Czeslaw

As promised before I present a short history of my grandma's brother Czeslaw. In the meantime I received quite interesting letter from his order via facebook and found another letter, written in 1984 by his sister Krystyna to my mother, describing her memories of Czeslaw. The letter from his order gave me quite reach literature where I can find more info on him.

Below I present only facts which I am sure about, as there are some differences between both letters. I will try to find out more, mainly thanks to the literature given via FB.

Czeslaw was born in 1917 in Lublin. I have no info about his young years. Anyway in 1935 he graduated from Christian College of Saint Fidelin in Lomza. I have two new pictures from that years (the other one was presented in the post on sisters and bros of my grandma). First one might be probably the picture taken just after graduation as it is dated 1935. He is standing top left. Anyway he does not look 18 years old here, does he?

The other picture is from scouting - Czeslaw is standing in the right. He is so similar in face to some pictures of my grandma.

The same year, 1935, he moved to Warsaw and became an acolyte in the church belonging to Capuchin order, taking a habit in 1937 and the vows in 1938. His order name was Wieslaw. In the meantime, in 1936 he stood godfather to my mom. 

Being in the order he studied philosophy in Zakroczym. As it was situated near to fortress Modlin, during WWII Capuchins were moved to Lubartow, a small town near Lublin. Thus he was again near to the family.

In the spring of 1940, when nazis arrested Capuchins in Lublin, Capuchin seminarists in Lubartow were sent home by the order. He came home with two other seminarists then and spent with his family last few months together. In the autumn the same year he moved to Warsaw to continue studies. 

But in the night of 26/27 of June 1941 all brothers of his order were arrested by nazis and moved to  Pawiak (well known nazi jail in Warsaw). There is his, most probably, last taken photo in this jail. Czeslaw is standing first from the left.

On 3rd of September 1941 he was moved to Auschwitz nazi camp (the date I found in the internet, together with his camp number 20352 - 20421).

Czeslaw died in Auschwitz on 5th of February 1942.

My grandparents' walks

As nowadays, eighty years ago people spend their spare time walking with friends - to the parks or out of town. They didn't spend their time watching tv, blogging or just exploring web, so meeting with friends was much more popular. Also walking was.

In my archive I found some pictures taken during such walks.

Here my grandma is second from the left. I do not know other women.

And below is a picture taken most probably in the park. My grandpa is standing first from the left, and next to him is my grandma. I suppose the picture was taken before their wedding, so it means 1934 or 1935. Like above no info about other persons, but looking at my grandma and grandpa smiling, they had great time with them.

And here we have the same woman as above walking with a child and my grandparents. Again probably 1934 or 1935.

And again probably the same woman and my grandma in the middle. 

And again somewhere in the country, my grandma on the right and the same woman on the left. So it seems they were good friends, spending a lot of time together.

I will try to find out who she was.

Post scriptum to my post about grandma's sisters and brothers:

During search on net I found some details on arresting of my grandma's brother Czeslaw, who died in Auschwitz during WWII. The most interesting to me was an address of his monastery. Then I found the priests of this exact monastery are on facebook. So via FB they promised me to find out as many details on him as possible, especially I asked for details of his arresting. Just for family memory.