Born: February 17, 1922, in the Parish of Kobylaki (pow. Wołkowysk, woj. białostockie, Poland)
Died: September 15, 1981 in London, Ontario, Canada
Buried : St. Peter’s Cemetery, London, Ontario, Canada
Family: father Józef (1896-1977); mother Maria (1899-1965)
Married: Maria Dynarek
Military Medals: Polish Medals: Krzyż Zasługi z Mieczami, Medal Wojska, Krzyż Pamiątkowy Monte Cassino; British Medals: 1939-1945 Star; Italy Star; Defence Medal; War Medal 1939-1945.
Fates before joining Anders Army : On February 10, 1940, in the middle of the night the family was awoken by the Soviets. They were given two hours to pack a few items/personal belongings, and then were taken by horse-drawn sleighs to the train station. En route to the train station, they noticed that people in other homes were being treated in the same manner as they were and boarded onto the train. The boxcars contained three layers of bunk beds on each side, no bathroom (hole in floor), no heat, and the windows were boarded up. They traveled day and night to reach their destination camp. Once there, Józef Matias was arrested and placed in jail because of his position with Polish Forestry. Wacław was sent to the logging camps. The rest of the family was put in barracks made of logs. These camps were in no man’s land, there was no place to escape to. Wacław’s brother Mieczysław was allowed to visit him in the logging camp not far away.
Military history: In the summer of 1941 amnesty was announced. The information about it reached Matias family not earlier than in the spring of 1942. Wacław escaped to join the underground. Wacław’s father was released from prison and joined the newly formed Polish army under General Anders. No one in the family knew what had happened to Wacław. Wacław’s father and Wacław met up in Iran, where he joined the Polish Armed Forces on August 11, 1942. Wacław was trained in Palestine and in Egypt with the 22nd Rifle Battalion and later in 1942 was assigned to the 21st Regiment, where he served in communications. Later he was transferred to Italy. He served from 1943 with the 8th Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment, with which he served at Monte Cassino. As he was travelling in a motorcycle sidecar, going up the hill at Monte Cassino, a bomb landed in front of him, blowing him and the motorcycle onto a tree on the side of the mountain, where he hung for 2 days with broken legs before he was rescued. His wounds never healed properly. He had sores on his legs until the day he died. Wacław also fought at Ancona and Bologna. Wacław served as a gunner with the artillery and he drove reconnaissance on a motorcycle as well as driving officers around in the sidecar of the motorcycles. He was good with vehicles and knew how to fix them.
Post-War: Wacław’s father Józef was the first to arrive in England and then was discharged. Wacław followed in 1946. In 1947 Wacław was assigned to the Polish Resettlement Corps. Wacław was discharged from the army in England on June 11, 1947. It was in England that the family name ‘Matjas’ was changed to ‘Matias’. They stayed there waiting for Mieczysław, his mother and sisters to arrive from India. Wacław did not like England. He was given the option to come to Canada under contract.
On November 1, 1947, he left Witley Camp, Godalming, Surrey, England. When he was discharged, his commanding officers gave him a full evaluation as a Polish soldier, as were all the Polish soldiers being discharged at that time. Wacław’s evaluation can be summarized as follows:
Intelligence – Average
Discipline and training – very good
Service loyalty – very good, a good Pole
Good features or bad – friendly and sociable, showed a lot of initiative
General evaluation – good to very good
In Canada he was on a farm contract near Ingersoll for 2 years (Howard McCall)/Charles Clark in Mount Elgin. He had a “fantastic experience”. The farmer Wacław was assigned to treated him with respect. He enjoyed the work on the tobacco farm. He drove tractor and he was a mechanic working on all the farm machinery. At the end of the contract, the farmer offered Wacław land to stay on and farm with him.
Wacław moved to London and started working for Aboutown Taxi Service, in which he later owned shares. Every Saturday night he would pick up the other Polish boys who were still working on contracts and bring them to the Polish Hall on Hill Street to have a Polish meal and a few drinks. They would have fun. It was like being back in Poland and it brought them together. It was on one of these Saturday nights that he met his future wife, Maria Dynarek.
Wacław drove taxi from 1949-1955, including the cross-border runs from London to Detroit. He then went to work at Canada Calver, operating heavy equipment for making steel and concrete tubes for sewage. Later he applied for a job at the Teacher’s College in the maintenance department, looking after the boilers, and assisted in janitorial work. Wacław took courses in stationary engineering and became a stationary engineer, fourth and third class. He worked at Althouse, Eldon College and at the Weldon Library where he submitted the paperwork for his retirement, but passed away before it was approved, at the age of 59.
Wacław joined SPK on March 21, 1948; he was a founding member and helped to build the SPK Hall on 80 Ann Street because they wanted a piece of Poland to call their own. They couldn’t go back to Poland because they were regarded as traitors by the communists and their homes were no longer located in what was once Poland. He was involved with fundraising for the Polish Church. He made the very first trolley that was used to collect dishes for the women in the kitchen.
author : Stan Skrzeszewski
source : “Book of Remembrance / Książka Pamięci”, Polish Combatant’s Association, Branch 2. London, Ontario, Canada, 2018.
