EPILOGUE

     After years of research, amazing discoveries and a documented, reconstructed timeline of dad’s experiences, I still felt a nagging emptiness. A final chapter of this journey of discovery became crystal clear. I had to go to Lipica Dolna (Nyzhnya Lypytsya), the place of Dad's capture:  to be present in the remote village he was captured in, to walk that road, to somehow share that life changing experience.

     In the Spring of 2019, my wife Penny and I hired "Polish Origins" to spearhead a trip to Poland and the Ukraine, to manage the obstacles of translation, conduct further genealogy research, deal with the bureaucracies of the 2 countries and transportation as Lipica Dolna was now part of the Ukraine. It was an arduous journey to a remote, desolate village.

In that peaceful tranquility of the middle of nowhere, I fulfilled my quest!

80 Years later

Our next destination was Toruń, Poland. Torun was where Polish prisoner of Soviet Lager camps were "exchanged", Dad was in that prisoner exchange to Stalag XXA in Torun, Poland. The Museum Director of  Stalag XXA took us to the rail yards where prisoners were unloaded, to where dad was incarcerated and to the remnants of the Stalag XXA camp.

Holding a copy of  Dad's" booking papers" at  Stalag XXA
He was unrecognizable in the photo from the conditions. An emotional moment

Another goal was researching the Frackiewicz name in records, archives, churches, state, government agencies, graveyards. The discoveries were nothing short of awesome, putting flesh on forgotten names back to the 1700's. My lament of not knowing anything about my Polish roots in the blog's introduction has been fully addressed. Thanks to great genealogy research by "Polish Origins".

The pursuit of more detailed information,  specifically 1937 enlistment military records,  was frustrating. Centralne Archiwun Wojskoew (Central Military Archives) records were reportedly destroyed or lost during the war. They had no proof dad was a soldier but I had ample data from POW records that he was. From my research, I was well prepared for  back and forth with the Polish government.

Then in late October 2019, I received a call from the Polish Embassy in Chicago. The President of the Republic of Poland, Andrzej Duda, had authorized the Golden Cross of Merit to be bestowed to my dad at the Polish Consulate in Chicago November 7, 2019. What an unexpected ending to my research that started with curiosity about Dad’s untold story .

The Consulate General of the Republic of Poland
Piotr Janicki and me

Zygmunt's Golden Cross of Merit

The research has inadvertently but steadily brought me full circle. I can picture dad, smoking his pipe, looking up from the paper, slowly nodding his head in approval.