Polish soldiers played a crucial role in the liberation of Drenthe 80 years ago. It is not for nothing that at the Liberty Tour this year there is extra attention for the story of the Poles, who had the motto: ‘for your and our freedom’. Dominik Podgórski was one of the Polish soldiers who was active in Drenthe in 1945 and on Friday his grandson Nieck (41) considered his story, at a bridge just outside of Borger.
The story of Dominik Podgórski is impressive. On July 13, 1921 he is born in the town of Potok Zloty, which now belongs to Ukraine. He is active in the underground resistance during the war, but is arrested by the Nazis during the Warsaw uprising. As a prisoner of war, he is in the Neengamme and Sachsenhausen concentration camps, but the Germans eventually send him to the French coast, where he works on the line of defense that Allies have to stop.
Podgórski sees the Allied invasion of Alderney on 6 June 1944 happening in front of his eyes from the Alderney Channel Island. After D-Day, he is put on transport with other prisoners of war and kept imprisoned in the Belgian camp Markhove. Podgórski escaped from this camp with dozens of other trapped and he finds shelter at a Flemish farming family.
Grandson Nieck says that his grandfather hid in the attic of a farm in front of the Sicherheitsdienst. “Those Belgians also realized that my grandfather was a good person. They helped him to spread the scent of strong manure so that the disinfectant he was masked for smoke.” In prison camps, caught were often sprayed with this kind of means.
Story continues under the photo