PL/EN

Honorary Patron: Jerzy Fedorowicz

Sponsor: Pension Nad Rudawą”

Guardians: Leopoldyna Kowalik, Grażyna Brodecka

A memory rider. An actor whose allotment was love of cavalry tradition, service and loyalty to Poland.

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He was born on April 20, 1942 in Ustyluh Wołyński.

“A tall, slim and bearded Polish rider in a uniform from the last war travels the whole Europe to adorn with corn-poppies the famous places where 1st Polish Armour Division of Gen. Stanisław Maczek fought.

Such a person could seem archaic a bit and appearance of mounted Włodzimierz Brodecki as a cavalry officer on crowded thoroughfares is really surprising.

During that time, about forty people – among them a Polish chaplain, many mayors and combatants – gathered at the military cemetery d’Urville-Langannerie on Thursday at eleven o’clock a.m. to greet so unusual memory rider.

It is necessary to say that the pious peregrination began much earlier and the same officer on the same horse went already five years ago to Italy to Monte Cassino where bloom corn-poppies at places of bloody battles. This year, the ride route started in Cracow on 29 July 1989 and ran through Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium and France to finish in Poland on 1st September and celebrate an anniversary of beginning of the World War II. So, a short ceremony took place on the cemetery on Thursday: the rider paid homage in front of the mausoleum and put a bouquet of corn-poppies on the threshold; he took also some ground from one of graves to bring it to the sanctified place in Poland (Garrison Church in Kielce).

Tomorrow will be Falaise, Chambois… 25,000 km travelled through Europe by the unusual witness of Polish loyalty to heroes killed during the war.”

J.C.

Le cavalier du souven. Ouest France, Falaise-Vire 19/20 August 1989 NR 13624

Click the links below to go to the Polish Digital Equestrian Library (will open in a new tab):

„Wowa Brodecki – Jeździec Pamięci” (2009) – Ryszard Dzieszyński