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A dollar bill reflects a Polish father and son's journey from World War II Europe to the United States.

Michael Kedzior and his father, Ed Kedzior, hold a framed dollar bill with signatures of various GIs given to Ed's father when he immigrated to the United States after being forced from his native Poland during World War II. MICHAEL WYKE / Tulsa World

By SUSAN HYLTON World Staff Writer
Published: 6/21/2009 2:23 AM
Last Modified: 6/21/2009 6:32 AM

CLAREMORE — Ed Kedzior's Father's Day gift wasn't a day late and a dollar short this year.

He's always held tight to the dollar bill that was his ticket to America.

"If that dollar could tell a story it probably would be a story in itself," Kedzior said.

But the dollar has a story that Kedzior, 64, didn't fully appreciate and share with his children until he opened the door to his Polish ancestry.

"I kept my Polish background very quiet," Kedzior said. "I wanted to be more of an American. I just wasn't very comfortable being Polish. It's something I'm not very proud of. It was just not the 'in' thing at the time."

His transformation came after traveling to Poland in 1996 and visiting the ancient city of Krakow.

"I didn't realize how cultured that city is," he said.

It was there that he met someone a lot like himself: a Polish American, who was now a grandfather, and realized that he wanted to fill in the gaps of his family history gaps that were created during the turmoil of World War II.

Kedzior said his father didn't talk much about what it was like during the war.

"I think it was an experience he just wanted to keep to himself," Kedzior said. "You have a lot of questions after they're gone."

Born in a labor camp

Ed Kedzior is a mechanical engineer who has resided with his family in Claremore since 1980.

But he was born in 1945 in a labor camp in Erding, Germany, where his parents worked on adjoining farms after being taken by the Nazis from their Polish villages in 1940 as teenagers.

Boleslaw "Benny" and Kazimeria "Kay" Kedzior worked long hours for which they were never paid. They wore a triangle patch with the letter "P" on it.

"He wasn't mistreated, but his freedoms were taken away," Kedzior said. "He knew not all Germans were bad people. He kind of dwelt on the good and not the bad. That was a strong character point he had."

The GIs they met at a displaced persons camp after the war were charmed by Ed Kedzior, then a toddler. They put their helmets on him and took him on tank rides. One of the soldiers even wanted to adopt him.

But Kedzior's father would not part with his son. He also wasn't going back to Poland because it was controlled by the Russians and he could not stay in a country where the Nazis had robbed him of his home, education and religion.

"My father wasn't going back to any tyranny," Kedzior said.

The GIs had everything to do with his father wanting to come to America. They gave him something that they thought his child, who had no country, might need to get through Ellis Island. It was a dollar bill that more than a dozen of them signed as references.

It worked, and immigration officials spelled their last name right to boot.

'To me it's priceless'

His father once tried to find the soldiers but was unsuccessful. The ink has faded, but the writing looks to say:

Pfc Ralph C. Langefeld — Cincinnati, Ohio

M.S. Tudzin — San Antonio, Texas

Elmer Parker — Minnesota

Jim(?) Eichler — Syracuse, N.Y.

Pfc Albert M. Patton/Peterson?

A. Gelement — Detroit, Mich.

Robert Kundt — Wisconsin

Walter L. Sageth — Nashville, Tenn.

Anthony Rejna

Gilbert R. Butler — Colorado

W.C. Taft

Ofc E. Roth (?) — Detroit

"To me it's priceless," Ed Kedzior said of the bill.

For both Kedzior and son Michael Kedzior, the discovery of their Polish heritage has given new meaning to what being an American and living peacefully in a diverse country is all about.

Benny Kedzior may not have had a high school education, but he did speak three languages when he got to New York. In addition to his native Polish, he picked up German and French at the labor camp.

He was required to get a job within a week to pay back the Catholic Church, which paid for his journey by ship to America.

The elder Kedzior's first job was as a janitor for a Jewish German family. It was through them, and being able to communicate with them, that he learned of a better job at a meat-packing plant in Jamaica, N.Y.

The girl next door

"My father was a great salesman. He knew no one in the U.S.," Ed Kedzior said. "He was a man who wanted to do better and if it meant learning another language or doing something you might not want to do, he did it. I'm a firm believer that there's no free lunch."

Ed Kedzior took a crash course in English as a Polish-speaking kindergarten student in New York City and attended college at the encouragement of his father.

The Kedziors finally settled in Wallingford, Conn., where the father worked in a steel mill. It was there that Ed Kedzior met the girl next door, literally, and married her. Genny Kedzior was also born in Poland. The couple have two other children, daughters Wendy and Tracy.

Ed Kedzior has visited Poland several times now and has met cousins and an uncle. He's also become a bit of a history buff when it comes to Poland and its contributions to America and the world. He's studied the battles on Polish soil that are less known perhaps, but with enormous casualties.

"Each time I go I find out a little more. I made the decision that I'd write my memoirs to pass down to the kids," Ed Kedzior said.

It was a long road from Poland, a labor camp in Bavaria, a displaced persons camp in the American zone of post-war Germany, the docks of Ellis Island, a tenement in Lower Manhattan, Connecticut, and finally, to Claremore.

Michael Kedzior, a University of Tulsa football receiver in the early '90s, said if one small thing in this specific chain of events had been different, it might not have led him to his life in Claremore where he resides with his wife and family.

Susan Hylton 581-8381
susan.hylton@tulsaworld.com

By SUSAN HYLTON World Staff Writer

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Travis, Tahlequah (last year)

Living the American dream through hard work and being driven to succeed. A great lesson for us all.

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rockfan, broken arrow (last year)

Really good story.

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Shumate, (last year)

An excellent, well written article. A nice way to begin my Sunday, Father's Day morning. Thank you Susan.

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Peter Piper, TULSA (last year)

Poland--moreso than Germany-- was literally torn asunder during World War 11. Most of the death camps were there, more Jews killed than in Germany--and also many other "undesirables" --mentally ill, Jehovah Witnesses, homosexuals--the whole gamut--the land was ravaged. Even many Catholics--the main church group--were banished or killed. My Holocaust book has all the facts and pictures!

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Independent Thinker, Tulsa (last year)

##################################

Susan Hylton ... as they say in Lil'
Dixie ... "You dun gud."

In Tulsa, please accept our deepest
congratulations on a distinguished
piece of journalism which deserves
nothing less than a Pulitzer prize!

###################################

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rockfan, broken arrow (last year)

Someone might pick up this story somewhere and recognize one the possible names of soldiers that is listed.

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AngelsCu, Tulsa (last year)

What a great way to remember the people by your side, fighting in a war and for survival. He should write a book about this! Great article!

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52favoriteteacher, Washburn--used to be Broken Arrow (last year)

Susan

You know how to put together sa story!

A+ for you girl--a raise too if I could...

These members of The Greatest Generation truly

have made America.

I have much respect for the melting pot of

heroes that have formed the country we live in

today!

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52favoriteteacher, Washburn--used to be Broken Arrow (last year)

line # 2 sa should be "a super"...

TW

Where is our edit feature?

after all it is June 2009.

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