Auschwitz christian bids farewell to old friend from Dachau

Amid the crosses on the graves of Polish Army veterans and concentration camp survivors, Michael Preisler (above) delivers his eulogy to the memory of his old friend and fellow concentration camp survivor, Francis Proch.  The internment of Proch's ashes took
place on May 20th in the veterans' cemetery at the American Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.
 
Originally a New Yorker after he emigrated to the U.S. in 1949, Proch lived in Colorado since 1982 and died there on January 1st of this year.  The internment was postponed until now so all his friends on the east coast would get the opportunity to participate in the solemn ceremonies at the shrine. 
 
Proch survived five years in Dachau while Preisler spent more than three years in Auschwitz.  They first met after the Allies liberated Hitler's concentration camps in 1945.
 
Disturbed by the lack of accurate information about Poland's suffering in World War II, Proch published a detailed account of that experience in 1978 which he titled, "Poland's Way of the Cross."  Even to this day, the book contains extensive facts about the German and Soviet occupation of Poland which are rarely provided by contemporary Holocaust literature.
 
Proch was one of the founders and first president of the Polish Association of Political Prisoners of German and Soviet Concentration Camps.  Prominent in New York's Polish émigré community, Proch was also president of the Downstate New York Division of the Polish American Congress until Preisler succeeded him in that position in 1980.
 
"He was a man of the highest principles and ideals.  A true patriot with the deepest concern for the welfare of all of us survivors and veterans who found ourselves stranded at war's end without a homeland to return to because Poland had been taken over by the Communists," said Preisler.
 
Contact:  Frank Milewski (718) 263-2700