Poland's provinces ("voivodeships") are largely based on the country's historic regions, whereas those of the past two decades (till 1998) had been centered on and named for individual cities.
The new units range in areas from under 10,000 km² (Opole Voivodeship) to over 35,000 km² (Masovian Voivodeship). Voivodeships are governed by voivod governments, and their legislatures are called voivodeship sejmiks.
Poland is subdivided into sixteen voivodeships (województwa, singular województwo). In turn, the voivodeships are divided into powiaty (singular powiat), second-level units of administration, equivalent to a county, distric
t or prefecture in other countries (NUTS-4 or rather LAU-1) and then gminy ("communes",
Poland is subdivided into sixteen voivodeships (województwa, singular województwo). In turn, the voivodeships are divided into powiaty (singular powiat), second-level units of administration, equivalent to a county, distric
t or prefecture in other countries (NUTS-4 or rather LAU-1) and then gminy ("communes", singular gmina).
My father, whose name was Mieczyslaw Kizler (but who called himself Michael when he came over here in the aftermath of WW2), hailed from a town called Izabelin, which is now a village in Lublin Voivodeship, Parczew County, Sosnowica Commune.
My father was taken from his mother and father by the Germans when he was 14 years old, and sent to Germany as a POW. It was common practice for the Nazis, in occupied countries such as Poland, to take the youngest sons from Polish households and use them as forced labour, in industry and in rural farms, back in Germany. He had a three brothers, one of whom, Edward, was in the Polish resistance (after which he was captured by the Nazis and sent to either Chelmno or Dachau concentration camp). His younger brother, Marion, was eventually killed by the Germans, as was his older brother, Tad, while fighting in the resistance army. He also had a half-brother, Jan, and a sister, Yadwiga, both of whom survived the war and settled in or around Warsaw.
After being taken away from his family at age 14, my father was never to see his mother, Natalia, or his father, Ignacy, again. When he finally returned to Poland in 1970, with the help and intervention of the International Red Cross, he found that his mother had died just 2 weeks earlier. His father had died years before.
My father himself, after working on a succession of German farms, was taken into a POW camp in Germany, where the Germans offered him the dubious honour of German citizenship. This was due to the fact that his surname sounded much like the German 'Kitzler', and also because he was, aesthetically, a member of Hitler's 'perfect' Aryan race, which Hitler was so determined to promote throughout Europe in his rambling doctrines. That is to say he was blond-haired and blue-eyed. He refused.
He could not, when he arrived, speak a word of German, but this did not stop my father learning colloquial German from simply listening to the German radio broadcasts in the POW camp. It was enough to secure his escape, which he achieved by sneaking on to a POW train dressed as a German army officer. He had to converse with an SS officer who subsequently boarded the train, and his German was evidently good enough to convince the officer that he was a bona fide German. He crossed over the 'Siegfried Line' to safety in the hands of the Allies.
The original Siegfried line (Siegfriedstellung) was a line of defensive forts and tank defenses built by Germany as a section of the Hindenburg Line 1916-1917 in northern France during World War I. The World War II Siegfried Line was built during the 1930s, opposite the French Maginot Line, which served a corresponding purpose. The Germans themselves called this the Westwall, but the Allies renamed it after the First World War line. It was a defence system stretching more than 630km (392 miles) with more than 18,000 bunkers, tunnels and tank traps. It went from Kleve on the border with the Netherlands, along the western border of the old German Empire as far as the town of Weil am Rhein on the border to Switzerland. More with propaganda in mind than for any strategic reason, Adolf Hitler planned the line from 1936 and had it built between 1938 and 1940. This was after the Nazis had broken the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Treaties by remilitarizing the Rhineland in 1936.
Once in the hands of the Americans, my father was conscripted into the 2nd Polish Corps where he fought at the battle of Monte Casino, helping to wrest the abbey ruins from German hands, and paving the way for the Allied march on Rome.The Battle of Monte Cassino (also known as the Battle for Rome and the Battle for Cassino) was a costly series of four battles during World War II, fought by the Allies with the intention of breaking through the Winter Line and seizing Rome.
In the beginning of 1944, the western half of the Gustav Line was being anchored by Germans holding the Rapido, Liri and Garigliano valleys and certain surrounding peaks and ridges, but not the historic abbey of Monte Cassino, founded in 524 AD by St. Benedict, although they manned defensive positions set into the steep slopes below the abbey walls. On February 15 the monastery, high on a peak overlooking the town of Cassino, was destroyed by American B-17, B-25, and B-26 bombers. The bombing was based on the fear that the abbey was being used as a lookout post for the Axis defenders (this position evolved over time to admit that Axis military was not garrisoned there). Two days after the bombing, German paratroopers poured into the ruins to defend it. From January 17 to May 18, the Gustav defenses were assaulted four times by Allied troops. These operations resulted in casualties of over 54,000 Allied and 20,000 German soldiers.
My father was in the fourth, or final, battle, code-named Operation Diadem.The plan for Operation Diadem was that U.S. II Corps on the left would attack up the coast along the line of Route 7 towards Rome. The French Corps to their right would attack from the bridgehead across the Garigliano originally created by X Corps in the first battle in January into the Aurunci Mountains which formed a barrier between the coastal plain and the Liri Valley. British XIII Corps in the centre right of the front would attack along the Liri valley. On the right, the 2nd Polish Corps (3rd and 5th Division) commanded by Lt. Gen. Władysław Anders, which had relieved 78th Division in the mountains behind Cassino on April 24, would attempt the task which had defeated 4th Indian Division in February, isolate the monastery and push round behind it into the Liri valley to link with XIII Corps' thrust and pinch out the Cassino position. It was hoped that being a much larger force than their 4th Indian Division predecessors they would be able to saturate the German defences which would as a result be unable to give supporting fire to each other's positions. Improved weather, ground conditions and supply would also be important factors. Once again, the pinching maneuver by the Polish and British Corps were key to the overall success. Canadian I Corps would be held in reserve ready to exploit the expected breakthrough. Once the German Tenth Army had been defeated, U.S. VI Corps would break out of the Anzio beachhead to cut off the retreating Germans in the Alban Hills.
The large troop movements required for this took two months to execute. They had to be carried out in small units to maintain secrecy and surprise. U.S. 36th Division was sent on amphibious assault training, and road signposts and dummy radio signal traffic were created to give the impression that a sea-borne landing was being planned for north of Rome. This was planned to keep German reserves held back from the Gustav line. Movements of troops in forward areas were confined to the hours of darkness and armoured units moving from the Adriatic front left behind dummy tanks and vehicles so the vacated areas appeared unchanged to enemy aerial reconnaissance. The deception was successful. As late as the second day of the final Cassino battle, Kesselring estimated the Allies had six divisions facing his four on the Cassino front. In fact there were thirteen.
On May 15 British 78 Division came into the XIII Corps line from reserve passing through the bridgehead divisions to execute the turning move to isolate Cassino from the Liri valley. On May 17 the Polish Division renewed their assault in the mountains. By the early hours of May 18, 78 Division and the Polish Corps had linked up in the Liri valley 2 miles (3 km) west of Cassino town.In the early morning of May 18 a reconnaissance group of Polish 12th Podolian Uhlans Regiment found the monastery abandoned and raised an improvised regimental pennant over its ruins. The last German paratroops (said to be approximately 200 in number), with supply lines threatened by the advance up the Liri valley, had withdrawn the night before to take up new defensive positions on the Adolf Hitler Line. The only remnants of the defenders were a group of emaciated German wounded who had been too sick to move.
The 8th Army units advanced up the Liri valley and the 5th Army up the coast to the Adolf Hitler defensive line (renamed the Dora Line at Hitler's insistence to minimise the significance if it was penetrated). An immediate follow-up assault failed and 8th Army then decided to take some time to re-organise. Getting 20,000 vehicles and 2,000 tanks through the broken Gustav Line was a major job taking several days. The next assault on the Dora Line commenced on May 23 with the Polish Corps attacking Piedimonte (defended by the redoutable 1st Parachute Division) on the right and 1st Canadian Infantry Division (fresh from 8th Army reserve) in the centre. On May 24, the Canadians had breached the line, and 5th Canadian (Armoured) Division poured through the gap. On May 25 the Poles took Piedimonte, and the Hitler / Dora line collapsed. The way was clear for the advance northwards on Rome and beyond.Immediately after the cessation of fighting at Monte Cassino, the Polish government in Exile (in London) created the Monte Cassino campaign cross to commemorate the Polish part in the capture of the strategic point. It was also during this time that Polish song-writer Feliks Konarski, who had taken part in the fighting there, wrote his anthem Czerwone maki na Monte Cassino (The Red Poppies on Monte Cassino). Later, an imposing Polish cemetery was laid out; this is prominently visible to anybody surveying the area from the restored monastery.
The Commonwealth War Graves cemetery on the western outskirts of Cassino is the final resting place of the British, New Zealand, Canadian, Indian, Gurkha and South African casualties. The French and Italians are on Route 6 in the Liri Valley; the Americans are at Anzio. The German cemetery is approximately 2 miles (3 km) north of Cassino in the Rapido Valley.
In 2006, a memorial was unveiled in Rome honouring the Allied forces that fought and died to liberate the city.
After this victory, which led indirectly to a ceasefire and victory for the Allied Army, my father was demobbed to England (Lincoln) at age 19. A few years later, while residing in a Polish hostel in the home counties, he met and married my mother. And the rest is history.
My father, whose name was Mieczyslaw Kizler (but who called himself Michael when he came over here in the aftermath of WW2), hailed from a town called Izabelin, which is now a village in Lublin Voivodeship, Parczew County, Sosnowica Commune.
My father was taken from his mother and father by the Germans when he was 14 years old, and sent to Germany as a POW. It was common practice for the Nazis, in occupied countries such as Poland, to take the youngest sons from Polish households and use them as forced labour, in industry and in rural farms, back in Germany. He had a three brothers, one of whom, Edward, was in the Polish resistance (after which he was captured by the Nazis and sent to either Chelmno or Dachau concentration camp). His younger brother, Marion, was eventually killed by the Germans, as was his older brother, Tad, while fighting in the resistance army. He also had a half-brother, Jan, and a sister, Yadwiga, both of whom survived the war and settled in or around Warsaw.
After being taken away from his family at age 14, my father was never to see his mother, Natalia, or his father, Ignacy, again. When he finally returned to Poland in 1970, with the help and intervention of the International Red Cross, he found that his mother had died just 2 weeks earlier. His father had died years before.
My father himself, after working on a succession of German farms, was taken into a POW camp in Germany, where the Germans offered him the dubious honour of German citizenship. This was due to the fact that his surname sounded much like the German 'Kitzler', and also because he was, aesthetically, a member of Hitler's 'perfect' Aryan race, which Hitler was so determined to promote throughout Europe in his rambling doctrines. That is to say he was blond-haired and blue-eyed. He refused.
He could not, when he arrived, speak a word of German, but this did not stop my father learning colloquial German from simply listening to the German radio broadcasts in the POW camp. It was enough to secure his escape, which he achieved by sneaking on to a POW train dressed as a German army officer. He had to converse with an SS officer who subsequently boarded the train, and his German was evidently good enough to convince the officer that he was a bona fide German. He crossed over the 'Siegfried Line' to safety in the hands of the Allies.
The original Siegfried line (Siegfriedstellung) was a line of defensive forts and tank defenses built by Germany as a section of the Hindenburg Line 1916-1917 in northern France during World War I. The World War II Siegfried Line was built during the 1930s, opposite the French Maginot Line, which served a corresponding purpose. The Germans themselves called this the Westwall, but the Allies renamed it after the First World War line. It was a defence system stretching more than 630km (392 miles) with more than 18,000 bunkers, tunnels and tank traps. It went from Kleve on the border with the Netherlands, along the western border of the old German Empire as far as the town of Weil am Rhein on the border to Switzerland. More with propaganda in mind than for any strategic reason, Adolf Hitler planned the line from 1936 and had it built between 1938 and 1940. This was after the Nazis had broken the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Treaties by remilitarizing the Rhineland in 1936.
Once in the hands of the Americans, my father was conscripted into the 2nd Polish Corps where he fought at the battle of Monte Casino, helping to wrest the abbey ruins from German hands, and paving the way for the Allied march on Rome.The Battle of Monte Cassino (also known as the Battle for Rome and the Battle for Cassino) was a costly series of four battles during World War II, fought by the Allies with the intention of breaking through the Winter Line and seizing Rome.
In the beginning of 1944, the western half of the Gustav Line was being anchored by Germans holding the Rapido, Liri and Garigliano valleys and certain surrounding peaks and ridges, but not the historic abbey of Monte Cassino, founded in 524 AD by St. Benedict, although they manned defensive positions set into the steep slopes below the abbey walls. On February 15 the monastery, high on a peak overlooking the town of Cassino, was destroyed by American B-17, B-25, and B-26 bombers. The bombing was based on the fear that the abbey was being used as a lookout post for the Axis defenders (this position evolved over time to admit that Axis military was not garrisoned there). Two days after the bombing, German paratroopers poured into the ruins to defend it. From January 17 to May 18, the Gustav defenses were assaulted four times by Allied troops. These operations resulted in casualties of over 54,000 Allied and 20,000 German soldiers.
My father was in the fourth, or final, battle, code-named Operation Diadem.The plan for Operation Diadem was that U.S. II Corps on the left would attack up the coast along the line of Route 7 towards Rome. The French Corps to their right would attack from the bridgehead across the Garigliano originally created by X Corps in the first battle in January into the Aurunci Mountains which formed a barrier between the coastal plain and the Liri Valley. British XIII Corps in the centre right of the front would attack along the Liri valley. On the right, the 2nd Polish Corps (3rd and 5th Division) commanded by Lt. Gen. Władysław Anders, which had relieved 78th Division in the mountains behind Cassino on April 24, would attempt the task which had defeated 4th Indian Division in February, isolate the monastery and push round behind it into the Liri valley to link with XIII Corps' thrust and pinch out the Cassino position. It was hoped that being a much larger force than their 4th Indian Division predecessors they would be able to saturate the German defences which would as a result be unable to give supporting fire to each other's positions. Improved weather, ground conditions and supply would also be important factors. Once again, the pinching maneuver by the Polish and British Corps were key to the overall success. Canadian I Corps would be held in reserve ready to exploit the expected breakthrough. Once the German Tenth Army had been defeated, U.S. VI Corps would break out of the Anzio beachhead to cut off the retreating Germans in the Alban Hills.
The large troop movements required for this took two months to execute. They had to be carried out in small units to maintain secrecy and surprise. U.S. 36th Division was sent on amphibious assault training, and road signposts and dummy radio signal traffic were created to give the impression that a sea-borne landing was being planned for north of Rome. This was planned to keep German reserves held back from the Gustav line. Movements of troops in forward areas were confined to the hours of darkness and armoured units moving from the Adriatic front left behind dummy tanks and vehicles so the vacated areas appeared unchanged to enemy aerial reconnaissance. The deception was successful. As late as the second day of the final Cassino battle, Kesselring estimated the Allies had six divisions facing his four on the Cassino front. In fact there were thirteen.
On May 15 British 78 Division came into the XIII Corps line from reserve passing through the bridgehead divisions to execute the turning move to isolate Cassino from the Liri valley. On May 17 the Polish Division renewed their assault in the mountains. By the early hours of May 18, 78 Division and the Polish Corps had linked up in the Liri valley 2 miles (3 km) west of Cassino town.In the early morning of May 18 a reconnaissance group of Polish 12th Podolian Uhlans Regiment found the monastery abandoned and raised an improvised regimental pennant over its ruins. The last German paratroops (said to be approximately 200 in number), with supply lines threatened by the advance up the Liri valley, had withdrawn the night before to take up new defensive positions on the Adolf Hitler Line. The only remnants of the defenders were a group of emaciated German wounded who had been too sick to move.
The 8th Army units advanced up the Liri valley and the 5th Army up the coast to the Adolf Hitler defensive line (renamed the Dora Line at Hitler's insistence to minimise the significance if it was penetrated). An immediate follow-up assault failed and 8th Army then decided to take some time to re-organise. Getting 20,000 vehicles and 2,000 tanks through the broken Gustav Line was a major job taking several days. The next assault on the Dora Line commenced on May 23 with the Polish Corps attacking Piedimonte (defended by the redoutable 1st Parachute Division) on the right and 1st Canadian Infantry Division (fresh from 8th Army reserve) in the centre. On May 24, the Canadians had breached the line, and 5th Canadian (Armoured) Division poured through the gap. On May 25 the Poles took Piedimonte, and the Hitler / Dora line collapsed. The way was clear for the advance northwards on Rome and beyond.Immediately after the cessation of fighting at Monte Cassino, the Polish government in Exile (in London) created the Monte Cassino campaign cross to commemorate the Polish part in the capture of the strategic point. It was also during this time that Polish song-writer Feliks Konarski, who had taken part in the fighting there, wrote his anthem Czerwone maki na Monte Cassino (The Red Poppies on Monte Cassino). Later, an imposing Polish cemetery was laid out; this is prominently visible to anybody surveying the area from the restored monastery.
The Commonwealth War Graves cemetery on the western outskirts of Cassino is the final resting place of the British, New Zealand, Canadian, Indian, Gurkha and South African casualties. The French and Italians are on Route 6 in the Liri Valley; the Americans are at Anzio. The German cemetery is approximately 2 miles (3 km) north of Cassino in the Rapido Valley.
In 2006, a memorial was unveiled in Rome honouring the Allied forces that fought and died to liberate the city.
After this victory, which led indirectly to a ceasefire and victory for the Allied Army, my father was demobbed to England (Lincoln) at age 19. A few years later, while residing in a Polish hostel in the home counties, he met and married my mother. And the rest is history.
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