My grandmother's uncle, Anton Orpikowski and his son Henry disapeared in Poland in 1939. Suggestions?

Question

Anton Orpikowski was born in 1885 in Lipno, Poland. He immigrated to the U.S. in the early 1900s and married my grandmother's aunt. They had four kids including a son named Henry. Henry was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1915.

In 1939, a few months before Hitler started World War II, Anton decided to take his son Henry back to Poland. It is still unclear exactly why he did this, but we suspect it was to show him his roots, the town Anton had come from, etc.

The war broke out shortly after they got there and neither of them was seen or heard from again. I have been to Auschwitz, which is near Lipno, but was unable to find anything in their records there. The Orpikowskis were Catholic, so I'm not sure the n***s would target them specifically anyway.

Does anyone know anything about either of these people or where good places would be to research them?

Thanks!

Answer 1

There's no centralized database of Holocaust victims and survivors, but you could start with the list of organizations given at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum:

http://www.ushmm.org/research/library/fa...

There was Stephan Orpikowski who was born 7 July 1917 in Lipno, and he resided there when he was taken to Dachau.  The records show he arrived on 3 Sept 1940, and he was released.  May be a coincidence, but could be a starting place.  Here's the record:

http://stevemorse.org/dachau/details.php...

Answer 2

When the war ended, all documents about missing people were collected by the International Red Cross - I found out about my grandfather from them.

Try to contact them, if they have any records they will inform you. Give as much details as you can.

I entered Orpikowski in a popular Polish website (like classmates) and found 1 person with this name living now in Bydgoszcz - maybe it is a member of the family? Lipno and Bydgoszcz are not far from each other. Just let me add that Orpikowski is not a very popular surname in Poland so there won't be too many people using it.

Good l**k!

PS.1 The n***s did not pay attention if you are Jew or Catholic.

PS. 2 Lipno is NOT near Auschwitz!