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500817Leopold Bandurka
Polish Army 5th Rifles Regiment
from:Sanok, Poland
My father, Leopold Bandurka, was born in 1922 in Sanok, south-eastern Poland. He was 17 when the Nazis invaded in September 1939, and he escaped over the border to Slovakia and travelled to France to join up the Polish Army which was assembling there. After fighting with the 5th Rifles Regiment of the 2nd Infantry Rifles Division of the Polish Army in France, in June 1940 he was captured and imprisoned in Stalag XIIA near Limburg, then Stalag XIIF near Forbach in France, where he was given prisoner number 32325 and 1052B (his name was wrongly spelt Bandarka). Some time later he was transferred to Stalag VIIB near Gneixendorf and Krems in Austria.After the war he came to Scotland (Fraserburgh) then Mansfield, England where he eventually located to Shirebrook in Nottinghamshire,married and had one child. He passed away in 1984. He had several stories to tell about these experiences - some repeatable, others rather less so.
I am anxious to contact anyone who may have known him during his period in the Polish Army and as a POW.
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