260591 Pte. Leon Czajka Polish Army 5th Transport Unit from:Chobot, Poland My great-grandfather was Leon Czajka Sr., and as little as it's known he was surely born on 12th December 1903 in a village called Chobot in Poland. His parents' names were Franciszek Czajka and Katarzyna Dziura. He got married right before the outbreak of WW2 to Maria Nowak and had never met his son, who happens to be the best grandpa in the world, Leon Czajka Jr.
From my grandfather's stories, I've heard that he went missing in the first months of the war, probably still in 1939 during the so-called September Campaign. Nobody knew whether he was dead or still alive in a camp until 1942 when his wife Maria received a notice from the Red Cross. Maria discovered that her husband had been killed in one of the camps somewhere in Germany. A few years later, she had met a man who claimed to be Leon's friend and knew more about his death. So he told her the following story, which became a family saga.
'Leon was a good man, but one day they came for him. They tortured him so badly but he didn't say a word. Suddenly, one of the officers got so mad that he threw Leon onto the floor and started jumping on him so savagely that he broke all of Leon’s ribs and caused his internal organs to burst out through his mouth.'
Now it's time for a little twist. Recently, I came across some information about my great-grandfather on the IPN website (official National Memory Institute organization), and it's written there that he was held captive in Stalag V-A and V-B (prisoner ID 3884) and was freed on 31st July 1940. I tried to straighten things out, as there is also a spelling error in his birth place, but I have had no response.
So what is the truth? What really happened to Leon Czajka Sr.?
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