My grandfather’s hands were placed into a machine and the Nazi’s broke them.
For many years I have been piecing together the life of my grandfather Jan Kuta, his story is a complicated one and still not complete even though I have written about his life in part and my research of him a few times.
This post is really about note taking. For me to keep a record of what I discover.
He was a Pole, born on the 21st January 1924, his family fled Poland just a few weeks before the Russians / Ukrainians invaded in the late
His ordeal was not over, as the Nazi’s invaded France in 1940.
Recently I received a set of WW2 German documents, these were found for me by the International Tracing Service, it took two years for them to locate these records and I have recently had them transcribed.
The records are not long by any standard but do hold lots of key facts.
On one occasion – My grandfather was arrested in Hamme, Belgium.
He was then transferred to Morbach concentration camp via Detmold Court House, Germany. The document was written (Morbach uber detmold).
Morbach is classed as a french camp although now located close to its border in Germany. It is a subsidiary camp that belonged to Natzweiler-Struthof, a camp infamous for human experiments.
He was transported to his prison on 5th November 1942 at 11.09 am
He was sentenced to 8 weeks on two separate occasions, but may easily have been held longer.
He was forced two work hard manual labour and on one occasion didn’t comply so my grandfather’s hands were placed into a machine and the Nazi’s broke them.
On his release he would have had no money.
And probably walked 446 kilometres = 277.132 miles home to Bethune, through dangerous war ravaged france.
He was sent to a labour camp on two occasions
Whilst home in France, his family worked tiresomely as farmers, for three years they lived on a diet of Turnips as food was scarce and monopolised by the Germans.
Eventually he ended up in a Polish displacement camp in Essex, England, it is believed he arrived in 1945.
His story still has a long way to go.
Stephen Robert Kuta
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