Poznań, 4 May 1989
Answers to the Questions from the 12th Issue of “Zorza” – Zygmunt Dobrzański
| 1. | Zygmunt Dobrzański, born on 16 January 1898. |
| 2. | Names of parents: Kazimierz and Apolonia. |
| 3. | Poznań. |
| 4. | Secondary education. |
| 5. | Officer in active service, cavalry captain with the 15th Poznań Uhlans Regiment. |
| 6. | In 1939. |
| 7. | Postcards from Kozelsk to his mother, Apolonia Dobrzańska, resident of Garbatka near Radom. |
| 8. | Aleksandra Dobrzańska-Jajszczyk (niece of Zygmunt Dobrzański). |
| 9. | Photographs are attached. |
10. My uncle, Zygmunt Dobrzański, was a bachelor, and thus none of his papers survived. The postcards he wrote from Kozelsk to his mother also went missing. I know that my uncle fought in the Legions, and that afterwards he continued military service. I attached his photographs.
Aleksandra Dobrzańska-Jajszczyk
Poznań, 4 May 1989
[Concerning]: Bohdan Dobrzański
| 1. | Answers to the questions published in issue 12 of “Zorza”: |
| 2. | Bohdan Dobrzański, born on 6 September 1901 in Ostrowiec, district of Opatów, parents’ names: Kazimierz and Apolonia. |
| 3. | Hrubieszów – barracks. |
| 4. | He passed his secondary school exit exam while he was in the army. |
| 5. | A professional army officer, cavalry captain of the 2nd Regiment of Mounted Rifles in Hrubieszów, in September 1939 the regiment quartermaster. Together with the regiment, my father left Hrubieszów for the German border in the middle of August 1939. |
| 6. | In September 1939, most likely in the monastery in Turkowice (accounts of the soldiers who contacted my mother in Hrubieszów). |
| 7. | I submitted the photocopies of the postcards and the telegram from Starobelsk. |
| 8. | […] |
| 9. | Attachments: |
| a) | Photocopy of his curriculum vitae. |
| b) | Photocopy of the certificate of service in the Polish Military Organization. |
| c) | Photocopy of the identity card for the congress of the Polish Military Organization (on both sides of the paper). |
| d) | The course of Bohdan Dobrzański’s service in the years 1918-1920 (typewritten on the basis of the time-worn document, since it was hard to make a photocopy). |
| e) | List of distinctions. |
| f) | Certificate of the receipt of the “Eaglets” honorary badge. |
| g) | Copy of the certificate of receipt of Virtuti Militari. |
| h) | Notice concerning the granting of the Medal of Independence. |
| i) | Certificate authorizing Bohdan Dobrzański to represent the regiment during the ceremony of the receipt of the Marshal of Poland mace by the Commander in Chief. |
| j) | Notice concerning promotion to second lieutenant. |
| k) | Photocopies of two postcards from Starobelsk to my mother and me (Lenka for |
short) – the copies are on both sides of the paper.
l) Photocopy of the telegram from Starobelsk from 3 April 1940.
m) Photocopies of the postcards we sent to father, which returned with the label “Retour” – copies on both sides of the paper.
n) Photocopy of Mister Andrzej Mularczyk’s letter to my son, Andrzej. Mister Mularczyk’s father – Colonel Mularczyk – was the commander of my father’s regiment (2nd Regiment of Mounted Rilfes) in 1939.
o) Photographs (11 items).
Father has also been mentioned in Mister Dobraczyński’s books: “Szata godowa” and “Tylko w jednym życiu”. Mister Dobraczyński was an officer of the reserve in the 2nd Regiment of Mounted Rifles in 1939. In “Szata godowa” he is mentioned on the following pages: 140, 143, 161, 162, 164, 170, 171, 173, 175, 176. In “Tylko w jednym życiu” he is mentioned on the following pages: 129, 130, 131, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183. Mister Dobraczyński wrote that mother superior in Turkowice suggested that the four of them (Dobraczyński, Bereza, Sulimin, and my father) should wear civilian clothes, but the last three of them objected. I do not know how it really happened, but when Hrubieszów went from hand to hand, father came by for half an hour – exhausted – to collect provisions for the rest of the soldiers, and he asked mother for his civilian clothes; he wanted to get through to Hungary if all hope for fighting in Poland was lost. Unfortunately, mother did not have these clothes.
We had been forced to leave our place in the barracks within several minutes and mother had packed only a few of our belongings into a suitcase (the rest of them got lost). When father saw us, we were already living in the city – in a random apartment which belonged to someone else.