Tadeusz Edmund Rurak (RIP)

On Wednesay last, our last day of the World War I history course at Umass Lowell, we took a leap into the future and saw a video on the Katyń Forest massacre, which occured in 1940.  This is one of those tragic events that is also interesting in how it plays out on the stage of history.  The Germans discovered the mass graves in 1943 and claimed it was a Soviet Action.  When the Soviet offensive pushed the Germans back, the Soviets uncovered the mass graves and claimed it was a German massacre.  It wasn't until 1990 that the Soviet Union admitted that the NKVD was responsible for the execution of some 22,000 Poles who composed part of the leadership of that land.  This action was the idea of Lavrentiy Beria.

The video was well done, and very powerful.

Then, today I was reading The Lowell Sun and saw an obituary for Tadeusz Edmund Rurak, who barely escaped being another statistic at the Katyń Forest.  Mr Rurak's 96 year sojourn here on earth was rich in history.

Born here in Lowell in 1913, he moved to Poland with his parents in 1922.  In 1935 he joined the Polish Army and was swept up by the Soviets when they and the Germans divided up Poland in September of 1939, thus kicking off what we think of as the beginning of World War II.♠  He managed to escape captivity immediately after capture and then served in the Polish Underground.  He was picked up in a roundup of non-Russian ethnic populations and sent to a labor camp in Siberia.  Released when Russia and the Polish Government in Exile signed an agreement he he rejoined the Polish Army and fought at the Battle of Monte Cassino, in Italy, where Polish forces took disproportionate losses in capturing that roadblock to the Allied advance up the spine of Italy.  At right is a photo of the Polish War Cemetery at Monte Cassino, as seen from the Abby of Monti Cassino.♥  After the war then Captain Rurak, and his wife, Wanda, were able to return to the United States, where he attended evening classes at Lowell Technological Institute.  He was employed by Raytheon, where he was a supervisor. There is a lot of history in Mr Rurak's life story.

He is one of the people in our area who I would have liked to have listen to.  He must have had wonderful stories.  I hope his family was able to capture some of them to pass on to his great-grandchildren.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  One can argue that Japan kicked off World War II with its seizure of Chinese territory earlier in the 1930s.
♥  This photo is from the Wiki Commons and the author is Ludmiła Pilecka.