The Szuszkowski Family: A Polish Immigrant Story

The Szuszkowski Family:

A Polish Immigrant Story

BartlomiejSzuszkowski

My wife Olga and I with our daughter Marysia and son

Mikolaj

The Patriarch

Mikolaj Szuszkowski

First Arrived in America 1913 Ellis Island

First Post-War Elections

1947

My farm in Kozlow

Photo from the Yalta Conference: Winston S. Churchill,

Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin

German Invasion of Poland September 1, 1939

Nazi Panzer Tank

My brother Jusek

Pustkow Labor Camp, Psymsyl

Between 1940 and 1944 The Nazis murdered –

15,000 people at Pustkow

5,000 Russian Prisoners of War

7,500 Jews

2,500 Poles

Pustkow Labor Camp, Psymsyl

The first prisoners arrived in 1940, mostly Polish Jews. In 1941 the German forces built a second camp for Russian prisoners of war, and in 1942 built a third

camp for Polish workers. In early August 1944 the three camps were totally evacuated and destroyed,

with the survivors moved to other camps.

Plaszow labor camp

This slave labor camp near Kraków was headed by Amon Goeth, a psychopathic killer. Of some 150,000

Jews who passed through its gates, about 80,000 perished.

My two new horses and handmade horse buggy

House in Kozlow(Photo taken in 1988 by Mikolaj)

Prudnik

Prezynka House

Prezynka Poland Circa 1949-50

Embassy Papers

S.S. America

April 2006 with our Great-Grandchildren

World War II Learn about World War II from a relatives first hand account.

• Conduct an interview with a relative that experienced the War or lived during the war.

• Who is the person you interviewed who was involved in World War II?• How are they related to you?• What did they do during World War II?• What were their experiences during the war and their feelings about the war?• What did you learn about World War II from their experience?• Where (in what part of the world) did their story take place?• How did the interview and the story affect you?

Things you will need for your interview:

• A pen and paper.• A tape recorder or camcorder and enough tape for the interview.

Resources you will use:

• Internet search engines. (for research)– Google– Yahoo– Ask Jeeves– Altavista– Lycos

Web sites:

– American Scrapbood website: http://tqjunior.thinkquest.org/4616/

– Library of Congress: www.loc.gov

– Ellis Island: www.ellisisland.org

– World War II history: http://www.historyplace.com

– World War II Factbook: http://www.skalman.nu/worldwar2/

– Navajo Code Talkers: http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq61-2.htm

– Tuskeegee Airmen: http://www.ritesofpassage.org/mil_air.htm

– Concentration Camps: http://www.remember.org/camps/

– Women in the War: http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/WWII_Women/tocCS.html

– The Yalta Agreement: http://campus.northpark.edu/history/WebChron/World/YaltaConf.html

Additional Resources

• Periodicals, books, newspapers from the World War II era (in the resource area of the library)

• Film Examples: “Shindler’s List”, “Memphis Belle”, “Patton”, “Das Boot”, “PT-109”, “The Tuskegee Airmen”, There are others but they should be approved, by me.

Tying It All Together

You will provide as a product of your research maps to show understanding of the geographic location you are reporting on. Include in your research a particular subject related to the war and its relevance or consequences to your family and the world. How has that historical event changed the world we live in today? This should all be presented to the rest of the class as if though you were the teacher. You can use charts, graphs, photos, video-clips or a computer presentation to aide in your lesson presentation.