"ECHO POWIATU"                               # 6      March 02, 2004

 

The article in Polish – click to enlarge

Whom Did Lili Susser Search for in Sochaczew ?

Translated from Polish to English by Lili Susser

 

 

We wrote many times before on the subject of searches for soldiers lost in the battle on Bzura (river). In the last years many letters arrived at the “Muzeum Ziemi Sochaczewskiej i Pola Bitwy nad Bzura”  - ("The Museum of The Sochaczew Region and The Battle of The Bzura River") with inquiries of the fate their relatives, who after tragic fights in 1939 did not return to their families.

More often we receive letters from abroad, as letters by electronic mail.

That is why with them in mind the Museum of Sochaczew undertook to try to arrange and fill in the available lists of those fallen during the fights on Bzura.

 

In the middle of November of the past year appealed at the Museum of Terra Sochaczew by electronic mail Lili Susser from California (common error).

Her brother, Henryk Cukier, was interned on the military cemetery in Trojanow. Thanks to the help of the Museum she was able to locate his grave.

 

In November she sent the Museum director M. Wojewoda a remembrance of her brother and also described the path she took to find his grave. Maciej Wojewoda approached the ZSO school administration with a plea for translation of the letter. This task was undertaken by three students: Lucyna Gornicka, from class II e, Natalja Szejko, class I c and Wojciech Zelechowski class II e.

They are owed huge words of thanks for help in translating this important letter to the museum.

 

Those are the fragments:

(…) Heniek was born in Plock May 8th 1917 and I arrived this world 10 years later in Lodz (…) He was afraid he would be assigned to the cavalry which would interfere with his convictions. Besides he planned on getting married and did not want the draft to interfere with his plans. Heniek chose a unit in Skierniewice located between Lodz and Warsaw where he was assigned to the 18 regiment.  (…) My mother in her letters to him inquired about the war, of which he even in his last letter home assured: “The military is wholly convinced there won’t be a war”. September 1, 1939 the world witnessed the outbreak of World War II. Shortly after we received a notice from the Red Cross with the following words: “We wish to inform you that your son Hersz Cukier was killed the 16th of September 1939 in a fight near Sochaczew and is buried in a mass grave on the estate Czerwonka”. Those few lines are for ever engraved in my memory.(…)

 

In the year 1974, when conditions in Poland improved Lili with her husband went on a trip to Europe. She came among others to Sochaczew, in order to find her brothers grave. As she found out after arriving here, and was directed from Czerwonka the place where her brother fell to the nearby community cemetery where the bodies of the fallen were supposed to be interned.

In the letter she writes: We went to a nearby flower shop where I purchased carnation in the Polish national colors and I placed them on each grave in hopes that one of them is my brother’s grave. We repeated this function on our consecutive visits to Poland, until 1992. Then someone directed her to the Sochaczew Museum. There she found out from Maciej Wojewoda, that on the prepared list of the fallen soldiers appears also the name of her brother. The documents showed her brother is buried in the cemetery of Trojanow. She ordered a name tag made for him. Finally after so many years she was able to place flowers on a grave she knew held the remains of her brother Heniek.

 

For  unexplained reasons the name tag with information on her brother got removed.

 

At the beginning of January of this year also with electronic mail  the Museum received from a resident of Lodz, whose father was a September 26 soldier pal  ( Polish Folk  Army) in Skierniewice , and who took part in the defense of Warsaw and Modlin. This man also asked for help in finding the publication about the unit in which his father fought.  

 

Letters keep arriving, searches continue for the interned soldiers. Presently on the Museums Internet Web page one can find Archived Memory of the Fight and the identity register (of immortals) with names found on the field of battle on the Bzura (river).

    

Grave of Henryk Cukier with nametag affixed

  

The monument to the fallen soldiers of the battle in 1939

 

Back to "My Only Brother  Heniek Cukier z"l" Web Site - in Memoriam

Last Updated April 23rd, 2004