My family history

Polish noble Rogala coat of arms.

1st Armoured Division’s symbol (Poland, General Maczek).

In 1873 the pole Filemon Lewicki was born. He was my grandfather’s Michal Lewicki´s father and he had a forefather who became a polish nobleman and got the Rogala coat of arms in the year 1109. Filemon was an engineer-architect. There seem to be information in Ukrainian about Filemon Lewicki on Wikipedia (Category:Filemon Levytskyi – Wikimedia Commons and Левицький Філемон — Вікіпедія (wikipedia.org)). Filemon Lewicki met with Jan Matejko who painted this great Christian painting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saints_Cyril_and_Methodius#/media/File:Cyril_and_Methodius.jpg. Władysław Zając was my mothers grandfather and he was first an austrian officer in Austria-Hungary and my grandmother Maria Lewicka was born in 1916. He had a very militaristic officer style and great respect to the emperor of Austria Franz Joseph I and even saluted to his portrait. In Poland that became free again in 1918 he worked in the polish states train system. During World War II Władysław Zając did anti-nazi sabotage in Cracow. In 1915 my grandfather Michal Lewicki was born in Lwów. He was a catholic polish patriot who was against communism and evil people for a better world. Evil people like the nazis in Cracow during WW2, it was very risky times for him, but also people that were for example in the worlds political elite but despite this behaved immorally (for example the serbian political elites during the Serbian war in the 1990’s) but also muslims and also even the polish big leader Lech Wałesa who in television behaved like a primitive person and was anti-semitic when my grandfather watched him. His very personal struggle against communism was very bold and risky (against the communist party in Poland and communism in general). He got educated at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow as a lawyer in the 1930s. He hoped to have his own lawyer business in Poland but then World War II started. The nazis fought in the city of Lwów and the building where my grandfather’s father Filemon Lewicki lived was destroyed by a bomb. This was a polish economical elite apartment and Filemon Lewicki had the first car in Lviv and was maybe the richest man in the city. A great loss (the building). My grandfather Michal Lewicki wrote a book about his life after World War II that I hope will be published in Poland with a polish book publisher. All support is appreciated. Russia is an evil dictature which is something bad. It is probably smart to use the US VPN service “IPVanish” before visiting Russian websites. Norton Internet security company also has a VPN service and their VPN may be good. Russia has invaded Ukraine (2022-02-24) where the polish city Lwów is (where Filemon Lewicki and Michal Lewicki lived).
Jozef Nowik, my other grandfather, lived near Baranowicze/Dziadkowicze in eastern Poland. They had land and a house and also Arabic horses which were good horses. In 1940 there was an deportation to the communist Gulag of the Nowik family from near Baranowicze/Dziadkowicze. This area is called “Kresy” by polish people. An older Nowik relative, my grandfather Jozef Nowik’s father, was kicked out from the train somewhere in Russia. He got upset when there was a communist guard. In Siberia, there they worked by cutting down trees. It could be even -40 celsius there. They, the prisoners, slept tightly on their side, 4 persons in a bed. When one wanted to change side to lay on, all of them had to change side. One night one prisoner opened a window to get air. The next day some people carried out a dead or some dead people from the barrack because it got so cold. Nowik and probably some other prisoners felt they had to trick the communist guards to even survive there. Jozef talked with a guard and explained he was a hunter. He got a rifle from the guard and hunted around the area of the Gulag camp. Jozef Nowik went on the sea, probably the Caspian sea, by boat, to join the new army of polish general Anders (a famous World War II general). In Iran they were for a time where they got help from the British and the army started to be formed probably. Then they went to Israel where the polish soldiers built a station of the cross (Catholic faith thing). Later there was something going on around El Alamein. There was actually a battle between the British and the Nazis (or even 2 battles). Jozef Nowik went to South Africa with a boat. There probably was an African man with an old African style, which meant he had a bone through his nose and some old African style clothing. Later Jozef Nowik, my grandfather (father’s father), fought in Falaise. During the second world war one polish soldier said something like: “Forward!” and then there was an explosion because of a nazi weapon that was fired and he was completely cut in half under the abdomen and died (went into pieces). This was because there was a hit and explosion from a strong nazi weapon. Jozef Nowik got hit by a bullet or shrapnel from the side so that his nose was injured. It was not so deep wound though. When World War II ended the polish soldiers were not allowed to partake in the first victory parade in the UK. Polish general Anders was sad about this fact (if I remember my WW2 studies correctly). Jozef Nowik had great respect for general Anders. Now they are allowed (the first was during the Corona pandemic). Jozef Nowik had a soldier work role in West Germany after the war to even the year 1947. Later my father Wladyslaw Nowik was born and they moved to the village Szczodre in the areas of Poland but the communist system had these areas and they were part of an area called Polish People’s Republic. Later my father worked in a polish organization in Stockholm, Sweden. He had an important position there. Here is more information about his anti-communist struggle (in polish): http://www.sztokholm.org and here is his website that has been updated and kept online by me: www.szczodre.pl.
I, Michael Nowik, was born in Stockholm in 1991.

By: Michael Filip Nowik (a polish catholic nobleman with the Rogala coat of arms)
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The image of the Rogala coat of arms was made by Tadeusz Gajl and WarX according to Wikipedia Sharing license: CC BY-SA 2.5

More information about the communist mass deportations: Soviet Mass Deportations (1940-41) – Kresy Siberia (kresy-siberia.org)