Adorable Story #40: Henryk de Kwiatkowski
The Polish-born Aircraft manufacturer & broker whose life reads like a novel
“He is very tanned, and has a full head of dark hair shot with silver. When he takes off his black-framed reading glasses, which make him look a lot like Felix Rohatyn, and flashes an eager, full-toothed smile, he bears a startling resemblance to illustrations of Genghis Khan.”
— Bob Colacello, Vanity Fair, 1992
Henryk Richard de Kwiatkowski was a Polish-born member of the Royal Air Force who became an aeronautical engineer, made a fortune in business in North America, and who owned the legendary “Calumet Farm”, one of the most prestigious thoroughbred horse breeding and racing farms in the United States, which throughout its history of over 87 years, has produced some of the greatest thoroughbred horses of all time.
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Origins
Henryk de Kwiatkowski was born in Poznań, Poland on February 22, 1924.
Albeit “de” — the Romance language prefix indicating an aristocratic background — doesn’t exist in Polish, he explained that his grandfather Frenchified the family name after fighting under Napoleon.
Henryk told of being awaken one morning in 1939 on his family’s farm in Poznan with news that the Germans had invaded Poland. His mother told Henryk and his brothers that “all of you have to go and fight against Hitler.” His mother was later arrested by the Gestapo, and he never saw her again.
At age 15, Henryk de Kwiatkowski joined the Polish resistance efforts, mostly fighting against the Russians.
“[W]hen the Russians entered Poland on September 17, I was in Kremenets, on the border with Bug. I remember that Sergeant Krzyszkowski taught us how to stop tanks. At that time I was a young boy scout, I went to a Jesuit school, where we were taught that you must not kill. We stopped Russian tanks in such a way that we put bottles under the tracks that ripped the chains preventing them from riding and causing the whole convoy to stop. We did it in great conspiracy, but in the end it failed and they arrested us at school before Christmas. We received a sentence for sabotage: 20 years of exile for heavy work in Siberia.
Siberia
Henryk de Kwiatkowski was captured by the Russian Army and promptly sent to a Siberian labor camp for prisoners of war.
“they handled us gently, because if it was the NKVD [the Soviet police, overseeing the country's prisons and labor camps], they would shoot us on the spot. They packed us into cattle cars and we rode for weeks. At the destination they said we would cut trees. They gave us axes and saws and took us to the workplace.”
After being imprisoned for two years in Siberia, Henryk met a doctor imprisoned there since WWI who asked him to be part of an escape effort.
“There I met a doctor from World War I, who had been developing an escape plan for years. Having trusted me, he showed me his plan. In the years 1941-1942 I memorized and repeated everyday the names of the places through which the train had to pass and I will probably not forget them until the end of my life: Kuibyshev, Almati, Tashkent, Kokan, Samarkand, all the way to the Caspian Sea and Iran.”
Henryk de Kwiatkowski managed to escape the labor camp and followed the escape route — by walk and the occassional train — through Russia, heading south as quickly as possible. It took him months and many of the fellow prisoners who escaped with him eventually were captured and forcibly returned to the labor camp in Siberia. During wintertime, Henryk managed to stay warm by boarding train cars as much as possible in order to avoid the rigid Russian temperatures.
“I was lucky again, in one of the first-class compartments there was only one passenger, a woman who saw me and invited me inside. I remember how she touched my lips and said: "What did they do with you, you still have mother’s milk on your lips"
It turned out that the compartment was specially reserved for the NKVD, and she was the wife of the head of the NKVD of Uzbekistan. She said she would help me. I asked about the town from the doctor's list, she said that there is Tashkent, Kokan on the way ... I was happy that I was going in the right direction.
This lady helped me reach Tashkent, where she lived and explained to her husband in what circumstances she met me. I lived with them for a month, and then her husband gave me papers so that I could escape from Uzbekistan through Kokan, Samarkand and the port city on the Caspian Sea, Krasnowodsk. I got there on a coal ship and sailed for Iran.”
Once in Iran, he contacted the British Embassy: he lied about his age and was then taken by British agents to Iraq, where he enlisted with the British Air Force.
After joining the British Air Force, Henryk was sent for basic training in South Africa.
Empress of Canada
After completing R.A.F. training in Durban, South Africa, Henrik de Kwiatkowski was sent to England on board the Empress of Canada (originally an ocean liner converted into a troopship during WWII).
On 14 March 1943 at 01.00 am, while en route from Durban, South Africa to Takoradi, Ghana, carrying Italian Prisoners of War (P.O.W.) along with a number of Polish and Greek refugees, the Empress of Canada was torpedoed by the Italian submarine Leonardo da Vinci, approximately 400 miles (640 km) south of Cape Palmas, off the coast of Africa.
The Empress of Canada was quickly sunk.
The shark-infested waters off the coast of Africa proved fatal for many of the prisoners and refugees aboard the Empress of Canada: of the approximate 1,800 people on board, 392 died. 149 of the fatalities reported were Italian P.O.W., while British rescuers were able to save 800 of those P.O.W. aboard (the Leonardo da Vinci herself would be sunk by British patrol ships two months later, with no survivors).
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