Major Stanislaw Tarazewicz, recipient of the Virtuti Militari, Poland‘s highest decoration, veteran of the epic battle of Monte Cassino, Chairman of the Polish Veteran‘s Association, Ottawa chapter, 1995-1997. Major Stanislaw Tarazewicz (S.T.), veteran of the General Anders‘ Polish Army, one of the victors of the Monte Cassino battle, was born on January 22, 1922 in Budslaw near W ilno (today called Vilnius). He was the fourth of eight children of Szymon Tarazewicz, an employee of the Polish National Railways, and Stanislawa Tarazewicz (née Polocza0ska). The small town of Budslaw, located picturesquely on the river Serwecz, entered history first in 1812 as the Napoleonic armies marched through it on their way to Moscow, and again in 1920, by being the place of vicious battles with the Bolsheviks during the Polish Russian W ar. In the period between the First and a { Ç ëa t Second W orld W ars, a cavalry regiment of / ! ! I h a $%%& the Border Protection Corps (KOP) and an infantry regiment were stationed there. The local population had always manifested their Polish patriotism and attachment to the Catholic Church. For this reason a magnificent basilica of Virgin Mary was built there in 1783 and contains the Budslaw Mother of God Icon brought as a gift in 1598 from Pope Clement VIII to the local Bernardine Monastery. After completing his local primary schooling, S.T. moved to W ilno at the age of 14 to study at a technical school in the Roads and Hydraulic Department. He was an enthusiastic kayaker and two years later joined the school volleyball team. Years later this love of volleyball was apparent when he was selected to represent the Polish Corps at the Eighth Army competition. í w í 8n September 1st, 1939, the Germans launched their attack on Poland, and the Second W orld W ar started. Sixteen days later, on September 17th, massive Soviet armies crossed the Polish eastern border throughout its length. Immediately, on September 18th, S.T. volunteered for the ad hoc organized Polish forces and was dispatched to the local Volunteer Formation of 600 young men under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Dabrowski. W ilno fell to the Soviet III Corps and on the basis of a Soviet-Lithuanian agreement, the Soviets handed over W ilno to the Lithuanian authorities and it was incorporated into the Lithuanian state. S.T. was arrested by the Lithuanian authorities and spent the next 10 months in an internment camp in Zagary in Lithuania. He escaped from there and made his way back to W ilno and joined the Polish underground army (A.K.), í W (&)& which became the largest and most effective underground resistance movement in Europe. His squad was divided into —cell units of 5 men“. He was appointed a cell leader and was given the code name —Maˇy“ (—Shorty“). His pre-war military cadet training while attending technical school helped him in his cell leader capacity, as well as additional secret training which he received from the military sappers who were also arrested by the Soviets (one of them, Zygmunt Galko, is well known in the Ottawa Veterans Association). {Ç * ! + After the arrest of his cell (approx. 1940/41), he escaped capture and spent the next few months in hiding, avoiding the homes of his family and friends. However, he was recognized on the street by the Soviet secret police NKW D (presently called the KGB) and arrested on the spot. This occurred in March/April 1941. The NKW D started their —activities“ on August 3rd, 1940 when the Soviets incorporated Lithuania into the Soviet Union. W ithout a trial, S.T. is deported by the NKW D to a labour camp in the depth of Russia via Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Pskov and Kirov and even further north in the direction of Archangelsk . After a 4-week journey by cattle car, the prisoners were taken by barge across a huge lake, and then marched on foot to their destination. Several months later an event occurs, which can be described as a miracle. After the attack of Nazi Germany on Soviet Russia on June 22nd, 1941, an agreement was signed by the leader of the Polish government General Sikorski and Stalin on the basis of which an —amnesty“ was proclaimed by the Soviets for the Polish internees in Soviet Russia, and a Polish Army was to be formed in the USSR. S.T. learned about this astounding news from a newspaper clipping he got from a Russian prisoner in the camp. Together with four Polish companions, he left the camp and after many adventures (including five arrests and releases by the Soviet authorities) he reached Gorki, which is situated in southern Russia. In Gorki, he was informed by a worker of the Polish Red Cross that a Polish 5th division was being formed. S.T. left Gorki in an oil tanker and racked by hunger over many days, he reached Kuybyshev. From Kuybyshev he reached Saratov by train, and finally on the 28th of September 1941, he reached the 5th division headquarters in Tatiszczew. He enlisted as a recruit into the Polish Army by lying about his age. At this time he was only nineteen years old! At the beginning of 1942, with the rest of the Polish Army units, they were transferred to Dzalal-abad in Uzbekistan. There S.T. signed up for officer cadet school in Kirgizja. Before graduation, at his own request, he was transferred to army sapper training in W riewskaja. Since Stalin made the formation of the Polish Armed Forces in the Soviet Union increasingly difficult, in August 1942 the Polish Army was evacuated from the USSR to Iraq and he left the —inhuman land“ (as the Soviet Union was called by the Poles). In Iraq, he graduated from the cadet officer Sapper school with an excellent score 18/83. During the graduation ceremony, the Commander of the Polish Armed Forces in the East (APW ), General W ˇadysˇaw Anders (also released from a Soviet Union prison) stated the following in his address: —Remember you young sappers, that these days, sappers are the foundation of the modern army. All the bad experiences that you have lived through are behind you, and all the difficulties that you will experience are ahead of you, which you can and will overcome.“ Ç + ** t $ / 0! 1 0{ 2 t 1 Ç (&-( . (&-$ (&-) * Ç { í .{Ç / Officer Cadet S.T. was assigned to the 10th Battalion in the Polish 2nd Corps in which he stayed until the end of the Second W orld W ar. He now went through a period of very intense military training commencing in Iraq and Palestine, followed by additional training in the mountainous terrain in Lebanon and Egypt. h ! L5 + * ! .* ! / a [ + .{Ç / At the beginning of 1944 the 10th Sapper Battalion was transferred from Port Said, in Egypt, to Taranto, in Italy. S.T. was involved in the Polish 2nd Corps Italian campaign from the beginning to the end: the defences of the river Sangro, the battle of Monte Cassino, the pursuit of the German forces along the Adriatic, the campaign in the Apennine mountains, the defence of the river Senio and the battles for Bologna. In the historic battle of Monte Cassino, S.T. displayed exceptional courage and dedication, for which he was awarded the Silver Cross of the Virtuti Militari Class V. His actions in the crucial battles at Phanton Ridge (W idmo) on the 17th May 1944 are described in detail by Melchior W ankowicz in his monumental work The battle of Monte Cassino, which he dedicated to the soldiers in that battle. The recollection of Major S.T.: We receive the order to march out of the area of Venafro in the Lira river valley. At dawn, on that fateful day in May in 1944 we drove along the road, alongside which on every available space an artillery unit was set up, firing non-stop above our heads producing a deafening and overwhelming, continuous roar. Because of the barrage of the artillery shells, it was as bright as in a full day. An overpowering stench of dead mules that were disintegrating along the Rapido river bore witness to what had happened here before. We climbed along the Polish Sappers‘ road to our positions among rocks, from which we were to commence the attack. We climbed onto the tanks and moved into action. A few hours latter, I was lightly wounded, and eight sappers were wounded so seriously that they were not able to continue the assault. I was badly traumatised by the death of my closest friend Mundek Kluczynski, who was killed on the 11th of May, at the beginning of the battle. He was shot through the head, and I found him the next day, as if he was sitting, by a big boulder. I was terribly shocked and saddened and felt a bitter taste of the end that was awaiting us. This was my baptism by fire in the first days of the Monte Cassino battle. In the next few days, attempts to capture formations of Gorge (Gardziel) and Phantom Ridge (Widmo), which were guarding the road to the famous 539 mountain, were not successful and our losses were climbing. On May 17th, I and my sappers under the command of Lt. Kawalkowski supported the opening attack of Lt. Kochanowski‘s tanks on Phantom Ridge. After approximately two hours of intensive attack, under concentrated German artillery fire, we managed to clear the mines to provide access for the tanks, which soon reached the summit of Phantom Ridge.