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September 24, 2009
Services
Funeral services will be held 9:30 AM on Monday, September 28, 2009 at the Vander May Wayne Colonial Funeral Home, 567 Ratzer Road, Wayne.
Friends may visit with the family on Sunday, September 27, 2009 from 2-5 PM at the funeral home.
Entombment will be in Holy Cross Cemetery, North Arlington.
Antoni H. Swierkowski age 80 of Wayne died peacefully on Thursday, September 24, 2009 with the comfort of family by his side.
Antoni was born in Wilno, Poland, one of eleven children, and was snatched from the streets by the invading German Army at age eleven. He was placed onto a train car where all where machine gunned to death. He managed to survive by hiding under a dead body. He was found alive and transferred to the concentration camp at Dachau, Germany where he spent the next three years before being liberated by American forces. Antoni was a mere skeleton and nursed back to health by the Americans. He was given a United States military uniform and assigned as a security guard to watch the Germans who were now incarcerated. On several occasions he tried, through the Red Cross, to contact his family in Wilno but was repeatedly told there were no survivors. He spent the next twelve years in Germany.
In 1957 Antoni came to the United States and settled in the Newark, NJ area. He managed a Newark soccer team. During one match where Poland was playing a game in New York, Antoni, always the gentleman, saw a young girl standing in the rain and offered her shelter under his umbrella. He fell in love with that girl, Barbara Kacprzak, and they married on February 13, 1970. They honeymooned in Poland and Barbara, unbeknownst to Antoni, arranged to visit Antoni’s hometown of Wilno. Once there they began asking about “the family Swierkowski” and after several attempts they found a woman who said she knew of one survivor, Antoni’s cousin. He found his cousin and simply began asking questions about what happened to her family during the war. She was then asked what happened to the Swierkowski family and she had mentioned that Antoni Swierkowski was killed in Germany. Antoni then told her that it was him whom she had been talking to this whole time. He then asked his cousin who else had survived from his family. She said that one sister is living in Wilno and his mother is living in Gdansk, Poland with one of his other sisters. When they went to Gdansk he met his sister and mother. His mother had asked him to remove his shaded glasses and then realized that it really was her son. His mother told him she never prayed about his death and believed in her heart that he was still alive.
Antoni was a machinist for the Marvel Manufacturing Corporation, Fairfield, NJ. for twenty-one years before retiring in 1999.
He is best described as a quiet man who had a short, one-liner sense of humor. Antoni was the king of one-liners.
Antoni is the beloved husband of thirty-nine years to Barbara (Kacprzak) Swierkowski; devoted father of Adam Swierkowski of Hamburg and Marc Swierkowski and his wife Bree of Wareham, MA; cherished grandfather of Alex and Ella Swierkowski.
In lieu of flowers memorial donations to the Hackensack University Medical Center - HUMC Foundation, 360 Essex St., Suite 301, Hackensack, NJ 07601 would be appreciated.
If you would like to send a private condolence directly to the family use this condolence section.
Funeral services will be held 9:30 AM on Monday, September 28, 2009 at the Vander May Wayne Colonial Funeral Home, 567 Ratzer Road, Wayne.
Friends may visit with the family on Sunday, September 27, 2009 from 2-5 PM at the funeral home.
Entombment will be in Holy Cross Cemetery, North Arlington.
September 24, 2009
Services
Funeral services will be held 9:30 AM on Monday, September 28, 2009 at the Vander May Wayne Colonial Funeral Home, 567 Ratzer Road, Wayne.
Friends may visit with the family on Sunday, September 27, 2009 from 2-5 PM at the funeral home.
Entombment will be in Holy Cross Cemetery, North Arlington.
Antoni H. Swierkowski age 80 of Wayne died peacefully on Thursday, September 24, 2009 with the comfort of family by his side.
Antoni was born in Wilno, Poland, one of eleven children, and was snatched from the streets by the invading German Army at age eleven. He was placed onto a train car where all where machine gunned to death. He managed to survive by hiding under a dead body. He was found alive and transferred to the concentration camp at Dachau, Germany where he spent the next three years before being liberated by American forces. Antoni was a mere skeleton and nursed back to health by the Americans. He was given a United States military uniform and assigned as a security guard to watch the Germans who were now incarcerated. On several occasions he tried, through the Red Cross, to contact his family in Wilno but was repeatedly told there were no survivors. He spent the next twelve years in Germany.
In 1957 Antoni came to the United States and settled in the Newark, NJ area. He managed a Newark soccer team. During one match where Poland was playing a game in New York, Antoni, always the gentleman, saw a young girl standing in the rain and offered her shelter under his umbrella. He fell in love with that girl, Barbara Kacprzak, and they married on February 13, 1970. They honeymooned in Poland and Barbara, unbeknownst to Antoni, arranged to visit Antoni’s hometown of Wilno. Once there they began asking about “the family Swierkowski” and after several attempts they found a woman who said she knew of one survivor, Antoni’s cousin. He found his cousin and simply began asking questions about what happened to her family during the war. She was then asked what happened to the Swierkowski family and she had mentioned that Antoni Swierkowski was killed in Germany. Antoni then told her that it was him whom she had been talking to this whole time. He then asked his cousin who else had survived from his family. She said that one sister is living in Wilno and his mother is living in Gdansk, Poland with one of his other sisters. When they went to Gdansk he met his sister and mother. His mother had asked him to remove his shaded glasses and then realized that it really was her son. His mother told him she never prayed about his death and believed in her heart that he was still alive.
Antoni was a machinist for the Marvel Manufacturing Corporation, Fairfield, NJ. for twenty-one years before retiring in 1999.
He is best described as a quiet man who had a short, one-liner sense of humor. Antoni was the king of one-liners.
Antoni is the beloved husband of thirty-nine years to Barbara (Kacprzak) Swierkowski; devoted father of Adam Swierkowski of Hamburg and Marc Swierkowski and his wife Bree of Wareham, MA; cherished grandfather of Alex and Ella Swierkowski.
In lieu of flowers memorial donations to the Hackensack University Medical Center - HUMC Foundation, 360 Essex St., Suite 301, Hackensack, NJ 07601 would be appreciated.
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