大象传媒

Mr.Jan Kazmierczak was a schoolteacher when war broke out in 1939, teaching at a small school in Poland. When the call to serve his country came he, of course, answered. He rose in rank to become a lieutenant in a tank regiment.

He was captured by the Germans on more than one occasion, each time managing to escape. His first escape was to the Netherlands. He always remembered the kindness shown to him by that nation. A priest risked his own life to shelter him at one point. His final escape saw him walking across the Pyrenees to gain sanctuary in Spain, before embarking on a boat bound for Scotland. Quite a trek!

Obviously the Germans were rather annoyed by these escapes. At one point, after recapture, Mr.Kazmierczak was lined up before a firing-squad. He thought his end had come, only for an officer to decide that they wouldn't shoot anyone that day after all.

On another occasion he remembered how a comrade he was standing next to was mortally injured, whilst he himself was unharmed. Such being the vagaries of war.

He was amongst the "second wave" just after D-Day; returning to Europe to oust the enemy.

After the war he settled in Britain, never returning to his native Poland. Rather than teaching, he worked for most of the rest of his life at Royal Crown Derby China. Here he made a variety of figurines. If you have one with the initials "JK" on the base, now you know who made it.

In 1976 for the Bicentennial of the American Independence, he made a china bowl which HM The Queen presented to the 38th President of the US, Gerald Ford. It now resides in the White House.

Just a few memories, then, of another life change forever by the Second World War.

(PK)

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