Włodzimierz Kowalski: Hey There on the Border – from Sejny to Podole ...
One would like to say: you praise what belongs to others, while you do not know your own. I have known Włodek for several decades; we all know him as an editorial colleague, and even more as a vigorous, dynamic activist of the Association of Combatants of the Republic of Poland, a community worker, a man of action, a storyteller, a Pole and patriot emotionally connected with the western borderlands of the Republic of Poland, where he found himself immediately after the war as a military settler. His biography needs no embellishment: he was a front-line soldier, holds the rank of colonel in the WR, is an authentic chronicler of his homeland’s history, a legendary figure permanently inscribed in the chronicle of the town on the Bóbr through the toil of organic work, not invented stories about everlasting achievements. Hardworking, brave, just, an eternal seeker of truth, dependable, he leaves around him everywhere a mark of originality and uniqueness; always in motion, a slave to inquisitiveness and the study of events connected with human fate, the history of the local community, and also the history of his homeland. Such a rich and unique biography would suffice for several human lives, but Włodek cannot be copied: he will always remain an extraordinary personality, unique, one of a kind and original. It is difficult to predict his reactions: once again he surprised us with a rich and beautiful saga about the history of the 24th Battalion of the Border Protection Corps “Sejny”
In the dedication of the book we read: “In tribute to the soldiers of the Border Protection Corps ‘Sejny’ and the Border Protection Corps battalion ‘Delatyn’, who demonstrated their patriotism for our Homeland in border service, on the battlefields of September 1939 and on all fronts of World War II; to those who fell, were murdered in German and Soviet prisons, and to the dead and living – on the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the Border Protection Corps – the author.”
Let us quote the summary of the biographical note placed on the book cover. “The subject of this study is the history of the Border Protection Corps battalion ‘Sejny’, presented against a broad historical background. The author showed the battalion’s significant role in guarding the border with Lithuania and its battles on the battlefields of September 1939 – mainly against the invading Soviet army.
The history of the battalion is an important element of the history and Polish national traditions of the entire Augustów–Sejny–Suwałki region. The author grew up on the border with Lithuania, where Border Protection Corps soldiers performed their sacrificial service, in the family home of his father, a soldier of the 1st Lithuanian-Belarusian Division and, after the war, a teacher and local-government activist in the Neman region. Officers and non-commissioned officers of the KOR were frequent guests at the family home. The author witnessed both the peacetime service and the battles of Border Protection Corps units with the Soviet Army, which is why the matters presented in the book have been close to him since childhood and are connected with a powerful web of patriotic feelings. He was forced to take off the uniform of a career soldier when a marshal sent from Moscow became Minister of National Defence.
He settled in the western territories, where he began a new life. He established a family home and became an economist in managerial positions in banking after the political changes of October 1956.
His second small homeland, replacing the one lost in the Neman region (“People long for a homeland today, and instead they are granted a state. A homeland is organic, rooted in the past, warming the heart like one’s own body. A state is mechanical. A homeland is Wales, Brittany, Hutsulshchyna...” – Czesław Miłosz), became the region around the Czarna Hańcza, the Augustów Canal and the Rospuda. For more than 40 years, he spent all the summer months there without interruption.
The fruit of his intellectual interest in this region is several hundred press publications. In recent years, they have addressed previously forbidden subjects: the battles of Home Army units. Together with habilitated doctor Czesław Grzelak, he wrote “Kodziowce 1939”, published in 1992 by “Bellona”, about the battles of the 101st Lancer Regiment on the Neman. He is also the initiator and co-author of television films broadcast on Programme 1: “A Northern Tale”, “I Sowed the Green Rue” and “Roads to Poland”.
“One of the laureates of the nationwide competition ‘Suwałki Region in My Memories’. He is active in the Association of Combatants and Former Political Prisoners. He is a member of the Association of Home Army Members – Gulag Survivors. A reserve lieutenant colonel, decorated with the Officer’s and Knight’s Crosses of the Order of Polonia Restituta, the Cross of Valour, the Home Army Cross, the Partisan Cross, and other crosses and medals.”
That is the end of the biographical note. And what can be written about the book? It is fascinating in content and contains a multitude of photographs, reproductions of documents and photographs, and even caricatures. It draws you in like a drug... It tells the truth about times gone by and teaches love of the Homeland. The narrator’s talent remains in complete harmony with the historian’s inquisitiveness and objectivity. This is a rare case in contemporary popular-scientific writing.
We wish you, Colonel, further success in the field of writing. Perhaps this time you will save from oblivion another chapter of your rich biography, devoted to the Recovered Territories and the birth of Polish identity in our beautiful town on the Bóbr? We sincerely wish you further achievements – equally beautiful and great. Please accept our congratulations.
Włodzimierz Kowalski – “Hey There on the Border – from Sejny to Podole...” From the History of the 24th Battalion of the Border Protection Corps “Sejny”. Sejny 1995. Published by the Municipal Cultural Centre in Sejny. p. 208.