Born: June 4, 1923, in Moczul (township Chorsk, county Stolin, province Polesie, Poland)
Died: July 14, 2017 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Buried: Queen’s Park Cemetery, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Family: father Michał; mother Julia (maiden name: Leszkiewicz)
Education: Anatol Nieumierzycki trained as a telemechanic in the army and graduated from a radio-technical school in Rome. He graduated from the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (electrician) in Canada.
Occupation: telemechanic, electrician
Married: Helena Świątek
Children: Ted and Stan
Military Rank: Sergeant
Military Medals: For his involvement in the war effort, Anatol Nieumierzycki was awarded The Medal of Armed Forces, The 1939-1945 Star, The Italy Star, The Cross of Monte Cassino No. 41142. Moreover, Nieumierzycki received a certificate of Polish Armed Forces, issued in London on November 11, 1945, for Lieutenant Sergeant Nieumierzycki Anatol, proving that he fulfilled his duty to Poland by serving with the Polish armed forces during World War II. General Władysław Anders signed this document.
Anatol Nieumierzycki received a Gold Badge of Service (Złota Odznaka) from the Canadian Polish Congress, Medal Pro Patria from the Republic of Poland, Gold Medal of the Polish Military from the Republic of Poland, and Joint decoration by Poland and Britain for his participation in the Battle of Monte Cassino, Siberian’s Exile Cross from the Republic of Poland and Certificates of Achievement and Acknowledgment from Pope John Paul II, the Queen of England, the Prime Minister of Canada and the Premier of Alberta for his 50 and 60 year anniversaries of marriage to Helena.
Fates before joining Anders Army: Anatol Nieumierzycki was the eldest of four children. Michał Nieumierzycki, his father, had been a military settler who moved to the province of Polesie, Poland, after World War I. From early childhood, Anatol Nieumierzycki was destined to be a soldier. Until 1939, he attended a military school for youth in Lubawa.
On February 10, 1940, Red Army soldiers awakened Nieumierzycki’s grandfather, ordering visiting Anatol and his brother to report to the assembly point, where their mother and two younger siblings had already been taken to be resettled to a remote location in the USSR. Their father, Michał Nieumierzycki, was imprisoned in Pińsk. One of the Red Army soldiers allowed the Nieumierzycki brothers half an hour to pack essentials. Escorted by the Soviet Army, a convoy of countless sleighs travelled for several days across the frozen Horyń River towards the former Polish-Soviet state crossing in Małaszewicze, where they boarded a freight train, several families in a wagon.
Anatol Nieumierzycki recalled that after a few days of assembling the convoy of deportees, the train started moving. At the Mińsk railroad station, Nieumierzycki was reunited with his father, who had escaped from jail. After a long journey, they had arrived in Wołogodzka Oblast and travelled 140 kilometers on sleighs through deep snow to an internment camp in Wołogodzka Oblast, Wierchtolszmienskoj Lesnoj Punkt, Uczastok Kolbasz. They were housed in barracks built by the former detainees imprisoned there for religious beliefs in 1932. The Nieumierzycki family spent almost two years there, working in the forests, cutting down trees and transporting them to the nearby river.
Military history: After learning about the formation of the Polish Army on the territory of the USSR in the summer of 1941, encouraged by his father to join, Nieumierzycki travelled on wagon bumpers or in empty freight boxcars toward the army’s headquarters. Nieumierzycki enlisted on May 22, 1942, and was assigned to the Sixth Lvov Communications Battalion, then to the First Communications Regiment, and finally to the 11th Communications Battalion, Communications Artillery Company.
During the Italian Campaign, Nieumierzycki’s communications company was assigned to the artillery to connect the artillery’s headquarters with the regiments, providing telephone contact. The soldiers had to lay down phone lines and set up telephone stations. During the Italian Campaign, Anatol Nieumierzycki cooperated with American and Canadian troops and worked closely and communicated with the Canadian soldiers. Anatol Nieumierzycki served in the Army Signal Corps of the Anders’ Army from May 22, 1942, until November 20, 1946, when he immigrated to Canada. Nieumierzycki was demobilised in the rank of lieutenant sergeant.
Post-War: After the war, Anatol Nieumierzycki and thousands of the Anders Army veterans could not return to Poland. Nieumierzycki said that “The Anders Army soldiers learned that, if they returned, they would be taken back to Siberia, where they would undergo a so-called rehabilitation” (Jaworska 118). Nieumierzycki joined the Polish Resettlement Corps formed by the British government as part of the program to help Polish war veterans. The pro-Soviet Polish government stripped Nieumierzycki and thousands of those soldiers of Polish citizenship. At that time, Nieumierzycki was reading the book “Kanada pachnąca żywicą” by Arkady Fiedler, which spurred his interest in coming to Canada to work on farms for two years. He recalled, “My father was a farmer and drawing on the knowledge and the experience I’d had, I passed this test. Since I was single and in good health, I was accepted into the Polish Resettlement program”.
Anatol Nieumierzycki came to Halifax, Canada, on board Sea Snipe on November 24, 1946, and was sent by train to Lethbridge, Alberta. Nieumierzycki said, “Upon the arrival of our group of vets in Lethbridge, we were housed in quarters that used to house the German POWs during the war. There, I met some of the Germans who had stayed there instead of going back to Europe. When I came to Canada, only then I realised that by signing the farm-work contract, I was supposed to replace the German POWs”. Two days later, Nieumierzycki met the farmer to which he was assigned. The farmer had two farms. Nieumierzycki was to work on both of them. Nieumierzycki recalled, “soon after my arrival at the farm, the farmer loaded his combine harvester on a truck and left me in charge of the farm. He was going to travel to the United States, where he could work as a hired farmhand harvesting and earning money”. When the farmer returned in October 1947, he refused to pay Nieumierzycki for his work on the farm.
Unwilling to work like that for another year, Nieumierzycki left the farm, searching for new employment. In Calgary, Nieumierzycki met a Pole, Walter Chuchla, who offered to stay in his house and help him find employment. Nieumierzycki trained in the army as a telemechanic, and after the war, he graduated from the radio engineering school in Rome. Nieumierzycki was offered employment as an electrician at AGT (Alberta Government Telephones). However, a government representative ordered him first to finish his two-year contract working on the farm.
Nieumierzycki was sent to a farm at Burns Ranch in Bow Valley. The conditions in the Burns Ranch were much better. He slept in a bunkhouse and became part of a crew. Nieumierzycki was assigned to the feedlot, where the cattle were prepared for sale. After a year of work, Nieumierzycki, with the money he earned at the Burns Ranch, bought a car, a 1939 Dodge.
Anatol Nieumierzycki moved to Calgary. He was a founding member of the Polish Combatants’ Association No. 18 in Calgary, formed on November 11, 1947. Nieumierzycki worked for the EC&M Company from 1948 until his retirement in 1985.
Nieumierzycki studied at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, and the certificate he earned allowed him to work as an electrician. Later Nieumierzycki continued taking continuing education courses. He was responsible for such projects as the brewery and the Calgary ZOO during his professional career. Nieumierzycki was a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Since 1948, Nieumierzycki was involved with the Polish Alliance [later the Polish Canadian Association of Calgary], where he organised a library. He served in many executive positions and on committees. Nieumierzycki was the secretary, financial secretary, president and vice-president, and treasurer. Nieumierzycki was a member of the Cultural and Entertainment Group, Central Reconciliation Committee, Polish Biuletyn Committee, Building Committee, Polish Parish Requirements Committee, Audit Committee, Trustee Committee, Development and New Construction Committee, and Arbitration Committee, and for several years was the editor of the Polish Biuletyn.
On November 11, 1950, Anatol married Helena Świątek, and they raised a family and had two sons, Ted and Stan.
author: Aldona Jaworska
sources:
Mr Anatol Nieumierzycki’s story could be found in the 2019 book by Aldona Jaworska, Polish War Veterans in Alberta: The Last Four Stories, published by the University of Alberta Press.
Information for the book was collected during the in-person interview conducted by Aldona Jaworska
The Calgary Herald, Obituary:
https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/calgary-ab/anatol-nieumierzycki-7491939
https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/calgary-ab/helena-nieumierzycki-10618666
