Turning out in tribute to war veteran (From The Oxford Times)
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Turning out in tribute to war veteran
9:30am Tuesday 24th April 2012 in Oxford
The procession
MORE than 300 people attended the funeral of Summertown Second World War veteran Kazimierz Michalski in his hometown in Poland.
A procession including an orchestra, military representatives and local schoolchildren, followed the 104-year-old’s coffin through the streets of Sieniawa in South Eastern Poland on Saturday in solemn tribute.
The students were from a secondary school in nearby Jaroslaw, where Mr Michalski had donated funds for a library.
Mr Michalski, who had lived in Oxford since 1953, died while on a visit back to Poland on Thursday, April 12.
Mr Michalski was sent to a Siberian Gulag in 1941, only to later escape and trek thousands of miles from the Arctic Circle to Uzbekistan.
He joined the Polish Army and went on to fight alongside British troops in Italy.
