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HOLY SEPULCHRE CEMETERY AND ITS FORGOTTEN HEROES

By June 29, 2022January 28th, 2023No Comments2 min read

I don’t know if you remember, but we were published many times about the Pani Henrietta Nowakowski”s project. The purpose of Nowakowski’s project is to memorialize the forgotten World War I Polish soldiers, the Hallerczycy, of the Blekitna Armia, who volunteered and fought in France and then in Poland, died, and now remain in relative obscurity. Can you imagine them leaving their families and jobs and signing up to fight for an independent Poland? I doubt if Patriotism on this scale will ever be repeated.

As we all must know by now, over 30,000 men volunteered to join the ranks of the Polish Army to be trained in Canada. Most of them were from the United States, with a few hundred from Canada. Over 20,000 left to fight in France and then in Poland to stem the Bolshevik tide. We all know of the Cud nad Wisla’ that stopped the Red Army at Warsaw in 1920.
An interesting note is that the first of them to die in battle was Jan Bartmanski, a member of the Polish Falcons Nest 86 in Hamtramck, Michigan. He was one of several thousand volunteers from Michigan.
These volunteers returned home where they received no support from the U.S. Government because they were not part of the U.S. Armed Forces; they received no help from the newly established Polish Government, as they did not live in Poland. They were left on their own. Many were in dire straits, with no family, no job, and no one interested in their welfare.
The Institute of National Remembrance is already involved in implementing the project 5 years ago. We are waiting to finalize the task of honoring Hallerczyk’s tombstones.
Below I just published a few pictures of the Hallerczyk”s veterans’ graves and representatives of the Polish Government visiting the cemetery with the graves of Polish Veterans.
Will the IPN, with the help of the Polish Institute of Culture & Research in Orchard Lake, honor these forgotten heroes?