leszek mil. (documents found)”, but on the alphabetical list his name is erroneously listed as: “Spak Leszek no. 4020” instead of “Szpak Leszek no. 4020”.
My brother, Stanisław Leszek Szpak (he used the name Leszek – hence the documents: Leszek Szpak), born on 18 September 1913 in Dąbrowa Tarnowska, now: Tarnów Voivodeship, son of Stanisław and Jadwiga Kosturkiewicz, a veterinarian – graduate of the University of Veterinary Medicine in Lwów, second lieutenant of the reserve of the 7th Regiment of the Light Artillery in Częstochowa. I have in my possession his commission appointing him to second lieutenant of the reserve of the artillery officer corps, with seniority granted on 1 January 1938, under no. 538, from 22 September 1938.
He was called up on 26 August 1939 and on that day he departed for his local regiment in Częstochowa. The first and only message which we received from him was a letter from the camp in Kozelsk (USSR) from 29 November 1939. In response to our letters and a package with warm clothes for which he had asked us in his letter, we received no reply, advice of delivery, and the packages were not returned.
We found his name under no. 4020 on the list of the Katyń victims published during the occupation in the journal “Goniec Krakowski” on 23 August 1943.
This was grave news to the family, especially to his mother, who died in 1971 (my father died in 1936), having lost three of her four sons:
| 1. | Adam Szpak, captain observer of the 5th Aviation Regiment in Lida, then of the No. 300 “Land of Masovia” Bomber Squadron in England – he did not return from the military flight to Bremen at the night of 4/5 September 1942, |
| 2. | Stanisław Leszek Szpak – Katyń, |
| 3. | Wacław Szpak, cannoneer of the 6th Regiment of the Light Artillery in Kraków – deported to perform forced labor in the Railway Workshops in Kassel (Germany), he was killed during an air raid. |
I have in my possession my brother’s letter from the camp in Kozelsk and the original commission appointing him to the rank of second lieutenant of the reserve of the artillery officer corps.
If more detailed data, materials, and other additional information is needed, I am always at your disposal.
I wish you good luck with your work and send my regards