farmer, partisan of the Home Army, officer of the Polish Army, teacher, educator, legal advisor, social worker, veteran
Józef Borowiec was born on March 19, 1925, in the town of Krasy Duże near Pacanów, in the area of today’s Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship. He was the son of Józef and Balbina, brother to Czesław, Eugenia, Stanisława, Henryka and Kazimiera. The large Borowiec family lived in the estate of prince Maciej Radziwiłł, where his father worked on a grange. Before the war, was the only one of the six siblings to graduate from a 7-year primary school. He dreamed of a military career and even applied for an admission to the Szkoła Kadetów (Cadet School) in Rawicz. However, he had no chances - he was not a son of a legionary soldier nor a state official. Besides, his family could not afford expensive cadet equipment [1]. At the age of 14, Józef Borowiec went to work on the land - his daily wage was PLN 0.60, less than the price of a kilogram of sugar at the time [2].
During World War II, in 1943, Józef Borowiec joined a partisan unit of the Home Army under the command of “Wicher”. The unit fought in numerous skirmishes with the Nazis, “Wicher” partisans were also entrusted retrieving British weapons and ammo drops for the Home Army. On August 1, 1944, they wanted to help with the fighting in Warsaw, but without heavy weapons they had no chance. Eventually, the “Wicher” unit disbanded, and Józef Borowiec returned to Słupie, where his family lived.
There it turned out that the Nazis displaced the civilians because of the approaching front, and burned the village buildings. Meanwhile, Józef Borowiec became seriously ill. Unconscious 19-year old was found by Russians. They brought in a military doctor, gave him medicine and food. Józef Borowiec, cured, set off in search of his family which he found in Połaniec.
In this area, in the summer of 1944, fierce fighting for the so-called Sandomierz bridgehead took place, and the civilian population was basically starving. This is how Józef Borowiec himself recalled that time: There were crops in the fields, but they couldn’t be gathered under fire from the front. We went out for potatoes. We hiked more than 20 km because we had to walk around Soviet front posts. However, it was the only food for our family [3].
In the late summer of 1944, Józef Borowiec and three of his friends set off eastward in search of work. In Sandomierz, they met Maj. Bełczewski - a representative of the Polski Komitet Wyzwolenia Narodowego (Polish Committee for National Liberation) - who offered young men to join the army. Józef Borowiec- - a graduate of a 7-year primary school with combat experience gained as a partisan, entered the officer school, despite the fact that he did not have a high school diploma, and after 3 months, as a top student, he was immediately promoted to the rank of lieutenant of the Polish Army.
He was assigned to the 10th Infantry Division of the Polish Second Army and in its composition, in April 1945, took part in forcing the Nysa Łużycka. He commanded a battery of 76 mm anti-tank guns, as a replacement for Maj. Bilnov, who was demoted on the battlefield by a Soviet colonel who tore off his shoulder marks, and then entrusted the command to the 20-year old lieutenant. During heavy shelling, Józef Borowiec was buried alive. One of his subordinates - Konstanty Gil - dug out the unconscious commander, saving his life.
After crossing the Nysa Łużycka, units of the Polish Second Army liberated villages inhabited by Slavic Sorbs. Unit of 2Lt. Józef Borowiec at the last moment seized from the hands of the Nazis a quarry, which was going to be blown up, along with the people imprisoned in it. After the end of the war, in the 1970s, Józef Borowiec maintained close, cordial contacts with the Sorbian organization “Domowina”.
At the end of May 1945, the 10th Infantry Division entered Jelenia Góra [4]. Józef Borowiec, who had agricultural experience, became the commander of military groups that were supposed to harvest crops from estates abandoned by their German owners: Radomierz, Komarno and Łomnica. This activity was marked by Józef Borowiec the following anecdote: “In the abandoned estates there were neither horses nor harnesses of them. The German peasants did not have horses, they were taken from them by the war, but they still had harnesses, but they had hid them. Borowiec managed to get 10 horses, but without harnesses. So he called the German village leader and told him: We are organizing a harvest. We have horses, you have harnesses. You have to deliver them within 2 days. Mark them, after the harvest you can pick them up. We will eat the bread from the harvest together. Unfortunately, the Germans did not comply - searches and confiscations were necessary, but the crops were harvested, and even a harvest festival was organized in Komarno [5].
Also in Komarno, in the fall of 1945, Józef Borowiec met his future wife, Zofia. Once upon the time he met the Specht family, who were returning in a cart from forced labor near Leipzig. They were going across the Bug River to their homeland, not knowing that eastern territories of the Commonwealth were occupied by the Russians. Józef Borowiec, while persuading the family to stay in Komarno, talked with his future father-in-law - he would soon marry his daughter.
In 1945, when the first Miejska Rada Narodowa (Municipal National Council) was established in Jelenia Góra, Józef Borowiec represented the army on it. There was friction and conflicts between councilors, mainly over the allocation of flats. Józef Borowiec, defending the interests of the military community, came into conflict with two councilors, the Grochulski couple. This is how he recalled the event: Mrs. Grochulska said to her husband: - Kazik, we will inform Edek about all this! (...) I replied: Let Grochulska go with her complaint, even to the bloody hell! We will not give up our due rights anyway [6]. Edek was the Prime Minister of the Polish government at the time - Edward Osóbka-Morawski. He was the brother of councilor Grochulska.
In 1947, promoted to captain, Józef Borowiec was ordered to participate, along with a part of the 10th Infantry Division, in the Operation Vistula. Then he was sent to the Wyższa Szkoła Oficerska (Military Academy) in Rembertów, where he was an outstanding student for 2 years.
Just before his graduation, in 1949, he was summoned to the party military commission, which was investigating Józef Borowiec’s involvement with partisans of the Home Army. Investigators made paranoid allegations of connections with spies and questioned him about alleged mysterious “tasks” in the ranks of the Polish Second Army. A participant in partisan fights and a hero of the Lusatian operation, decorated with the Cross of Valor, was punished with a party reprimand. He also lost his faith in the sense of military service. Shortly after the investigation was completed, he asked to be released from the army and returned to Komarno, where he began working as a teacher of history and Polish studies at the Szkoła Przysposobienia Przemysłowego (Industrial Training School).
In 1951, the institution was moved to Płakowice near Lwówek Śl. and renamed to Państwowy Ośrodek Wychowawczy Nr 2 (State Educational Center no. 2). Józef Borowiec, who was working there, again became a participant in the Grand History, when children that were orphaned during the war on the Korean Peninsula were placed under his care.
The Korean War began in 1950 and ended in 1953 with an armistice and the establishment of the so-called demarcation line along the 38th parallel, which resulted in the division into North and South Korea that still exists today. About 4 million died during the hostilities; many children became orphans. The Polish government, wanting to help Korea, decided to accept orphaned children.
At the end of July 1953, a group of over 1000 small Korean boys and girls arrived, under the care of their local teachers [7]. Both they and their pupils quickly learned the Polish language, and were cared for in Płakowice. As they grew up and studied together with Polish children, a deep friendship developed between the two nations. Jerzy Borowiec, Józef’s son, still remembers his Korean colleagues, and even remembers some of their names, such as Ko Jan Guk, Ri Cho Un, Im Ge Sun, and remembers how dramatic the departure of Koreans in 1959 was, caused by political decisions. Letters from Korean friends, written in Polish, came to Płakowice even in the early 1970s.
After Koreans left, physically or mentally disabled children, victims of accidents and people suffering from polio became the charges of Państwowy Ośrodek Wychowawczy. Józef Borowiec, then a graduate of special pedagogy, which he studied in the early 1950s, looked after with all his commitment. He helped them with homework, organized activities, which included sports, outings and walks, and was on night duty.
In 1960, Józef Borowiec graduated from his second elective - law - and, in parallel with his teaching work, took up duties as a legal advisor in workplaces of the then Lwówek poviat, incl. in the “Gryfeks” plants and in the sanitary department.
Despite his many responsibilities, he found time to selflessly provide legal advice to those in need, and above all - to World War II veterans. When he retired in 1985, he became fully involved in social activities. He was, among other things, a member of Zarząd Wojewódzkiego Związku Byłych Żołnierzy Zawodowych (Provincial Board of the Association of Former Professional Soldiers). He was elected for this function for 3 terms, in the years 1985-1993 [8]. He defended the good name of all Polish military pensioners, regardless of in which army they fought for Poland.
Col. Józef Borowiec died on April 10, 2020. His life was immortalized by a well-known Polish writer, Józef Hen, in the book “Nie boję się bezsennych nocy” and in “Dziennik na nowy wiek”. The steadfast man who lived an honest but difficult life, caught up in Grand history, has passed away.