John (Jan) Antoni Zdulski of Iowa City, Iowa died unexpectedly Oct. 4, 2020 from complications of long-term heart disease.
Jan (John) came into this world May 7, 1934 in Warsaw, Poland to a loving family. All too soon, his world dissolved into the horrors of World War II with the German invasion of Poland. During the Nazi occupation, by late 1941, his brother went missing and was presumed dead, his mother was ill and subsequently died in Nov 1942.
When the Warsaw Uprising began on Aug. 1, 1944, he was caught in crossfire and survived wounds at age 10. One month later, he and his sister Henryka witnessed their father being shot by Ukrainian Nazi SS and his body pushed into a burning building.
Both he and Henryka were taken to a Reichsbahn forced labor camp in Ruhr Valley Hilden/Ohligs, Germany in rail cars.
They were liberated April 17, 1945, by American troops from Patton’s Third Army. From there, they lived in the Displaced Person or refugee camp in Solingen, Germany eventually discovering that their other two siblings had survived.
He was relocated as an orphan to the US where he lived in New York City until age 17 when he was sponsored by John Rohner of West Liberty to do manual labor and for training as a machinist from Rohner Machine Works.
In 1954, a co-worker’s sister caught his eye and after much persistence, this Atalissa girl, Lulu Rose Blick, became his wife for the next 65 years. John and Lu raised a family of four girls in West Liberty.
John was a US Army Reservist for eight years. He ran his own heating and air conditioning business until retirement.
He was preceded in death by his son, Stefan, parents Antoni and Aniela Zdulski, sibling and their spouses, Stefan Kazia) Zdulski, Henryak (Bronislaw) Albonski, Jadwiga (Stanislaw) Kdzierska and two son-in-laws, Daryl McNeal and Mike Barker.
Survivors include his wife, Lulu Rose, children Teresa McNeal, Laura (Randy) McCray, Annette (Chris) Whitehead, Joyce Barker;as well as grandchildren Peter Whitehead (Amanda Phan), Gareth Whitehead, Alysa McCray, plus family friends as well as nieces and nephews.
John was buried at Mount Calvary Cemetery, West Liberty, on Oct. 15.