You need to be “unmundane”, and tell us more about your Grandad, I see some interesting medals there, which will have interesting stories. I need details!
Mundane News
- Thread starter Katherine
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Gravity Aided
Legendary Member
- Location
- Land of Lincoln
And not nonsensical ones......
https://nationalpost.com/news/world...earing-a-gas-mask-now-hes-in-virus-quarantine
Gravity Aided
Legendary Member
- Location
- Land of Lincoln
Tell her hello for me.
I think we were at University together.
Ming the Merciless
There is no mercy
- Location
- Inside my skull
Done walk, much fresher but no rain yet.
Gravity Aided
Legendary Member
- Location
- Land of Lincoln
Cottage pie in the making.
Reynard
Guru
- Location
- Cambridgeshire, UK
It's still 
here...
here...
Gravity Aided
Legendary Member
- Location
- Land of Lincoln
We had rain for about 5 minutes, but sunny and windy now.It's still
woodbutcher
Veteran
- Location
- S W France
Persistently down also hereIt's still
Reynard
Guru
- Location
- Cambridgeshire, UK
Well, he went on holiday with Lenin in 1913 - and I have the photos to prove it...
In short, got chucked in a Russian gulag for leading a university student protest, fought on the Axis side in the Great War in Pilsudski's Legions in the Austro-Hungarian army, rose from a rifleman to the rank of Major. When the Austro-Hungarian empire collapsed, the soldiers were transferred to the German army, but grandad was chucked in the stockade for refusing to swear an oath of allegiance to the Kaiser. Then served in the Polish-Bolshevik war with distinction.
Left the army with the rank of Colonel and served in the border force for many years in what is now modern day Lithuania and Ukraine. Then in the mid 30s went into politics and served as governor of province, first in Poznan and then in Vilnius right up until September 1939. His political views were definitely left-leaning, as he was instrumental in setting up the Polish co-operative society. A legacy of spending time with Lenin, perhaps?
When WW2 broke out, he helped the local population get access to their savings and then got most of the rest of the bank money out on rail cars ahead of the Soviet advance, plus destroyed what couldn't be saved. He was given $500 in gold to help smuggle the family of the Polish president out of Vilnius where they lived to safety - which he did, via the Baltic States, Sweden and Holland.
He was recalled to the Polish army on arrival in France, and was the commandant of one of the military camps (St Loup) until the evacuation of allied troops. He was on the planning committee to get the troops out via La Rochelle (I have some interesting documentation for this). Left France on a troop ship that docked in Liverpool, and ended up in Scotland, working on the Polish General Staff on matters relating to soldier welfare.
Alas he died shortly after the end of the war due to ill health - and probably at the realisation that he could never go back home.
@Reynard Thanks, that’s an amazing story and could become a book, the reference to France explains the French Legion of Honour - Commandeur, amongst the Polish(?) medals. What an amazing and brave man. Makes our lives mundane!
A very slight connection, before the virus, I spent one week every month in Poznan and spent my spare time exploring.
As an aside, I was amazed to find some of the guys from the Great Escape buried in the Poznan military cemetery.
A very slight connection, before the virus, I spent one week every month in Poznan and spent my spare time exploring.
As an aside, I was amazed to find some of the guys from the Great Escape buried in the Poznan military cemetery.
Gravity Aided
Legendary Member
- Location
- Land of Lincoln
Cottage Pie now cooling.
Gravity Aided
Legendary Member
- Location
- Land of Lincoln
Lenin was quite the cyclist.
Reynard
Guru
- Location
- Cambridgeshire, UK
I'll get there, one day. My late dad and late uncle didn't care so much for this, and all of grandad's stuff was chucked in a leaky old shed. I've been slowly sorting out the paperwork etc and trying to make various trails match. I'm ok with the typed documents, but the handwritten stuff is absolute murder...
My grandmother came from the Poznan area (Kalisz and Stawiszyn mainly). They were ethnic German, prominent in various local businesses (originally Jewish, though that was kept very, very quiet) who variously ended up on the wrong side of a border that migrated every few years, and eventually became Poles-by-choice. She met grandad when he was in the stockade at the tail end of WW1 and she was doing charity work.