Son seeks recognition for father's years of slave labor

0 Comments | Insight on the News, April 1, 2002 | by John Elvin

Michael Kolanik Jr. has been fighting for years to gain recognition for his father, Michael Sr., as a World War II prisoner of war (POW). The senior Kolanik was born in Rankin, Pa., in 1913 and died in Yonkers, N.Y., in 1992. In the 1930s, holding a U.S. passport, he traveled to Poland to help his widowed mother with her farm. When Germany invaded Poland, the senior Kolanik was captured and held prisoner in Nazi camps for 66 months -- listed by the Nazis as "a stateless Pole born in Pittsburgh."

The masons why the senior Kolanik has not been recognized officially as a civilian POW are complex and bureaucratic. They have no reflection on the man himself, but rather are a matter of rules and regulations. At the time he was taken prisoner, for instance, the United States and Germany were not at war. The senior Kolanik served briefly in the Merchant Marine after the war and would be eligible for burial honors (a flag and marker), except that he died four years before a law extended that recognition to the Merchant Marine. Peculiar glitches such as these have maddeningly frustrated the son's quest.

Kolanik is not alone in the belief that his father -- perhaps the longest-held American civilian in Nazi captivity -- deserves official recognition as a civilian POW. Quite a cadre of supporters in veteran's groups, on Capitol Hill and in other public offices have provided letters urging official action. Unfortunately, such action can come in only one of two ways -- an executive order from the president or a bill in Congress. Several efforts have been made to launch a bill through Congress. As for the executive order, Kolanik Jr. has been told that this is a rare and tedious process and that the result he seeks is unlikely.

A Vietnam veteran, Kolanik Jr. is particularly unhappy about the results of his efforts to obtain an executive order during the Clinton administration, when controversial or questionable orders and other special favors seemed to fly out of the White House routinely. Perhaps, he tells INSIGHT, he should have included in his letters "a check for the Clinton library or a contribution to a U.S. Senate campaign in New York." Kolanik points out that various civilians have received military-type recognition for service or sacrifices in war-time, so his request is not beyond the realm of the reasonable. But Kolanik's latest letter, explaining the situation to President George W. Bush, was routed to the Department of Veterans' Affairs, which already has said it can't help.

Michael Jr. hasn't given up, but he does sound kind of worn down by the long struggle. "Sadly," he wrote in his last note to us, "nothing is resolved."

JOHN ELVIN IS THE NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT FOR Insight.