War

1 September 1939 was marked by the outbreak of the Second World War. Responding to the mobilisation call, Mycielski reported to the 2nd Podhale Riflemen Regiment stationed in Sanok, which was part of the 3rd Mountain Brigade of the Border Protection Corps of the “Carpathian” Army.

The Brigade was ordered to take part in the fighting near Krosno, Dukla and Sanok. When on 8 September 1939 the Sloviakian troops entered Rymanów and German troops entered Krosno, the Brigade began to withdraw towards Stryj and Sambor. However, when the news came that the Soviet troops had entered Poland from the east, it stopped any further action. Some units crossed the Hungarian border, where they laid down their arms. This is how Mycielski recalled that period in September 1979:

40 years ago – (18 September?) – I was crossing the Uzhok Pass in the Carpathians with the entire company – we gave our weapons to the Hungarians – some Hungarian general stood ‘to attention’ and cried, some non-commissioned Polish officer shot himself a few steps away from us, near the forest. A Polish scene, and Polish scenery” (9 September 1979, in Z. Mycielski, "Notatki od 29 VIII 79 – 12 II 80", unpublished manuscript, Zygmunt Mycielski Archive).

Mycielski himself managed to get to Budapest, where he went straight to his cousin, Janoš Eszterházy. Eszterházy helped him to get, via Yugoslavia and northern Italy, to France, where Mycielski wanted to joins Polish units being formed in the French army.

He crossed the French border in November 1939.

Zygmunt Mycielski at the frontline in France, June 1940

He immediately met other Poles travelling, like him, to join the Polish troops. Reminiscing about that period many years later, he wrote:

And I was going west to join this army, but I was unable either to spur anyone to battle or to preach about the indomitable past of the Polish Legions. [...] I thought, however, that the French front, the resistance on the Maginot Line, would last longer than ours, on the borders from East Prussia to Slovakia (Z. Mycielski, “O Ksawerze Pruszyńskim w 25 rocznicę zgonu. 1975”, in idem, "Postludia", Kraków 1977).

The composer spent the following months in Coëtquidan, where he completed an officer cadet course. In mid-April 1940 he was sent with the 1st Grenadier Division, in which he served, to Lorraine, to the frontline zone in the Nancy area. Towards the end of May the Polish troops moved to the frontline. Mycielski found himself near the town of Dieuze. There, during fierce fighting with Hitler’s troops, he was taken prisoner by the Germans on 17 June 1940, miraculously avoiding being shot. He spent the rest of the war in Stalag X, intended for French POWs, in Schleswig-Holstein district, northern Germany.

The Stalag was a military labour camp, although Mycielski, having completed the officer cadet training in Coëtquidan, had a right to be put in an Oflag, a prisoner-of-war camp for officers.

Zygmunt Mycielski (third from the left) in a stalag, Christmas Eve 1941. From his letters to Maria Mycielska, Jagiellonian Library

So how come that he found himself placed in much harder conditions? Mycielski claimed that he did not admit to being an officer cadet and that was why he was sent to a Stalag with privates. However, information found in letters to his mother from 1941 suggests that the Germans apparently refused to recognise his rights, because he had lost his documents on the frontline and could not confirm his officer status. Consequently, he remained in Stalag Xa until the arrival of the Allies. The years spent in captivity were an extremely difficult time for him. Although he was not tortured (and he was surprised about this years later), he worked hard physically. Moved from place to place, he worked as a forced labourer on farms. Prisoners-of-war were used there as free labour. They were poorly fed, often treated worse than animals, but well enough to be able to work in the fields and to tend to cattle. From time to time they would go back to the camp barracks. There, in the spring of 1943, Mycielski managed to get some music manuscript paper and compose a small piece with a significant title Fiat voluntas tua (Thy will be done). He wrote to his mother at the time: “I’m fine, among 100 Frenchmen and 30 Belgians.” Mycielski wrote the piece with Easter 1943 in mind; it was performed during few religious services by a small ensemble of POWs.

The last stage of Mycielski’s captivity was a penal camp in Quickborn Himmelmoor, where he was transferred in late December 1944.

Excerpt from Mycielski's stalag notebook listing places of forced labor. Zygmunt Mycielski Archive, National Library

He worked there on a peat bog. As he recalled:

It was hard, I was hungry, but I was not tortured (20 January 1986, in Z. Mycielski, "Niby-dziennik ostatni", Warsaw 2012).

Fortunately, the war was coming to an end. On 3 May 1945 the Allied troops liberated the Stalag. Mycielski barely survived till the liberation, as he was very weak in that period. Finally, thanks to the help of some British soldiers, he was able to get from Himmelmoor, passing the bombed Hamburg, to Paris, to slowly begin his post-war life there. He spent the following few months in France and on 5 November 1945 returned to Poland.