Wojciech Najsarek
Wojciech Najsarek | |
---|---|
Born | 22 April 1900 Jaćmierz, Austria-Hungary |
Died | 1 September 1939 Westerplatte, Poland | (aged 39)
Service/ | Army of the Second Polish Republic |
Years of service | 1920 - 1939 |
Rank | Staff Sergeant |
Battles/wars | World War 2, Battle of Westerplatte |
Awards | Order of the Virtuti Militari |
Spouse(s) | Maria née Ostrowska |
Wojciech Najsarek (22 April 1900 – 1 September 1939) was a Polish soldier and a worker of the Polish State Railways. Chief of the Gdańsk-Westerplatte train station, he was killed during the first minutes of the German attack on the Polish enclave of Westerplatte. He was the first casualty of the Battle of Westerplatte, and one of the first victims of the Invasion of Poland and of World War II.[1][2][3]
Biography
Wojciech Najsarek was born 22 April 1900, in
In 1933 he graduated from a
On 1 September 1939, at 4:50 AM, only five minutes after the outbreak of hostilities, he was alarmed by strange noises and left his outpost to check what was happening, only to find a German military unit heading for the nearby Westerplatte military outpost. He received numerous heavy machine gun wounds and died instantly, as the first Polish victim of the Battle of Westerplatte and one of the first victims of World War II.[1][4] In 1945 he was posthumously awarded the Virtuti Militari, the highest Polish military decoration.[5] In the 1970s the place of his death was marked with a memorial stone.
In the film Westerplatte, he is played by Józef Lodynski.
Sources
- ^ a b Teresa Masłowska (September 2007). "Wojenne drogi polskich kolejarzy" (pdf). Kurier PKP (in Polish). 2007 (35): 10.
Wojciech Najsarek był jedną z pierwszych ofiar II wojny światowej.
- ISBN 978-0-87840-419-3.
Among them were Sgt. Wojciech Najsarek, the first Polish casualty of World War II...
- ISBN 978-83-04-03374-0.
st. sierż. Wojciech Najsarek, zawiadowca stacji, poległ jako pierwszy z żołnierzy Składnicy, na posterunku, na stacji PKP Westerplatte
- ^ a b c M. Wróbel (2009). "Najsarek, Wojciech". westerplatte.pl (in Polish). Retrieved 11 October 2009.
- ^ "Najsarek Wojciech sierż". Muzeum Historyczne Miasta Gdańska (in Polish). 2013.