Vale Bernard Zdzisław Skarbek OAM, Polish WWII Veteran

Bernard Zdzisław Skarbek spoke six languages and was highly educated in maths, telephony and radio.

Today, we remember Colonel Bernard Zdzisław Skarbek, OAM, who passed away on 24 April 2022, aged 100. Bernard served with the Polish Armed Forces during the Second World War and was due to take part in this year’s ANZAC Day Veterans’ March at the Australian War Memorial.

Bernard was born on 1 July 1921 in Zakroczym, Poland. His father, Kazimierz, was of aristocratic ancestry, and had served as a soldier during the First World War and in the war against the Communists in Belruse.  

Bernard was 18 years old, and about to start a cadetship at the Air Force Academy in Dęblin, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland from the West on 1 September 1939.

On 17 September, the Soviet Union invaded the Polish Eastern territories, and arrested his father, Kazimierz, who was taken to the USSR. Kazimierz was murdered in Kalinin (now Tver) in April 1940, and buried in one of the mass graves in Miednoje as part of the Katyń massacre.

In the months before Bernard was arrested, he helped save the lives of retreating soldiers, women and children, by leading them to freedom and safety across frozen rivers under the cover of darkness.

He was arrested in February 1940, along with his mother, his sister and his brother, and deported to Siberia. He was sentenced without trial to ten years hard labour in a Gulag camp in the Akmolinskaya region.

To read the rest of Bernard’s incredible story, including how he came to join the Polish Armed Forces under British command and how he risked his life to retrieve injured and dying soldiers from behind enemy lines on his motorcycle, visit the original article on the Australian War Memorial website.

Bernard was a remarkable veteran with an incredible story, and we send our deepest condolences to his family during this difficult time.