A HERO of the fight to liberate Poland from Nazi occupation has died in his adopted town of Darlington. David Roberts learns about Marian Rek, a freedom fighter, prisoner of war, a possible spy and a much-loved and respected business and family man.

To those who did not know him, Marian Rek was every inch a regular businessman. He owned a successful company, Rek Engineering. He was a staunch member of the local Conservative party and a keen fives and threes player at The Model T pub at Mowden in Darlington.

Yet his seemingly normal exterior belied a past as a highly-decorated Polish resistance fighter.

His family say that it was only in later life that he began to talk more fully about his experiences in Poland as a young man.

Mr Rek, known to everyone as Mario, was born in Wiesniew, just outside of Warsaw, on August 28, 1926.

When he was just 13, in 1939, Germany invaded Poland and became an occupied territory.

This did not deter Mr Rek from his ambition to become an engineer and he began his studies in Warsaw. In 1943, he began secret military training as part of the Polish underground resistance.

Despite his young age, he was eventually to rise to the rank of lieutenant in the resistance movement as he completed a number of operations against Germans in and round Warsaw.

In August 1944, he was to take part in the Warsaw Uprising which was an attempt to liberate the city from German occupation.

During the two month battle, around 16,000 members of the Polish resistance were killed and 25 per cent of the city was destroyed. Mr Rek and his comrades took part in fierce fighting from street corner to street corner, roof to roof, and in many cases room to room.

Towards the end of the battle, Mr Rek was captured and taken by cattle truck to Austria where he was imprisoned in a concentration camp called Stalag XB Santbostel, before being moved to another camp called Stalag 18C Markpongau.

He was liberated by the Americans in April 1945 and, after a few weeks recuperating, joined the 8th Polish Army in Italy as a military policeman.

At the end of the war he returned to England where he worked as an engineer at various locations around the country.

For his war service, Mr Rek received the Cross of Warsaw, the Cross of the Land Army, Medal of the Defendant of Poland and the British Medal of 1939 to 1945, as well as personal citations from the former Polish president Lech Walesa.

In 1956, he returned to his homeland, which was now a Communist satellite state of the USSR, to work in the shipyards at Gdansk.

It would appear this his work with the British government was not over and he was arrested by the Polish Secret Service.

He spent four months in jail in Gdansk before eventually being released on October 11, 1958, and told not to return to Poland for 12 years. To this day, Mr Rek's family are uncertain who was responsible for securing his release, but believe that pressure from the British government may have helped him win his freedom.

Upon his release he came back to Britain and moved to the North-East to work in Hadley's engineering works at Middleton St George, near Darlington, where he met his wife, Sheila.

They were married in March 1964, and had three children Simon, Nicola and Justin.

He was a keen member of the Conservative party, and in 1987 he contested the Cockerton west ward for Darlington council, but was unable to unseat the Labour stronghold.

He was a good friend of the town's then MP, Michael Fallon, who expressed his sorrow at Mr Rek's death. Mr Fallon, who is now MP for Sevenoaks and deputy chairman for the Conservative Party, said: "He was a good friend and strong supporter. I know how much the liberation of Poland from communism meant to him."

Mr Rek's eldest son, Simon, said that his father retained a very strong love for his homeland and the family regularly used to take trips back to Poland for holidays.

Next year, Mr Rek was due to travel back to Warsaw to take part in the anniversary celebrations of the uprising and meet the Polish president. Now, Simon intends to go in his place.

Simon said: "He never really used to talk about his experiences until later on.

"He took part in some very heavy fighting, literally room to room at times, and lost a lot of good friends.

"He was still getting medals for it right up until 2000."

Mr Rek said his father was a devoted family man. In 1969, he was forced to renounce his Polish citizenship to prevent his son being called up for National Service. However, he was delighted when, years later, after the collapse of Communism, Simon was able to apply for Polish nationality himself.

Simon added: "He was very strong headed and he had an aura and a real presence of authority, but he was very kind and loving and a very clever man.

"He was immensely proud of being British, but he always said he was even more proud of being from Warsaw and Poland."

Mr Rek, who died suddenly on October 28, is survived by his three children and two grandchildren, Lauren and Daniel.

His funeral takes place at 1.30pm the chapel at West Cemetery in Darlington on Wednesday and will be followed by a celebration of his life afterwards at the Model T pub.