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Stanley Felix Jaroszewski was
born in Wheeling, West
Virginia, on September
26, 1919. Before he was born, his parents lived in Poland. His mother lived in the section occupied by
Austria at
the time. His father lived in the
section occupied by Russia. Stanley’s
mother moved to the United
States in 1913, and his father came
in 1909. Both were in search of a
better life.
Stanley had
one brother, Henry, who was born in 1917.
He did have one other brother, Joseph, but he died eleven days after
birth. When Stanley was
one year old, he and his family moved back to Poland. He lived his childhood on a farm in the
Polish village of Choszczewka.
In 1939,
the Nazis began to invade Poland. Stanley’s
family packed their things and left their farm. On their way out they saw many warplanes
flying into different cities to take them over. One day, Stanley was helping
his dad with some chores when they saw a huge amount of planes fly over their
heads. They thought that the planes
must have been heading toward Warsaw to
take it over. It was later when they
found out that the planes were actually heading away from Warsaw after
they captured the city.
Stanley
and his family eventually returned to Choszczewka in 1943. On their way, their way back home, they saw
planes attacking cities and bodies littered all over the ground. When they reached the village, Stanley was
taken by the Nazis and put into forced labor.
He had to work on a German farm for one and a half years. Then, in
1945, the Nazis took him to the city of Katstanen in Germany and
made him dig trenches for the Nazis’ protection. After he worked for one week he was allowed
to return to his family for only six weeks.
On January 19, 1946, the
Russians began to push the Nazis out of Germany; Stanley had
to march wherever the Nazis went. They
marched for ten days and were only given one loaf of bread each day. They marched to Nazi-owned barracks and had
to clean their farm animals for two months.
On February 1, the Russians finally took over, and all the people in
the forced labor group belonged to them.
The
Russians took the laborers to Lithuania and
had them get on a train. Stanley was
on the train for ten days. For these
ten days, they were only given bread, pork, and beans each day. Before the train stop, Stanley and three
others jumped off the train. They went
to the nearest station and stowed away on train heading for Warsaw.
Stanley
and his friends jumped off the train before it reached the station so they
wouldn’t get caught. They separated
into two groups of two. The next day
they walked nine miles to the nearest station and jumped a train home. It turned out that the train was a
Russian-owned train. A soldier found
Stanley and his friends and would have shot them if they didn’t jump off.
They
jumped off and had to walk eight miles for home in very high snow. On their way they stopped at a farm and
stole a loaf of bread. The farmer
found out and reported them to the Russian soldiers. They lined them against a wall and said
that if they didn’t confess, they would be killed. No one told, and the soldier decided not to
kill them. The farmer then took pity
on them and let them sleep in his house.
The next
day they set off again for home. As
they went along, they stole a little piglet from a farm and ate it for
food. Nazi SS stopped them
two times, but someone in the group knew how to speak German and skillfully
got them out of trouble. The Nazis
stopped them one last time after that.
The officers held up their guns and told them to put their hands
up. Stanley
didn’t know what he was saying, so he kept his hands in his pockets. One of the officers hit him across the face
with the back of his gun. To this day,
Stanley still
has problems with his jaw.
Stanley made
it home filthy, but he was alive.
Living on the farm was poor, so Stanley
decided to leave in 1946. He arrived
at Ellis
Island on December 15, 1946, via
the Ernie Pyle. The United States government paid for the trip as
long as Stanley paid them back.
When he was in New York, he became hungry and decided
to buy an apple. It was this that
caused him to miss his train to Akron. Some friends of his took him to New Jersey and he caught a train there.
He got a job as window cleaner in Akron. He then met his wife, Elizabeth, and they
became married in 1951. After that he
worked for General Tire
for thirty-four years. On July 28, 1953, they had their one and only
daughter, Teresa Jaroszewski. She is
now a fifth grade teacher at Immaculate Heart of Mary School in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. Stanley now lives happily with his wife
in Akron.
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