Like many veterans, Cpl Andrzej Gasior did not talk much about his experiences of war as she was growing up, Mrs Butler, from Solihull, said.
“But when he started to tell me stories about this soldier who was actually a bear I didn’t believe him at first, I thought he was winding me up.
“But it was in a local Polish club that a friend of his brought a picture to show me of Wojtek”.
Her father had been put in a Siberian labour camp aged 16 after being caught crossing the Polish border to trade boots and food.
He became ill and said the war saved his life as the invasion of Poland prompted the Soviet Union to let the Poles go, she said.
Her father joined the Polish Free Army, as he called it, and met Wojtek while in the Middle East.
