Doctor
He was born on March 10, 1906 in Rawa Ruska. In 1931, after completing his medical studies at the Jan Kazimierz University in Lviv, he moved to Cieszyn, where he completed a two-year internship at the Silesian Hospital, which was arranged with the help of his brother-in-law, General Józef Zając – the then commander of the 23rd Infantry Division in Katowice. After completing his internship, he initially worked at the Health Center in Świętochłowice, and then, in the late 1930s, he took up the position of district doctor in Tarnowskie Góry.
My grandmother had a boarding house in Zakopane near Gubałówka. Throughout his studies, my father kept coming there to practice skiing, which was his passion. There he met my mother, who was 14 years old […] and said: She will be my wife”. Irena came from Ostrów Wielkopolski and lived with her parents in Cieszyn. In 1936, Antoni and Irena got married. A year later, in June 1937, their son Andrzej was born in Cieszyn. In June 1939, my father, who was convinced that there would be no war, sent my mother and me to Zakopane for a long vacation. On September 1, my mother saw Slovak troops entering Zakopane and decided to return to her parents in Cieszyn. It was not until October that she managed to arrange transport in an open car carrying apples. It was cold. The journey took a dozen or so hours, and my mother was already in an advanced pregnancy. After the war broke out, Antoni Szymański was not mobilized. Fearing reprisals from the Germans, he left Upper Silesia and made it as far as Budapest, where he worked in a hospital for some time. However, he soon decided to return to his family. While making his way through Slovakia, he was detained. Because he did not have documents, he risked being shot. However, it so happened that as a doctor he was able to help a sick person. At that time the Slovaks allowed him to go free. After his return to Cieszyn, in November 1939, his daughter was born and Antoni Szymański started his own medical practice.
On 14 April 1940 he was arrested by the Germans in his apartment. At the same time, other doctors were also arrested in Cieszyn, including Dr Albin Garbień and Dr Jan Zielina. The family did not know what had happened to Antoni Szymański, it was not until July that they received correspondence from which it emerged that he was in the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp, in block no. 2, and had the camp number 3226.
Completely unexpectedly, on 27 November, the father was released from the camp together with Dr Albin Garbień. He returned home starved, recalled being hit many times with a rifle butt by a guard, and also spoke about the terrifying drunken escapades of Commandant Karl Chmielewski and the abuse of prisoners.After returning from the camp, he had to report to the Gestapo every day, and at the beginning of 1941 we were deported to Wieliczka, where my father worked as a doctor until the end of the war.
From the top: wedding photograph of Irena and Antoni Szymański; portrait photograph of their son Andrzej Szymański.
Below: Irena and Antoni Szymański during a mountain trip, 1930s