The memoirs of Colonel Karol A Maresch

My family was split up a few days before the outbreak of war.

My grandfather, Colonel Karol A. Maresch, held a high position in the Polish Army and was in Warsaw when he heard that he would have to evacuate before the invasion. He escaped through Romania and into France, where he joined the reformed Polish Forces.

He kept a diary throughout, charting his escape and subsequent training in Scotland with the 1st Polish Division. He took part in the Battle of Normandy and the closing of the Falaise Gap before moving north and liberating Breda and Wilhelmshaven.

He lost two teenage sons at the hands of the Gestapo in 1943. My grandmother remained in Warsaw as part of the Home Army. My father was arrested on a tram in 1942 and sent to numerous slave labour and death camps before being liberated from Mauthausen by the US Army. He was reunited with my grandfather in the DP camp at Meppen.

My grandmother and her youngest son got out of Poland just after the Warsaw Rising and escaped into France. They were reunited in the UK at Foxley DP camp, where my grandfather was in charge after arriving from Holland and before demob.