Józef Kachel (6 September 1913 – 1983) was a Polish
Boy Scouts
Boy Scouts may refer to:
* Boy Scout, a participant in the Boy Scout Movement.
* Scouting, also known as the Boy Scout Movement.
* An organisation in the Scouting Movement, although many of these organizations also have female members. There are t ...
Scoutmaster in
Germany, a member of the
Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR), and a
Member of the
Polish Parliament
Biography
Born in
Beuthen
Bytom (Polish pronunciation: ; Silesian: ''Bytōm, Bytōń'', german: Beuthen O.S.) is a city in Upper Silesia, in southern Poland. Located in the Silesian Voivodeship of Poland, the city is 7 km northwest of Katowice, the regional capit ...
in
Upper Silesia, Kachel came from a mining family, and was raised in the Polish tradition. He was a member of the
Union of Poles in Germany. In 1924 he joined the
Polish Scouting Association (Związek Harcerstwa Polskiego or ZHP) in Germany. From March 1935 to September 1939 Kachel was the head of the
Polish Scouting Association in Germany, and organized training courses for Scout instructors at
Warmia and
Powiśle. After the
Invasion of Poland of 1939 the ZHP were branded criminals by
Nazi Germany, who had
executed many Scouts and Guides, along with other possible resistance leaders, but the ZHP carried on as a clandestine organization. In 1940, the
Soviet Union executed most of the Boy Scouts held at
Ostashkov prison. Kachel was imprisoned in
Buchenwald concentration camp
Buchenwald (; literally 'beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or su ...
.
[Parlamentarzyści RP - Pełny opis rekordu - Józef Kachel]
/ref>
After the war he obtained an engineering degree in mining at the University of Mining and Metallurgy in Krakow and worked in Bytom. From 1957 to 1961 he was a Member of the Polish Parliament. He took part in the Society for the Development of the Western Lands and the main Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland.[
Kachel's book ''Letters from Buchenwald'' was published in 1988 by the Silesian Institute in ]Opole
Opole (; german: Oppeln ; szl, Ôpole) ;
* Silesian:
** Silesian PLS alphabet: ''Ôpole''
** Steuer's Silesian alphabet: ''Uopole''
* Silesian German: ''Uppeln''
* Czech: ''Opolí''
* Latin: ''Oppelia'', ''Oppolia'', ''Opulia'' is a city loc ...
.
References
Sources
*Tadeusz Oracki,''Biographical Dictionary of Warmia, Mazury and Powiśle century (until 1945), ''PAX Publishing Institute, Warsaw, 1983
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kachel, Jozef
1913 births
1983 deaths
People from Bytom
People from the Province of Silesia
Polish United Workers' Party members
Members of the Polish Sejm 1957–1961
Polish Scouts and Guides
Polish mining engineers
Buchenwald concentration camp survivors