Dąbrowa Górnicza, 15 August 1989
Dear Sir Engineer Jędrzej Tucholski
In connection with your appeal which appeared in the “Zorza” weekly and on television, I decided to provide data for the Katyń list.
My name is Narcyz Stychno, I am the son of the missing Edward Stychno, whom I have not managed to find thus far. I have no information as to where he went missing. Despite the help from the Red Cross and the Red Crescent, and the response from Anders’ Army, his name was not found on the list of the persons reported missing.
I am providing the data in accordance with the questionnaire published in the “Zorza” weekly:
| 1. | Edward Stychno, son of Jan and Marianna, born on 22 September 1909 in Sosnowiec. The last place of residence: Pińsk (now in the USSR), interned in the camp of Ostashkov. |
| 2. | Married, son Narcyz Erwin, wife Zenobia Zofia Stychno. Education: Secondary Vocational Trade School in Sosnowiec. Before he was interned, he worked at the Prosecutor’s Office of the District Court in Pińsk as a full-time court registrar. |
| 3. | Corporal of the 38th Infantry Rifle Regiment in Lwów, a retired reservist. In September 1939 he was assigned to protect the town of Pińsk from spies, and he received a military uniform and a police hat. |
| 4. | I do not know the details. |
| 5. | Once the Bolsheviks had entered Pińsk, he got arrested in September 1939. Before the arrest, he left for duty which started at 10:00 PM. At midnight the Bolsheviks entered Pińsk. On the next day, my mother spoke to father, who was in a railway transport at the station in Pińsk, ready for departure. |
| 6. | We received the first postcard from Ostashkov concerning father’s location in October. He |
wrote that he was detained in the camp in Ostashkov, located on an island on a lake. The second message arrived before Christmas – father wrote that he was sick and that there were rumors circulating around that they would be released for Christmas, but for the time being they were to be transported to another camp, and that he would write from the new location. This was the second to last message confirming his stay at Ostashkov. I was interned together with my mother in 1940 in the USSR, in the following location: Akmola Region, Kalininsky District, village of Zhuravlovka, where we remained until 25 May 1946, certificate (of our return to Poland) number: E 29154. Staying in the village of Zhuravlovka was also the family of Czesław Wycech, former Speaker of the Sejm in Poland, i.e., Czesław Wycech’s brother. Czesław Wycech was an activist in the USSR and thanks to his efforts his brother was released from the camp in Ostashkov and travelled to his family, to the village of Zhuravlovka. While talking to him, my mother learned that he did not know father personally, but he heard his name during roll-call – [father] was absent due to illness. This was the last piece of information concerning father. I would like to mention that Czesław Wycech’s brother was released from the camp in Ostashkov and does not know anything about the subsequent fate of the prisoners of war in Ostashkov.
7. I cannot send the postcard and the letter, because mother had lost them. I am sending a photograph of my father from the period when he was in the army in Lwów, a photocopy of his work contracts, and a photocopy of my and mother’s certificate of our stay in the USSR.
S. Please contact me if you are interested in a collection of photographs of officers and soldiers found in my father’s journal from the school for non-commissioned officers of the 38th Infantry Rifle Regiment in Lwów, dated 1932. I recognized one of these officers on the television broadcast which mentioned General Sikorski.