Why I wrote this webpage.
I wrote this webpage to honor the memory of my maternal grandfather, Jozef Piwek, Jr. It was not until I was 45 years old that I came to know that he fought in the Great War in 1918 with General Jozef Haller.
Oddly enough, it was through the Internet that I first learned of this fact. Thanks to the innovation and hard work of the POLISH GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA, of which I am now a member, I searched my grandfather's name as a lark on their search engine. The search resulted in two hits, Jozef and Ignacy Piwek, both of Wilkes Barre, PA, which was the correct hometown.
The PGSA supplied me with copies of enlistment documents for both men and the information contained therein, provided me with a wealth of genealogic information, including the names of my great grandparents and their hometown in Poland. As best as I can account for, Jozef and Ignacy were probably cousins.
Intrigued by these revelations and fired up by the fact that I have always been a military history buff, I was appalled to learn that there was a total lack of information on the Internet about Haller's Army, it's campaigns, it's contributions and it's leader, Jozef Haller. Sparse bits of info were present on the PGSA sight. A search of conventional library sources provided little more. I was assured by several scholarly individuals that I would find very little about the subject written in English and this turned out to be quite true. I have, thanks to the efforts of my dear friends, Jacek Janeczewski and Robert Frendler, been able to find and have translated several texts in Polish which were written close to the actual time period. They have proved very useful in my research. I plan to share whatever I can on the Internet with those who wish to know more about these unsung heroes of Polish origin.
