N0801
Captain in the Polish Armed Forces, veteran of General Stanisław Maczek’s 1st Polish Armoured Division.
It is late 1941. The Polish Armed Forces are being formed in the Soviet Union under the command of General Władysław Anders. Among those seeking to join their ranks are Eugeniusz Niedzielski and his stepfather, both of whom are in exile. Under the procedure in place, the stepfather, being the older of the two, approaches the military commission first. The Polish officer has no objections to accepting both men. However, the Russian member of the commission rejects Eugeniusz’s application, addressing him dismissively: “Get lost, you brat!” Distraught, Eugeniusz returns to the place where he is staying with an Uzbek host. When his mother asks him why he is crying, he tells her what has happened. His resourceful mother then prepares a document bearing her son’s name, most likely containing information intended to secure his admission to the army. The following day, Eugeniusz appears before the military commission once again. This time, its members are different. After examining the document, both the Polish and Russian officers agree to accept him into the army. Before long, Eugeniusz Niedzielski, together with a group of other young men, is put aboard a train. His journey from the “inhuman land” towards freedom and a Europe still at war is about to begin – a journey that would later become known as the “Trail of Hope”.
Years later, when asked which day of his life he considered the most important, Captain Niedzielski replied without hesitation: “The most important thing was that we got out of Russia. My mother (…) wanted to save my life. Because if she hadn’t done that, with that piece of paper, I might have died in Russia.”
