Bronisław Pekosiński case. Story of a victim.

Repulsive, he was. As kids, we would point fingers at him, laughing, wondering why he walks like a spider. Funny it seemed. But was no fun at all when I learned why he looked so awkward.
I still remember the day when my mum took my tiny hands and explained that the man we had been making fun of, had not deserved to be treated that way...

It was during WWII when he was born, Germans took his family to a transitory camp in Zwierzyniec. His mum threw him over the barbed wire fence in a desperate hope for his salvation by those who were not imprisoned and might have encountered her baby son. He fell on the heap of potatos and endured a serious damage in his hip. That is why for the rest of his life he would walk with difficulty throwing his legs forward like a spider. Fun no more...

His name was Bronisław Pekosiński. This was not his real name. No one knows the real one. He was never reunited with his family. No one knows either whether they had survived anyway. He was named Bronisław as WWII started on 1 September and it is always Bronisław name day this very day. Pekosiński came from an acronym PKOS (Polski Komitet Opieki Społecznej) Eng. Polish Social Help Comittee as this was the organisation that took care for him.

Discover his traumatic story in the award winning film: "Przypadek Pekosińskiego" (1993).
Truly recommended!

Source: Youtube

Bronisław Pekosiński died on 2 January 2013. He is buried in Zamość where he lived all through his life and should never been forgotten. Further reading on the fate of Polish kids during the Pacification of the Zamość Region (Aktion Zamość) is recommended here. A new post describing the infamous camp in Zwierzyniec will be published soon.

Read more:

• Agnieszka Jaczyńska: "Sonderlaboratorium SS : Zamojszczyzna "Pierwszy obszar osiedleńczy w Generalnym Gubernatorstwie" (The SS Sonderlaboratorium: the Zamość Region : "The first settlement area in the Generalgouvernement", IPN 2012

• http://www.zamosconline.pl/text.php?id=8472&rodz=wiad  accessed on 25 April 2018

Aktion Zamość

Images source: Internet

The siege of Warsaw, 1939

Germans besieged the capital of Poland between 8 and 28 September 1939 in their attempt to take over the whole of the country with Blitzkrieg starting on 1 September 1939.

10,000 inhabitants of Warsaw were killed due to bombardments and further 50,000 wounded.
Warsaw was being defended by 124,000 Polish soldiers. Germans used 175,000 soldiers to encirle the city loosing 1,500 of them and having 5,000 wounded. Poles lost 2,000 soldiers with 15,000 wounded.

On 17 September Hitler order the Royal Castle of Warsaw to be bombarded. The date marks the beging of the apocalypse for Poles as on the very same day Soviets invaded Poland all along the eastern border. Having armed forced counting 1,000,000 soldiers, Poland had to fight on two fronts against 1,800,000 Germans and 600,000 Soviets.

The Royal Castle of Warsaw, 17 September 1939

Picture source: Internet

On 25 September, Germans conducted the largest air raid with 560 tons of high explosive bombs and 72 tons of incendiary bombs being dropped. It is estimated that 1,150 sorties were flown by German aircrafts.
Luftwaffe killed 10,000 people and destroyed 10% of the city's architectural substance. The Warsaw power plant and waterworks got heavily damaged, not to mention the pearls of Polish architecture: palaces, churches and many more.

Quite interestingly Hitler did not allow to destroy the old town of Warsaw. Some historians say that he envisaged that in the future Germans would prove that Warsaw had had teutonic roots as the complex of the Old Town was erected according to Magdeburg rights with a huge square in the centre and streets surounding it.

The capitulation was signed on 28 September 1939. Dark years for Warsaw commenced with the final act of the Warsaw Rising being played in summer 1944 when Germans led to the anihilation of the city killing 200,000 civilians and 18,000 of the insurgents, forcing the remaining 650,000 to leave their homes and been expelled from their city straight to concentration camps, forced labour or becoming displaced till the end of WWII.

An american reporter Julien Bryan was the ONLY FOREIGN correspondent who remained with the people of Warsaw during the siege in September 1939. He documented the tragedy of those days.
Let us analyse some of his pictures.

On the picture, we may see Kazimiera Mika mourning after her sister who was killed during Luftwaffe air raid. More pictures depicting the scene might be accessed here.

The picture below is one of the most petryfing as it illustrates Balbina Szymańska with her newborn twin boys.
It was taken in the St. Sophie Hospital where 50 mothers remained in the basement which sheltered them due to constant Luftwaffe bombardment danger. Seeing all these pain-ridden faces of young mothers...lying on the cold floor with no hope in their hearts...carryng their treasures - sweet newborns not aware of the drama all around...

The epilogue of the story is even more petryfying as 5 years later during the Warsaw Rising, Balbina Szymańska left her boys with her husband and went out to look for some food. When she got back, theire was no home. No kids. As one of the German bombs destroyed their appartment house. The boys were killed on their 5th birthday, 5 September 1944.

The next picture shows young Ryszard Pajewski. Only 9 at that time he had suddenly been made the family breadwinner. Just one picture out of 1,300,000 dramas of 1,300,000 inhabitants of Warsaw at that time.

Other Bryan's well known pictures are also worth paying attention to:

Author: Julien Bryan

Images source: Internet

For a detailed report of the besieged city, watch Julien Bryan's documentary:

Source: Youtube

In total, Warsaw was torn down to foundations in 84% by Germans during WWII. 60% of its inhabitants perished. Let us look the way the capital of Poland looked like before the turmoils of the war started...

Source: Youtube

Read more:

• https://poloniuszblog.wordpress.com/2016/04/17/poland-in-1939-and-in-1959-how-i-found-the-people-id-photographed-after-20-years/ accessed on 21 April 2018
• www.warsawrising.eu (For the full acount of WWII in Warsaw with detailed look at the Warsaw Rising of 1944)
• https://ipn.gov.pl/pl/publikacje/ksiazki/27493,Kolory-wojny-Oblezenie-Warszawy-w-barwnej-fotografii-Juliena-Bryana-The-Colors-o.html 

Pacification of the Warsaw Ghetto

On 17th April 1943 German troops started the liquidation of the Jewish District of Warsaw, known as the Warsaw Ghetto. However, their plan to run it smoothly had to change as the SS units met resistance shown by a group of 1000-1500 insurgents who decided to die in an armed battle rather than being executed.

The Uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto was the first organised armed resistance in urban environment on a 'mass' scale during World War II. Therefore, Warsaw is known all across the Globe as the city of two risings against Nazi German occupants: The Uprising in the Ghetto of 1943 and the Warsaw Rising of 1944.

Image source: Internet

In April 1943 about 60,000 Jews were still residing inside the ghetto, a small portion of 460,000 who were enclosed there since the closing of the gates of the ghetto in 1940. The majority had already been deported to the Treblinka death camp (mass deportations during Aktion Reinhard in summer 1942) or fallen victim to starvation or diseases.

As for the Uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto, according to Jurgen Stroop's report, 2054 german soldiers were involved in the operation (SS, Wehrmacht and Police) and "of the total of 56,065 Jews caught, about 7,000 were exterminated within the former Ghetto in the course of the large-scale action, and 6,929 by transporting them to Treblinka, which means 14,000 Jews were exterminated altogether. Beyond the number of 56,065 Jews an estimated number of 5,000 to 6,000 were killed by explosions or in fires. The number of destroyed dug-outs amounts to 631."

Jorgen Stroop. The posture tells the whole story...

Image source: Stroop's Report, May 1943.

Stroop underlines in his report also measures taken to stop any help from the Aryan side: "during the large-scale operation the Aryan population was informed by posters that it was strictly forbidden to enter the former Jewish Ghetto and that anybody caught within the former Ghetto without valid pass would be shot. At the same time these posters informed the Aryan population again that the death penalty would be imposed on anybody who intentionally gave refuge to a Jew, especially lodged, supported, or concealed a Jew outside the Jewish residential area."

Image: A stamp released for the 70th Anniversary 

of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Two organisations are known as far as military resistance is concerned, namely Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa (ŻOB, Eng. Jewish Combat Organisation) with 600 fighters and Żydowski Związek Wojskowy (ŻWZ, Eng. Jewish Military Union) with 400 fighters. The Jewish leaders of the Uprising were Mordechaj Anielewicz, Marek Edelman, Paweł Frenkel, Eliezer Geller, Leon Rodal, Dawid Wdowiński.

Jews expelled from their hide-outs/dug-outs.

Image source: Stroop report, May 1943

Read more:

• http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-stroop-report-may-1943 accessed on 19 April 2018
• Kazimierz Moczarski: "Conversations with an Executioner", 1981  ("Rozmowy z Katem", 1977)

The book is an unbelieveable but true story of a Polish officer, Kazimierz Moczarski, who was imprisoned by Communist regime and kept in the same cell with Jorgen Stroop, the SS commander of the liquidation of the Ghetto in Warsaw.

The story tells us also a terrible truth about the stalinist era in after-war Poland, when Polish soldiers fighting the German regime during WWII were accused and persecuted in THE SAME WAY as the Germans who were the REAL CRIMINALS OF WAR.

Gestapo Prison in the Lublin's Castle

The medieval castle of Lublin hides too many dreadful stories to be told just in a few paragraphs. However, do you know that it served as one of the heaviest prisons not only during German occupation of Poland but also right away after its end under the communist rule?

Let us analyse the statistics (Germans loved numbers during WWII, didn't they?):
In between 1939-1944:
40,000 prisoners
18,600 deported to concentration camps
3,600 killed in the camps
4,500 executed on the spot
2,200 killed in the course of interrogation process/in prison
10,000 released/escaped or sent free
4,700 no data available

Just to compare let us look at the statistics going back to the period when the Lublin's Castle was under Soviet governance. Soviets did not like to be worse...
In between 1944 - 1954:
33,000 prisoners
440 transports to other prisons
10,196 deported to other prisons in Poland
7,000 deported to Siberia (e.g. Borovitche and Svierdlovsk NKVD labour camps)
515 death sentences released (333 executed).

The Lublin Cactle prison had 73 cells which normally would welcome up to 12 prisoners. During the war more that 60 would be detained in each. Also the prisoners would be kept in a 19th century donjon which had walls 3 meter wide and the detention there was a 'real medieval experience'.

One of the cruellest 'episodes' in the history of the Castle came at the final days of the existence of the Gestapo prison there. On 19 July 800 prisoners were taken to KL Majdanek and executed there. Then on 22 July German SS units executed further 300 prisoners. They would have killed 1000 other prisoners too but an order to leave the city came and they were in desperate rush to leave the city as the Soviets were almost there.

There are many photographs which depict the tragedy of the period however let us spend a few moments pondering on the depth behind the one below showing a relative of the victims after the German execution of 22 July 1944.

Author: Stefan Kiełsznia, 1944

Images source: Internet

Original footage showing the scenes of German barbarity upon the "glorious entrance" of the Soviets to Lublin may be viewed here:

Clip source: Youtube

Read more:

• http://teatrnn.pl/about-us/tourism/
• http://www.projectinposterum.org/docs/chodakiewicz1.htm accessed on 15 April 2018

Former Gestapo Headquarters, Warsaw

Just within an eye range, two places on the map of Warsaw overlook each other. Still nowadays the two cause thrill on the back. Why? Millions of Poles suffered indirectly because of the men who resided in those buildings and more than dozens of thousands were imprisoned, interrogated, tortured and murdered there.

Former Gestapo Headquarters now housing in its ORIGINAL interiors the Museum of Struggle and Martyrdom at Szucha Avenue, 25, Warsaw is definitely a place one needs to visit. Looking at the "tramlines' where the detained waited for their interrogation, discerning names carved into the walls...still visible as witnesses of the horrifying German occupation of Poland during WWII.

The other building, at Ujazdowskie Avenue, 11 now housing the Ministry of Justice, hides in the basement a terrible testimony of the ruling period of communists in afterwar Poland. Since 1945 there used to be the Ministry of Public Security and the basement served as jail. Unfortunately, the detained were not criminals but soldiers who fought for Poland's independence when Poland was attacked in 1939 by Germans and Soviets, who continued their fight all through the WWII as welll as Warsaw insurgents and all those who did not accept that Soviet Union took over Poland in 1944.

The Museum "Cele Bezpieki" (Eng. Stalinist Jail) opened in March 2018 houses exhibition in ORIGINAL cells and interiors of the former jail which operated here after 1945 during Communist Rule in Poland after WWII. Peep into the cells, grab a torch and discern names, pictures, letters, inscriptions carved into the walls. So much suffering in one place...

Please watch a short clip which introduces us to the exposition:
https://www.facebook.com/celebezpieki/videos/468286023569505/

Images source: Internet

For a short video showing the exposition go here:

Read more:

• http://www.projectinposterum.org/docs/chodakiewicz1.htm   TRULY RECOMMENDED!
• https://www.facebook.com/celebezpieki/
• http://www.muzeum-niepodleglosci.pl/mauzoleum_szucha/

Were killed because were Poles (3) - Hanna Petrynowska

Hanna Petrynowska (codename Rana), a medical doctor, was killed by SS soldiers who attacked a field hospital which was hidden in the building of PWPW (Polish Security Printing Works) on 28 August 1944. She is said to have disregarded SS order to finish surgery and was executed as a result together with her patients.

She was a sister of Jan Żabiński, who saved 300 Jews as the Director of Warsaw Zoo during German occupation of the capital of Poland. The story was filmed in 2017 in "Zookeeper's Wife' starring Jessica Chastain as Antonina Żabińska, Jan's wife.

Hanna's and Jan's biographies serve as a good example of the Polish response to the evil imposed by German occupants.

They were engaged, not idle in watching all those crimes commited by the German invaders. As for Hanna, she paid with her life for resisting the forces who aimed at the anihilation of Poland and its people during WWII.

Hanna Petrynowska

Image source: Internet

Analysing her life it should be noted that Hanna Petrynowska became pediatrician in 1924 and in 1940 started her work as an in-house doctor in PWPW just right after the imprisonment of her husband who had held that function earlier on. Her husband, Marian Petrynowski was sent to Mauthausen concentration camp and never came back. She started to use codename "Rana" (Eng. wound) after Marian's death in KL Mauthausen.

She was decorated with V class Virtuti Militari Cross posthumously.

Source: Youtube

 

 

Read more:

• https://www.pwpw.pl/en/Redoubt/Redoubt.html accessed on 9 April 2018
• https://sprawiedliwi.org.pl/en/stories-of-rescue/story-rescue-zabinski-family accessed on 9 April 2018
• http://lekarzepowstania.pl/osoba/hanna-zabinska-petrynowska/ accessed on 9 April 2018

 

Mass executions in Słona Góra

Forest gorges on the north slope of the Słona Góra near Piorkowice, Poręba Radlna and Łękawka witnessed three executions of Polish citizens. The executed were imprisoned in the Tarnów prison, only one of the victims was arrested by chance in Łękawka and also had to fall victim to German executioners.

About 70 persons were killed on 29 July, 24 December 1940 and 2 February 1944. Their personal belongings were burnt on the spot. The fact that they carried personal things proves that the victims were told that they are being transfered to a different place of 'detention'. The bodies were exhumed after the war and the official funeral was organised in 1959. Only 38 names of the executed were reestablished. In 1968 in Bochum, Germany, a trial of the executioners (SS officers) was held with three of them accused for the commited crime in Poręba Radlna.