Warsaw, 17 May 1989
“Zorza”
Mokotowska Street 43, fifth floor
in Warsaw
In view of the fact that yesterday, i.e., on 16 May 1989, I received from my cousin from Zielona Góra a clipping from “Gazeta Lubuska” of 2 May 1989, [containing] an article by engineer Jędrzej Tucholski from Warsaw, entitled “The Katyń List”, I would like to provide the missing data – in addition to what I personally submitted on 31 January 1989 to the “Zorza” Editorial Office – pertaining to my brother Michał Puzichowski, who was murdered in Katyń in 1940.
1. Michał Puzichowski, born on 19 August 1912 in Novorossiysk (USSR), a permanent resident of Volhynia, Krzemieniec district, four kilometers from the township of Białozórka, in our khutor [hamlet] (Puzichowski khutor). We were born in the Russian partition, where the old style prevailed [the Julian calendar]. Before we went to school, my father obtained for us certified copies of our birth certificates. The notary changed our dates of birth in accordance with the Polish dating system, i.e., adding 13 days, so my brother’s date of birth was not 19 August 1912, but 1 September 1912. The names of his (and my) parents [illegible]: Bernard Puzichowski and Aleksandra
n ée Narubtowicz.
In the second half of August 1939, my brother Michał Puzichowski – and in 1939 a resident of the village of Paszuki, Równe district – was called up as a second lieutenant and assigned to the [illegible] Corps in 1939. On 17 September, when the Bolsheviks entered Poland, my brother was taken and interned at the camp in Kozelsk.
| 2. | Academy for Teachers in the Krzemieniec High School; principal of the school in Paszuki, Równe district. |
| 3. | Michał graduated from officer cadet school for the Army Reserve in the rank of senior sergeant – type of weapon: medium machine gun. After the first training exercises he was promoted to the rank of second lieutenant. He wasn’t wounded. |
| 4. | See 1. |
| 5. | Michał wrote to his wife, and she shared the news with us. She received the first letter [illegible], the second in the middle of January (a few lines, “please just answer my questions – I have [illegible]”), and the third – and last – in the middle of February. In April 1940, his wife was deported to Siberia, because apart from writing to us (I was in our khutor together with my parents), she sent many letters to various places in the USSR, trying to locate her husband. My parents sent a postcard to Kozelsk with a reply- paid envelope, but received no answer. They also sent a telegram to Kozelsk, again with the reply already paid for. The following answer came: “The addressee is gone.” The letters that we received from my brother’s wife and the telegram “the addressee is gone” were burned down by the Ukrainians after they murdered our father on the night of 1/2 August 1943. That night our house was robbed and burned down, my mother was gravely wounded, but she pretended to be dead and thus wasn’t finished off – after the Ukrainians left, she came out of the burning house. We both escaped. I wasn’t home on that horrible night. I attached the photograph of Michał Puzichowski – son of Bernard, born on 1 September 1912 – from 17 June 1933, from the Division Course for Cadet Officers in the Reserve of the 44th Regiment of the Kresy Rifles in Równe, sent to his parents and signed “your loving son Michał”. |
The above data are submitted by the sister of Michał Puzichowski, Walentyna Puzichowska, resident [...].