​​​​Marian Ratajczyk was born in a small village near Kutno named Stanisławice on 6 June 1917. He was a Corporal in the 1st Polish Motorised Artillery Regiment.

​​He served in the Polish army in exile, stationed in the United Kingdom. He participated in the 1944 advance of Polish forces that helped liberate Normandy and the Low Countries alongside other Allied troops.

​​Corporal Ratajczyk was part of the convoy that was heading towards the German naval base in Wilhelmshaven. They crossed the border from the Netherlands to Germany in the town of Emmen and went north via the Emsland.

​​The Emslandlager were a network of prisoner-of-war camps. Most of these camps, including the one at Oberlangen, were liberated by the Polish army. Oberlangen also held Polish women who had participated in the Warsaw Uprising as members of the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa).

​​Marian Ratajczyk died on 21 April 1945 near the Dutch border in Papenburg, Emsland, Germany, following the premature explosion of a shell in a cannon.

​​He was initially buried at the cemetery in Wolfsbergen, Emmen, and later reinterred at the Polish Field of Honour in 1962. His grave is located at Plot E, Row 5, Grave 10. 

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