Sosnowiec, 7 June 1989
Editorial Board of the “Zorza” weekly
00-551 Warsaw
Mokotowska Street 43
Before the outbreak of the war in 1939, my husband worked as a policeman; he went missing during the war, and we don’t know anything about his subsequent fate. We searched for him through the Polish and French Red Cross, but all the answers were evasive, because those who crossed the Soviet border inevitably disappeared without a trace. We hereby submit the personal data of the missing:
1. Stanisław Stępień, son of Tomasz and Rozalia, born on 7 April 1903 in Sosnowiec, resident of Sosnowiec.
2. He was married with two children – son Mieczysław and daughter Ewelina. He worked in Sosnowiec at the Polish State Police station in the rank of senior constable. He did military service in 1926 in Kraków in the 1st Regiment of Railway Engineers in the rank of corporal.
This letter is written by his daughter on behalf of herself and his wife. We would like to present circumstances testifying to the fact that father crossed the Bug River and continued east.
On the first day of the war we were evacuated from Sosnowiec to Żarnowiec. We spent about two days there. After the town was bombed, all the residents began to flee, so we also fled. On the way we met father: following an order they received, the policemen from Sosnowiec were going east. I remember that they had a meeting with the command in Lublin, and I think that they received further orders to continue in the same direction.
After that meeting, together with our father, one more family, and two unmarried policemen, we went east on a cart. We passed Chełm and reached the village of Strupin Mały, where our father left us, and the policemen continued on their own. My father wore a police uniform, and to the proposal that he change into civilian clothes, he replied indignantly that he “had to protect his homeland with honor”. And so he stands in our memory – a righteous and courageous Pole who gave his life for his country.
We would be very happy to find some trace of him, so that after 50 years of waiting for the return of her husband my mother could learn something about his subsequent fate.
We implore you to look for this missing man.