Kraków, 1 May 1989
Editorial Board of the “Zorza” weekly
in Warsaw
In response to the appeal published in the “Zorza” weekly and concerning the completion of the Katyń list, I would like to add a few facts about my father, who was an inmate of the camp in Ostashkov.
Personal data:
Walenty Szromczyk, born on 30 January 1895 in Wola, Pszczyna district, son of Jakub and Katarzyna née Domzol, at the outbreak of the war; resident of Pszczyna. Functionary of the Polish State Police in the rank of Senior Constable of the Silesian Voivodeship Police in Pszczyna. He was enlisted (in September 1939) in the police company in Tarnów, which was commanded by a police officer.
In the years 1940-1941, we learned from a returning prisoner of war that father was in the camp in Ostashkov (that man was incarcerated with my father but was freed on the intervention of the German authorities, for whom he signed the list as a Reichdeutscher or Volksdeutscher). The man didn’t disclose his surname. This happened in the town of Miedźna, Pszczyna district (the man came from that area). My mother listened as he told her about her husband, who at the camp talked about his wife and gave the names of his children: Lidia and Stanisław. Then she showed him the photograph of her husband, and the prisoner of war recognized the man whom he knew from the camp in Ostashkov.
In the first postwar years, my mother tried to find my father through the Polish Red Cross, but they declared my father missing.
I would also like to add that during the occupation, somebody lent us, though for a very short time, a rather thick book published in German by the German authorities. It contained photographs of prisoners of war from various camps in the USSR. In one of the photographs my mother and the entire family recognized father, pictured wearing a uniform without insignia.
I truly want to learn the fate of my father and I am looking forward to hearing from you.
I enclose two copies of the photographs.
Yours sincerely