Sketchbook of drawings created postwar by a former Polish soldier, POW, and refugee

Benedykt Filipiak was born on August 25, 1924, in Tczew Poland, to Roman Catholic parents, Bronislawa and Bronislaw Filipiak. His father was a diesel engineer and estimator for the Polish government. He had 2 brothers and a sister. Benedykt studied basic engineering in Warsaw from 1935-1938. He entered the Polish Officer Cadet College in 1938. The Germans invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, and Benedykt went into active service. He was captured in November and sent to Stalag XIB prisoner of war camp outside Fallingbostel, Germany, and assigned prisoner number 140379. He worked in a smeltery as a crane operator and mechanic and at a Messerschmitt factory repairing aircraft. In 1942, Benedykt bribed a guard with his Red Cross package and escaped with 4 other prisoners. He returned to Warsaw and joined the underground Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) as a lieutenant. He participated in acts of sabotage. From August to October 1944, he fought against the Germans in the Warsaw Uprising, a failed attempt to liberate Warsaw. He was interned in a German prisoner of war camp outside Hannover, Germany, where he operated coal mining equipment. He was liberated in the late spring of 1945 by American forces. Opposed to the Communist occupation of Poland, Benedykt stayed in Germany. He was placed in a displaced persons camp, where he worked as a teacher. His brothers were killed by the Germans during the war, but his parents and sister survived. In 1946, the American authorities recognized his service in the Polish Home Army, fighting against enemies of the United States, and allowed Benedykt to join the United States Army of Occupation. He held the rank of captain and was in charge of the motor pool. In 1949, Benedykt requested to emigrate to the United States and was sponsored by the US under the Displaced Person’s Act of 1948. He sailed on the General J.H. McRae from Bremerhaven, Germany, and arrived in New York on December 17, 1949. Benedykt moved to Butte, Montana, and worked as a miner for the Anaconda Copper Mining Company. He joined the U.S. Army in 1951 and was assigned to the 30th Engineers Topographical Battalion at the Presidio of San Francisco. In San Francisco, he married and became a citizen on December 21, 1951. He was discharged in 1954 and began a career in the printing industry. He married and had a son and daughter. Benedykt died on January 4, 2001, in Upper Lake, California, at age 76.

The sketchbook was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2010 by Larry Filipiak, the son of Benedykt Filipiak.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Larry Filipiak

Funding Note: The cataloging of this artifact has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.