EXEMPLARY SOLDIER

In the early 1970s, Polish television programs for children and teenagers often promoted the military and military service. This was especially noticeable in Teleranek ("Sunday Morning"), one of the most popular youth programs of the era. The promotion of military values was particularly visible when episodes of the hugely popular television series Four Tank-Men and a Dog (Czterej pancerni i pies) were broadcast. Before each episode, a young, uniformed and impeccably disciplined army officer would appear on screen and solemnly announce that he was "ordering" viewers to watch every episode of the series. Today this sounds rather amusing, but at the time such messages were treated quite seriously.

Exemplary Soldier – an honorary title and badge awarded to soldiers of the Polish Army in the years 1950–2010.

One related initiative involved displaying photographs sent in by viewers showing fathers, grandfathers, and other family members who had been honoured during their military service with a commemorative photograph taken in front of their unit's ceremonial flag. My father, who had also completed his mandatory military service, often mentioned that he had received some sort of military distinction, and it is quite possible that this pin was connected with that recognition. Unfortunately, television only showed the photographs, not the medals or awards themselves, so I could never impress my friends with having his name mentioned on TV!

"Korpusówka" (Corps) – the colloquial name for the insignia of a personnel corps in the Polish Army and other uniformed services. It is the insignia of the armored forces in Poland.

I know that my father served in an armoured unit. He commanded several tanks, probably as a platoon commander, and often told me stories about these machines. As a boy, I dreamed of climbing inside a real tank. I finally got my chance in the mid-1970s when a film was being shot about soldiers of General Berling's Polish Army fighting on the eastern bank of the Vistula River and attempting to cross it to help the Warsaw Uprising of 1944.

The Polish People's Army (Polish: Ludowe Wojsko Polskie), was the second formation of the Polish Armed Forces in the East during the latter stages of the Second World War (1943–1945), and subsequently the armed forces of the Polish communist state (1945–1989), which was formalized in 1952 as the Polish People's Republic.

The "Berling Army" was the Soviet-backed Polish Army formed in the USSR during World War II. In September 1944, some of its units attempted to cross the Vistula River to aid the Warsaw Uprising, suffering heavy losses in the process.

Several T-34 tanks, fully operational despite being used as movie props, stood along the riverbank. Every now and then the soldier guarding them would allow local children to climb inside. I must admit that the interior of a tank is definitely not a place for anyone suffering from claustrophobia! I was thrilled to have the opportunity to explore one from the inside, but I was also surprised by how cramped the crew compartment was.

Around the same time, my father was learning to drive a car and was having some difficulty passing his driving test.

"You were able to drive a tank, yet you're having trouble driving a car?" the instructor asked him.

My father replied:

"When you drove a tank, there were no traffic lights, road signs, intersections, or speed limits. And you didn't have to worry too much about trees either—one more or one less didn't make much difference. You simply drove straight ahead!"

Fortunately, he eventually passed the test. As far as I know, he never had a serious accident during the rest of his life. And I don't think he ever 'collected' any trees along the way either!

*****

Blogi są również dostępne w języku polskim/blogs are also available in the Polish language

*****

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This entry is part of a broader collection of personal research and historical documentation across multiple blogs:

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Bractwo Kurkowe 1791 — Polish Music Group

In the early 1970s, it became very popular among schoolchildren in Poland to keep “autograph books” — small notebooks in which classmates, friends, and sometimes even other acquaintances would write short notes, poems, or dedications. While working on this blog, I revisited my own such notebook (which miraculously survived all my moves over the years) and began leafing through it.

The first entry is dated September 25, 1973, at the beginning of the school year in the fifth grade of primary school. It was written by my classmate Włodek D-o (with whom, incidentally, I re-established contact by email more than ten years ago, although we later lost touch again).

I do not intend to focus here on the entries in that notebook — although there would certainly be much to say about them — but to my surprise, on one of the pages I found a small sheet of paper glued in, containing four autographs of the music group “Bractwo Kurkowe 1791.” (The Fowler Brotherhood 1791).

Bractwo Kurkowe

Apparently, I did not have my autograph notebook with me at the time — or perhaps I did not yet have one at all. The sheet itself is undated, but it was inserted between entries from December 27, 1973 and January 8, 1974, which allows me to place it fairly precisely in time.

I also clearly remember that the group’s performance took place at the Congress Hall (Sala Kongresowa) in the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw — one of the most important concert venues in Poland during the communist era. This means the event must have occurred before my meeting with Jan Kociniak on January 13, 1974. It is quite possible that these — in fact my very first — autographs inspired me to start collecting them more systematically in a dedicated notebook rather than on loose pieces of paper.

The group “Bractwo Kurkowe 1791” consisted of Piotr Janczerski, Zbigniew Nowak, Janusz Hryniewicz, Ryszard Godyń, and Krzysztof Murek. Unfortunately, today I am able to confidently identify the signatures of only the first two performers.

Source: Allegro

Blogi są również dostępne w języku polskim/blogs are also available in the Polish language

*****

More from the author

This entry is part of a broader collection of personal research and historical documentation across multiple blogs:

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ELEMENTARY SCHOOL NO. 221 AND THE SURROUNDING AREA — THE HISTORY OF A SMALL PART OF WARSAW (PART 4/4)

Murder of 41 Jews at Żelazna Street 89 — "Well - courtyards" in pre-war buildings — Execution of 500 Poles at Żelazna Street 87 — Pre-war building at the corner of Żelazna and Ogrodowa Streets — Pre-war building at Żelazna Street 91: historical plaque about Karol Kurpiński and a photo of a dead Jew from 1941 — Construction schools on Młynarska Street — Construction of an office building at Żelazna Street 87 and impressions of the construction profession seen through the eyes of teenagers.

PREVIOUS INSTALLMENT--PART 3

The objects I mention in the blog are marked on the Google satellite map.

While dealing with the subject of 89 Żelazna Street (aka “Żelazna 89”) I found additional information about this tenement house (built two years before the outbreak of the war, in 1937-38). According to witness Stanisław Stefański, at the beginning of the Warsaw Uprising, on August 2, 1944, “a group of 41 Jewish insurgents was shot by a Gestapo officer in the courtyard of Żelazna 89. Their bodies were then burned.” (Relacja 301-2972; w Archiwum ŻIH).

Moving to the ghetto in 1940. Żelazna Street 87 (on the left) and Żelazna Street 89. The gate leading to the courtyard of the Żelazna 89 building is located between the fourth and fifth column (pillar) of this building and has survived to this day.
Source: Fotopolska.eu. Public domain

Stefański witnessed how in the courtyard at Żelazna 89, groups were led from Leszno 75 (the building no longer exists — in 1958 a new block was built in its place, now Aleja „Solidarności” 147) in groups of four — Jews who were also participating in the Warsaw Uprising — where a senior Gestapo officer executed them with a shot to the back of the head. This concerned 19 people. After their execution, another group of 22 people was brought in, among them a seventy-year-old woman, who was also shot. Then, as the witness reports, he saw clouds of smoke above the burning bodies of the 41 victims.

***

Stefański writes, "in the courtyard at 89 Żelazna Street."

As can be seen in the photographs, the building at 89 Żelazna Street has a carriage gateway, just like most pre-war Warsaw tenement buildings. However, instead of leading into an enclosed courtyard, it opens onto an open area behind the building and the school playground. The same is true of many other pre-war tenements in Warsaw, whose gateways today no longer lead into courtyards but, in a sense, lead "nowhere."

For younger readers and those unfamiliar with old Polish cities, it is worth explaining what was known as a "well house" (Polish: dom-studnia) or "well courtyard" (podwórko-studnia). This was a very characteristic form of urban architecture, especially common in Warsaw, Łódź, and several other large cities before World War II.

The front section of the tenement building faced the street, while additional wings extended along both sides and across the rear, forming a U-shape or, in many cases, a completely enclosed rectangle. In the middle was a small courtyard surrounded on all sides by tall walls. Because it resembled a deep well, with very little sunlight reaching the bottom, these buildings became popularly known as "well houses."

This is a Google satellite photograph showing such several tenement buildings with such "well-shaped" courtyards in Warsaw's Praga, which was mostly spared during the war (Corner of Ząbkowska and Targowa). If the rear part of the buildings were demolished and only the front parts of the buildings left standing, their gateways would also lead to "nowhere".

Such courtyards were usually cramped, dark, and rather gloomy because very little sunlight and fresh air reached them. They contained toilets—or, in earlier years, simple wooden outhouses before indoor bathrooms became common. There were also wells or hand pumps from which residents drew water for drinking, cooking, and washing, communal garbage bins serving the entire building, tenants' storage sheds, coal and firewood storage rooms for heating stoves, as well as small workshops such as shoemakers, carpenters, laundries, and other craftsmen who rented the least expensive premises on the ground floors of the rear wings.

The courtyards were full of life. Children played there, housewives hung laundry on long clotheslines, neighbors spent hours talking to one another through open windows or while sitting on benches, and almost everyone in the building knew everyone else. Street vendors and tradesmen also visited regularly, offering goods and services. As a result, these courtyards became the social heart of the building and an important center of neighborhood life.

The well-known Warsaw writer Stanisław Grzesiuk wrote in his famous autobiographical book Barefoot but with Spurs (Boso, ale w ostrogach) that during the summer the stench from the courtyard toilets was unbearable. Whenever the cesspits were emptied, people had to shut their windows because, as he recalled, "you could practically suffocate from the smell."

Many of these distinctive tenement buildings survived World War II, although often in heavily damaged condition. Since Warsaw suffered catastrophic destruction during the war—especially after the 1944 Warsaw Uprising—postwar reconstruction frequently involved practical compromises rather than faithfully restoring the original architecture.

After the war, many tenement buildings that had survived in reasonably good condition were preserved. However, badly fire-damaged upper floors were often removed instead of being rebuilt. In addition, the ruined side and rear wings that had formed the characteristic "well" were frequently demolished altogether. As a result, the enclosed courtyards—and the "well houses" themselves—disappeared, while the carriage gateways remained, even though they now opened onto open spaces instead of enclosed courtyards.

A pre-war building at 50 Ogrodowa Street. Only its front section remains (as well as the upper floor was removed), and the adjacent outbuildings have been demolished, so the gate leads to the open areas next to the new apartment buildings.

From the window of my room in our Warsaw apartment, I looked directly at the rear of one such pre-war tenement at 50 Ogrodowa Street. Its carriage gateway had survived, but instead of leading into the former courtyard, it opened onto a square and the sidewalks surrounding the postwar apartment blocks because the wings that had once formed the "well" had been demolished.

For many years, the remaining walls still bore visible traces of the demolished sections—outlines of staircases, floor levels, and the places where the missing wings had once joined the main building. They stood as silent reminders of what the building had looked like before the war.

The chapel at the back of the building at 50 Ogrodowa Street, which was visible from the window of my room.
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Next to the building stood a small roadside shrine, which is still there today. It was most likely erected during the German occupation between 1939 and 1944.

Returning to the building at 89 Żelazna Street, pre-war maps of Warsaw show that it, too, was originally built as a "well house." Everything suggests that after the war the damaged rear and side wings forming the enclosed courtyard were demolished, leaving only the front section of the building with its characteristic carriage gateway.

***

The intersection of Żelazna and Leszna streets in March 1939. Straight ahead is the corner building Leszno 79 - Żelazna 93, where, according to Stefański, the Jews were brought for a brief interrogation before their execution. On the left of this building is Żelazna 91. On the right of this building is the Herman Sieraczek Tenement House (Leszno 81) and Leszno 83.
Source: Warsaw National Archive.

At the end of his account, he adds that before each execution of a group of four people, they were brought into a shop at the corner of Leszno and Żelazna (at that time: Leszno 79 and Żelazna 93 — today the area is part of Aleja „Solidarności” 155) and subjected to a “check-up,” although the witness did not know its nature.

Place sanctified by the blood of Poles who fell for the freedom of their homeland. Here, in September 1944, in mass executions, the Nazis shot about 350 Poles.
Source: Wikimedia Commons. Author: Jolanta Dyr

On the wall of the building at Żelazna 89 there is a Tchorek memorial plaque with the inscription:

“Place sanctified by the blood of Poles who fell for the freedom of their homeland. Here, in September 1944, in mass executions, the Nazis shot about 350 Poles.”

The “Tchorek plaques” (Polish: tablice Tchorka) are a series of post-war memorial plaques in Warsaw designed by sculptor Karol Tchorek, commemorating sites of Nazi executions during WWII.

From the left: Żelazna 87 corner of Ogrodowa 38, Żelazna 89, Żelazna 91, Żelazna 93 corner of Leszno, Leszno 78 corner of Żelazna ("Collegium" junior high school). 1940-1942. Of course, this is the Warsaw ghetto. The horse-drawn omnibus was called "konhellearka". 1) ⬇
Source: Warszawa1939.pl

Żelazna 87 corner of Ogrodowa 38. 1940-1942. This photo must have been taken several seconds after the previous photo. The horse-drawn omnibus was called "konhellerka." 1) ⬇
Source: Fotopolska.eu / Centralna Baza Judaików http://judaika.polin.pl/dmuseion

The plaque commemorates victims of executions carried out by Germans during the Warsaw Uprising. Żelazna Street was part of the route along which the expelled population of the Old Town and Powiśle districts was led to the assembly point at the Church of St. Adalbert, and from there to the Western Railway Station. In September 1944, mass executions of refugees took place in front of the building at Żelazna 87, in which as many as over 500 people may have been killed (according to sources such as Wikipedia).

Before the office building at 87 Żelazna Street was built on the corner of Żelazna and Ogrodowa Streets in the 1970s, the plaque was located on the south side of the building at 89 Żelazna Street. Candles were often lit there and students or scouts from Primary School No. 221 stood guard.
 Source: nk.pl website. I contacted the author some time ago, but due to the closure of the Nasza Klasa website, I am unable to ask her for permission

I would like to add that in the early 1970s, before a new building was erected at the corner of Żelazna and Ogrodowa (Żelazna 87), there was an empty square there, which could be used as a shortcut passage. The Tchorek plaque was located on the southern side of the building. Sometimes candles were lit there, and scouts from Elementary School No. 221 stood guard during commemorative ceremonies.

The corner building at Ogrodowa 38 - Żelazna 87 in 1946. After its demolition, the site was an empty lot until the construction of an office building in the early 1970s, which still stands today.
Source: Archiwum Państwowe w Warszawie

Before the war and during the German occupation, there was a low building there, visible in photographs from the Warsaw Ghetto (I posted two photographs of it above). One photo from 1946 shows its ruins — it was soon completely demolished. Żelazna Street was one of the main arteries of the Warsaw Ghetto.

On the building at Żelazna 91 (52°14'21.4"N 20°59'14.5"E / 52.239278, 20.987364) there was a plaque with the inscription:

“In this house, on September 19, 1857, died Karol Kurpiński, director of the Warsaw Opera, distinguished composer and teacher.”

(Most likely, Kurpiński did not die in this exact building, but in an earlier structure that once stood on this site.)

In this house, on September 19, 1857, died Karol Kurpiński, director of the Warsaw Opera, distinguished composer and teacher.
Source: Fotopolska.eu. Author: Balbina. Used with permission.

I knew the text of this plaque almost by heart — not surprising, because in 1977–1981 I almost daily waited at a bus stop (2 meters from it), commuting to high school near the “Ochota” railway station. Buses in the PRL (People’s Republic of Poland, communist Poland 1945–1989) ran very irregularly, so waiting times were often long.

The US Holocaust Memorial Museum describes it as: “A man lies dead on the pavement in front of a shop in the Warsaw ghetto.” The location is Żelazna 91. Author: Willy Georg
Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Rafael Scharf

In the same building at Żelazna 91, just a few meters from the plaque, there was an antiquarian bookshop, which I often visited. When I checked the place on Google Street View in 2014–2026, I found that there is now an “Antykwariat Tom” there, although it is unlikely to be a direct continuation of the one from decades earlier.

A few years ago, I found online photographs of the Warsaw Ghetto taken in summer 1941 by a German soldier, Willy Georg. One of them shows a man lying (dead?) on the pavement in front of a shop. The US Holocaust Memorial Museum describes it as:

        “A man lies dead on the pavement in front of a shop in the Warsaw ghetto.”  

91 Żelazna Street (Google Street View, 2018)

This man was lying right in front of the entrance to what is now Antiquarian Shop "Tom", Żelazna 91. Perhaps the gutter is the same. Near the gate there is a plaque dedicated to Karol Kurpiński.
Source: Google Street View

The exact location was not given, but users of one of Internet forums about Warsaw identified it as the building at Żelazna 91. The photo shows a shop that corresponds to today’s antiquarian bookstore, as well as a distinctive gutter which may have survived unchanged for decades.

In any case, on this short section of Żelazna Street, many extraordinary and unimaginably tragic events took place — as in thousands of other places in Warsaw.

*****

In the same district, in the Wola area, there was a Construction Schools Complex on Młynarska Street, advertised by brochures also displayed in my elementary school, for those who were to graduate and were not sure which school to go to next. One of them showed an eighth-grade student asking:

“What kind of school is on Młynarska Street?”

and receiving an enthusiastic answer describing courses, workshops, clubs, and even kayaking trips (a typical PRL-era form of educational “marketing,” rare at the time).

At the end the boy says:

“Then I’m going to Młynarska!”

It was one of the few “marketing brochures” of the PRL I remember — rather clumsy, but still existing.

Reality, however, looked different — as with many things in the communist system, which in theory were exemplary but in practice often diverged from reality.

The office building  Żelazna 87) erected in the early 1970s at the corner of Żelazna and Ogrodowa  On the right you can see the Żelazna 89 and Żelazna 91 buildings. Let's compare this photo with the three photos above showing the same location during the German occupation and then in 1946!
Source: Fotopolska.eu. Author: Bogdan JS. Licence: CC-BY 4.0 

During the construction of the office building at Żelazna 87 in the early 1970s, on the empty square next to the school playground, we often observed construction workers.

One morning I saw several young construction workers doing practically nothing, and one of them loudly complained about his fate:

"It's already eleven o'clock, and I, for f***'s sake, still haven't had a beer yet!"

On another occasion, after the lunch break, I watched a group of young workers returning to the construction site, staggering noticeably and clearly under the influence of alcohol. As they entered the site, a young, pleasant-looking bearded engineer came out to meet them, obviously outraged by their condition. Nevertheless, he addressed them quite politely.

"Gentlemen, this simply won't do!" he exclaimed irritably, approaching the group.

They responded with a stream of vulgar language, and one of the workers simply shoved him aside.

Behind the school there was a narrow ramp leading down to the kitchen (once even horse-drawn carts came there to collect kitchen waste — in the 1970s it was still possible to sporadically see horse transport on Ogrodowa Street, mainly transporting coal) and several private apartments in the school building (probably originally occupied by teachers and their families, some of whom apparently chose to remain there permanently rather than move out later—a fairly common phenomenon in post-war Poland).
Sometimes workers used this area for breaks, and there was a bottle of vodka standing on the ramp edge. Well, as the popular construction saying goes, "A shot of rye, then climb up high."

For some time, construction workers ate meals in the school cafeteria, which led to conflicts with staff — mainly due to their inappropriate behaviour and foul language.

It must therefore be said that construction workers did not make a good impression at the time and certainly did not encourage choosing this profession.

*****

Of course, I could recount many more stories from my school years — perhaps I will return to them in other posts.

As of today (I am writing this on May 29, 2026), the school still exists and was recently thoroughly renovated. It was likely attended by children — and now perhaps even grandchildren of my former classmates, many of whom still live in the area.

________________________________

Footnote

1) ⬆   The photographs show the “Kohn-Heller buses” (konhellerki)—horse-drawn omnibuses that served as the principal means of public transportation in the Warsaw Ghetto. Their nickname came from two powerful businessmen and notorious collaborators, Maurycy Kohn and Zelig Heller.

Kohn and Heller were known for blackmailing Jewish merchants and informing on them to the authorities. After their victims were arrested, they often offered to arrange their release in exchange for large ransoms. Thanks to their close connections with Abraham Gancwajch, head of the infamous Office for Combating Usury and Profiteering—better known as the “Thirteen” (named after its headquarters at 13 Leszno Street, a building that still exists today)—as well as with the German authorities administering the ghetto, they considered themselves untouchable.

17 Ogrodowa Street, Warsaw.
Before World War II, this building housed the Three Kings Institution, operated by the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul (the Grey Sisters).
During the German occupation, Ogrodowa Street became part of the Warsaw Ghetto. From the spring of 1942 until the beginning of the Grossaktion Warsaw (the Great Deportation), No. 17 served as the headquarters of the Jewish Order Service.
The building was completely destroyed during the Warsaw Uprising and the systematic destruction of the district that followed.
 Source: Photograph from the collection of the Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw.

During the Great Deportation (the mass deportation of Jews to the Treblinka extermination camp, which began on July 22, 1942), Kohn and Heller saw an opportunity to make another gigantic business deal. Using their passes and influence with the Germans, they began offering wealthy Jews a paid service: getting them out of the death trains and away from the selection area at the Umschlagplatz. They charged astronomical sums, accepting payment in gold, dollars, and diamonds.

On the morning of August 7, 1942, Kohn and Heller were summoned to the headquarters of the Jewish Order Service at 17 Ogrodowa Street. The official pretext given by the Germans was an accusation of illegal diamond smuggling.

According to testimony from witnesses in the ghetto, including notes collected by Emanuel Ringelblum’s underground archive, a violent confrontation took place in the office of the German officers. The central figure there was the ghetto executioner, Untersturmführer Karl Georg Brandt, a Gestapo officer who headed Sub-Department IV B 4, responsible for Jewish affairs.

 

The Germans demanded that all the hidden gold and foreign currency be handed over. When Kohn and Heller realized that they had been trapped, they began shouting and begging for mercy, referring to their years of loyal service and informing on others. Brandt personally, or his subordinates, beat both men and then ordered them taken into the courtyard of the building.

Moryc Kohn put up fierce resistance. He screamed and cried and had to be dragged away by his captors. Zelig Heller, according to eyewitness accounts, walked completely calmly and resignedly, “pale as a corpse,” with his characteristic smile on his face. Both men were thrown against the wall and immediately shot in the back of the neck.

The Germans allowed the families to take the bodies away. They were buried in individual graves in the Jewish cemetery on Okopowa Street in Warsaw. At a time when hundreds of thousands of people were being deported to Treblinka, this was an extraordinary “privilege” that only their immediate families could afford. Their deaths were a clear signal to the entire ghetto that the German Nazis would spare no one — not even their most devoted and useful servants.

***

Blogi są również dostępne w języku polskim/blogs are also available in the Polish language

*****

More from the author

This entry is part of a broader collection of personal research and historical documentation across multiple blogs:

👉 Travel and nature archive/blog/: https://ontario-nature.blogspot.com/

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL NO. 221 AND THE SURROUNDING AREA — THE HISTORY OF A SMALL PART OF WARSAW (PART 3/4)

Important meeting place of the Communist Party of Poland — Demolition of the building near the school — Historical plaque on Żelazna 89 — Shocking pre-war fate of communist activists — Marcjanna Fornalska and her children — PWN Encyclopedia — Communist lies about their own comrades — Footnote for History Enthusiasts: More About the Author of Żmijka — Bronisław Owsianko (Optional Reading 😂)

PREVIOUS INSTALLMENT-PART 2

Not so long ago, in the Polish magazine “Płomyk” no. 23 & 24 from December 25, 1975, I found an article titled “Żmijka. From the memories of a KPP activist” by Bronisław Owsianko. It concerned an apartment in the building at 89 Żelazna Street in Warsaw, where the author’s family lived together with a dog named “Żmijka” (“Viper”), and which became an important site of activity of the illegal Communist Party of Poland (KPP, active in the interwar Second Polish Republic and banned in 1938).

Sabina Owsianko (the author's mother) and Stefan Królikowski, a frequent visitor to the underground club on Żelazna Street, in exile in Moscow (photo from 1934). Unfortunately, comrade Królikowski never returned to Poland from this exile...
The photo comes from the magazine "Płomyk" from the article "Żmijka"

~ ~ ~

➡➡➡ I have included much more information about Bronisław Owsianko in the footnote at the end of this article. It runs for several pages, so it’s entirely optional reading 😂. But if you’re interested in interwar Poland, communism, and life in the Polish People’s Republic, I think you may find it well worth exploring.

~ ~ ~

As the author wrote:

“The building at 89 Żelazna Street consisted of three interconnected tenement houses. Opposite the last gate lived our family. From 1918 until the police raid in 1927, this apartment was a meeting place for the top leaders of the Party. One could meet Adolf Warski, Wera Kostrzewa, Julian Leński, Stefan Królikowski, Aleksander, Małgorzata and Felicja Fornalska, and many others.

In a later period, in Moscow, comrade Leński once told me that when the workers’ cause triumphs in Poland, the apartment on Żelazna should be turned into a museum, and there would be no space left on the walls to write the names of all those who stayed there. The party archives were kept here, along with the party funds and stamps for producing forged documents. All major party conferences in those years were held in this apartment.” 

This photograph, taken in 1967, shows the school, the playground and a fragment of a building that survived the war, where the Owsianko family lived.

The article also includes a photograph (from 1967) showing my Elementary School No. 221, the school playground, and a fragment of a pre-war building, with the following caption:

“School at 89 Żelazna Street built next to a fragment of a building surviving wartime destruction, where the Owsianko family lived.”

A small correction here. The school was NOT located on Żelazna Street, but precisely at 42/44 Ogrodowa Street. The building shown in the photo was located much closer to Leszno Street (renamed after the war to Świerczewskiego, today Aleja “Solidarności”). After 1945 many streets in Warsaw changed names — first during the communist period, and later again after 1989 — which often causes confusion in documents and memories.

Looking at pre-war maps of Warsaw, the building at 89 Żelazna Street indeed consisted — as the author writes — of three connected tenement houses, and the surviving fragment was likely its rear section, significantly removed from Żelazna itself.

The building at 89 Żelazna Street (first on the right), the next one at 91 Żelazna Street, and the corner building (corner of Żelazna and Leszno Streets), Leszno 79 and 93 Żelazna Street. On the other side of Leszno Street, you can see the building of the "Collegium" High School and Junior High School Society at 84 Leszno Street. The photo was taken in 1941 - then part of the Warsaw Ghetto: you can see a streetcar with a Star of David, and you can also see that pedestrians are wearing armbands. Only the first two buildings survived the war.

Moreover, the current building at 89 Żelazna Street (52°14'20.6"N 20°59'14.6"E / 52.239056, 20.987389) was built before the war, between 1937–1939. Perhaps part of the earlier structure mentioned by the author had already been demolished then, or perhaps it still adjoined the new building. During the war, this area became part of the Warsaw Ghetto, as did the area on which my school and my apartment block were later built in the 1960s.

Google Map, with labeled objects mentioned in my blog. Boisko = the school playground.

At the end of the article, the author writes:

“The year 1948. After many years of difficult wandering, four of the seven surviving members of our family returned to their hometown Warsaw. We went to Żelazna Street. We found traces of the places where we had spent our youth. The front of building no. 89 had survived. Only ruins and part of a side wall remained from the four-storey rear building. The past came alive in memory — underground activity, ‘Żmijka’.

In 1967 we again found ourselves in the courtyard of our home. A new school now stands there. On the school playground, pupils ran carefree after a ball, which in my childhood had been the object of my unfulfilled dreams. Once again, images of the past stood before my eyes…”

Two years later, I too joined those “pupils” on that school playground who were carefree chasing a ball. While attending this school, from the windows of my ground-floor classroom (the last few windows on the right in the photo), I looked every day at the preserved fragment of the building — also visible from my apartment window. So I can say that my building was located a dozen or so meters from the former "Party House" — i.e., the Communist Party Head Office!

The Gazeta Warszawska Poranna (The Warsaw Morning Gazette), of March 26, 1927, reports, among other things, the smashing of the Communist Central Office at 89 Żelazna Street. It was front-page news! 

It was in a partly ruined state, but still inhabited. Once or twice I even went inside, and it looked truly grim. Later the residents were relocated, and for some time it could be “visited”.

In the 1972/73 school year, tracked construction machines arrived and demolition began. One day we could watch as the main wall of the building collapsed with a crash, raising a cloud of dust.

After the war, “the workers’ cause had supposedly triumphed” — in PRL propaganda this was the official phrase describing the communist system as the alleged fulfilment of working-class ideals — although in reality a new oppressive system had emerged, having little in common with the real interests of workers. The Żelazna apartment was, for obvious reasons, not turned into a museum.

Żelazna 89, with Żelazna 91 in the distance, 2007. Between the third and fourth windows on the first floor, a dark plaque commemorating this "famous" apartment is visible. It was extremely difficult to see and read.
Source: Fotoplska.eu. Author: Balbina. License: CC-BY-NC 3.0

Żelazna Street 89, current condition (2020). All that remains of the sign are four barely visible holes above the flower shop and the hairdresser.
Source: Wikimedia Commons. Author: Jacek Halicki 
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Poland license.

Only in 1978 was a small bronze plaque installed on the front wall of the building at 89 Żelazna Street commemorating these events. However, its placement was so unfortunate that it was practically impossible to read or even notice. Although I passed there hundreds of times and waited for buses in front of the building, I never saw it — it was located several meters above the sidewalk.

Here, in the years 1918–1927, in the house then located at 89 Żelazna Street, apartment 63, clandestine meetings of the leadership of the Communist Party of Poland were held. This plaque was installed on the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of Poland.
Source: Wikimedia Commons. Author: Joanna Dyr

I wonder who came up with this idea? Perhaps an elderly member of the Communist Party of Poland who managed to survive “capitalist, Sanation Poland” (interwar authoritarian Poland 1926–1939), police repression, Stalinist purges in the USSR, occupation and war, the Stalinist period in Poland, the brief Gomułka thaw, and later years — and who somehow held on to his beliefs until the Gierek era, when someone finally agreed to commemorate events from 50 years earlier?

If so, fortunately the poor man did not live to see the plaque removed — it would probably have broken his (red) heart… 💘  ⬇(In the footnote below, I offer a personal hypothesis who initiated the installation of this memorial plaque). ⬇

Or perhaps such an almost invisible commemoration was intentional? First, a lower-mounted plaque could be quickly destroyed by “anti-socialist elements”. Second, the fate of most individuals mentioned by Owsianko ended tragically — not because of Polish repression, but due to Stalin’s policy, referred to in propaganda as the “Sun of Humanity”.

✝ ☭ Adolf Warski: on August 21, 1937, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced him to death for belonging to the alleged espionage-terrorist POW organization. Executed the same day.

✝ ☭ Wera Kostrzewa: in August 1937 arrested by the NKVD during the Great Purge, and in October sentenced to 10 years in prison. She died in prison in 1939.

✝ ☭ Julian Leński (the one who dreamed of a museum): on June 10, 1937 arrested in Moscow by the NKVD. On September 27, 1937 sentenced to death by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR for “participation in a Polish espionage-terrorist organization”, executed the same day.

✝ ☭ Stefan Królikowski (his photo appears in “Płomyk” together with the author’s mother, Sabina Owsianko): on May 11, 1937 arrested by the NKVD, accused of belonging to the Polish Military Organization. On August 21, 1937 sentenced to death and executed the same day.

✝ ☭ Jan Lubieniecki (alias Ignacy Rylski) was executed in the USSR in 1937 during Stalinist repression.

✝ ☭ Adam Landy (alias Karol): on January 19, 1937 arrested by the NKVD, on August 21, 1937 sentenced to death and executed the same day.

✝ ☭ M. Amsterdamski (Saul Amsterdam): during the Great Terror accused by the NKVD of counterrevolutionary activity and espionage. Executed on November 1, 1937 in Moscow.

✝ ☭ Aleksander Fornalski: on December 16, 1936 arrested by the NKVD, on August 22, 1937 sentenced to death and executed the same day.

☭ Felicja Fornalska: on December 16, 1936 arrested by the NKVD. Sentenced to 10 years in a labor camp and sent to Kolyma. She was the only one of the siblings to survive the purge, released in 1945 thanks to the intervention of Bolesław Bierut with Stalin.

Kolyma – one of the most infamous Soviet forced-labor camp regions in the Far North of Russia.
Felicja's sister, Małgorzata Fornalska, was involved with Bolesław Bierut, with whom she had a daughter, Aleksandra.
Bolesław Bierut was a Polish communist activist and politician who was the leader of communist-ruled Poland from 1948 until 1956. He was President of the State National Council from 1944 to 1947, President of Poland from 1947 to 1952, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party from 1948 to 1956, and Prime Minister of Poland from 1952 to 1954)].

✝ 卐 Małgorzata Fornalska (Felicja’s sister): on November 14, 1943 arrested by the Gestapo and on July 26, 1944 executed in the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto.

Felicja Fornalska in the PWN Encyclopedia

According to the four-volume PRL-era PWN Encyclopedia from the 1970s, which I still own, the entry on Felicja Fornalska mentions that she was imprisoned in Poland in 1929–1930, but says nothing about her conviction and nine-year imprisonment in Soviet camps.

During the Great Purges in the USSR (1937–1938), almost the entire leadership and most rank-and-file members of the Communist Party of Poland (KPP) present in the Soviet Union were murdered. It is estimated that out of approximately 3,800–5,000 Polish communists, only a few dozen survived the purge.

Almost all members of the Central Committee (CC KPP) summoned to Moscow were executed — around 70 people in total. It is estimated that several thousand Polish party activists at lower and middle levels lost their lives in the USSR. As a result of the physical extermination of the party elite, the Comintern, led by Joseph Stalin, decided in August 1938 to dissolve and liquidate the KPP.

Bronisław Owsianko also mentions surveillance and arrests of Polish communists by the Polish police. However — ironically!!! — from Stalinist terror in the USSR, almost only those communists survived who were at that time serving sentences in Polish prisons.

It is therefore a pity that the author did not thank the Polish police and Polish courts — because despite (justified) repression of KPP members, they in fact saved their lives by keeping them in Polish prisons (which in practice turned out to be a kind of “protection” from later Soviet terror).

Felicja Fornalska (1893-1987) and Marcjanna Fornalska (1870-1963) at the Third Polish United Workers' Party Congress in 1959.
Source: Wikimedia Commons-public domain.

And one more curiosity:

Marcjanna Fornalska (1870–1963) gave birth to six children. In 1932 she moved to Moscow.

✝ ☭ Leon, ✝ ☭ Aleksander, ✝ ☭ Stanisław, and ☭ Feliksa were arrested during the “Great Terror” by the NKVD. Only Feliksa survived, imprisoned in a labor camp.

✝ 卐 Małgorzata was arrested in 1943 by the Gestapo and executed in the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto.
✝ 卐 Franciszek Fornalski was arrested in 1944 by the Gestapo and murdered in the Gross-Rosen concentration camp.

Marcjanna Fornalska, despite losing five out of six children — including three murdered by the NKVD — joined the PPR (the Polish Workers' Party, Polska Partia Robotnicza, was a communist party in Poland from 1942 to 1948) in 1944 and later the PZPR (the Polish United Workers' Party, Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza, was the communist party which ruled the Polish People's Republic as a one-party state from 1948 to 1989) in 1948. This happened during the period when Stalin still ruled the USSR, responsible for the murder of her children and imprisonment of one of them.

She remained faithful to communist ideals until the end.

Mental illness?

Incidentally, the fate of Marcjanna Fornalska's children brilliantly illustrates the cruelty of the communist and fascist systems. However, I believe the former was in many ways worse than the latter.

Marcjanna Fornalska in the PWN Encyclopedia

In the PWN Encyclopedia there is not a single word about the loss of three of Marcjanna Fornalska’s children in the USSR.

It also makes me wonder why the communists did not use the proximity of this building to link it with the Elementary School No. 221, established in 1960. Apart from naming it after one of the activists connected to the nearby communist headquarters, they could have created inside the school a “memory corner” — something like a museum, as comrade Julian Leński dreamed — “and on the walls inscribe the names of all those who stayed here.”

However, such a place would have looked rather macabre if under almost every name there appeared the same year of death, and often also the annotation “rehabilitated.” It would be difficult to explain to 7- to 14-year-olds why this happened. In fact, it would be difficult to explain to adults, too...

For this reason, central party orders from above (the decisions of the communist party leadership, often taken without public consultation) certainly ensured that the site did not become one of the widely known and officially venerated points glorifying the beginnings of the communist movement. Some historical facts were simply better not emphasized, with attention instead directed to more “positive” — and often outright false — aspects of this criminal ideology.

Out of curiosity, I checked the entry “Communist Party of Poland” in the PWN Encyclopedia — I was very curious what the official version of this massacre of Polish communists looked like at the time:

“In 1938, the Executive Committee of the Communist International decided on the temporary dissolution of the KPP on the basis of unfounded accusations. Many leaders and members of the KPP were arrested. The dissolution of the KPP significantly weakened the workers’ movement in Poland on the eve of the war and caused confusion within it. Polish communists, deprived of their party, continued their activity in various social and political organizations.

In 1942 they formed the Polish Workers’ Party, which, operating under new historical conditions, referred to the best traditions of the KPP.

In 1956 — after the 20th Congress of the CPSU — it was acknowledged that the decision to dissolve the KPP had been wrong, and the party and its leaders were rehabilitated.”

    [The CPSU = Communist Party of the Soviet Union; the 20th Congress (1956) was when Khrushchev publicly criticized Stalin’s crimes, initiating a limited “de-Stalinization” process].

Incredible! It does NOT even mention that almost all of them were sentenced to death and executed — only “arrested”! This entry is a true masterpiece of communist newspeak, lies and distortion of facts.

IF communists presented such a deeply falsified version of the history of thousands of their murdered “comrades,” covering up their physical liquidation by fellow Soviet authorities, one can only imagine the perfidious and ruthless way in which they distorted the history of their real, alleged or imaginary “enemies.”

This is already not merely the image of a single mental illness, but of a collective epidemic that spread for years among innocent citizens of Poland and other countries, and which led to the creation of an ideological system that for decades functioned in many states and was responsible for tens of millions of human lives.

Fortunately, it was curable…

__________________________________

Footnote for History Enthusiasts

More About the Author of Żmijka — comrade Bronisław Owsianko (Optional Reading 😂)

After writing the article above, I became curious about the author of Żmijka, Bronisław Owsianko (1900–1984). Although he was never one of Poland’s best-known communist figures, I managed to uncover a surprising amount of information about him. His life sheds light not only on his own biography, but also on the mindset of orthodox communists of that era: unwavering faith in communist ideology, unconditional loyalty to the Soviet Union, and acceptance of enormous human sacrifices made in the name of the “victory of the revolution”—even when the victims were close comrades or members of their own families.

Bronisław Owsianko (author) with his sister Lonia. Sabina Owsianko, the author's mother. The front page of "Express Poranny" with news of the liquidation of the communist headquarters in Warsaw in 1927.
The photo was published in "Płomyk" in the article "Żmijka"

Owsianko grew up in a family deeply committed to the communist movement. His mother, Sabina Owsianko, was described in party literature as “an old comrade, always ready to carry out the Party’s orders.” Sabina and the young Bronisław both took part in the technical and logistical preparations for the famous escape of three members of the Communist Party of Poland (KPP)—Leon Purman, Maksymilian Lapon and Mirosław Zdziarski—from Warsaw’s Pawiak Prison in December 1926.

History added a remarkably grim ending to this daring operation. ✝ Lapon died in a Polish prison three years later, while ✝ ☭  Purman and ✝ ☭  Zdziarski were executed during Stalin’s Great Purge in 1933 and 1937—after settling in what they believed was their new socialist homeland, the Soviet Union. The ideology they had served so faithfully ultimately devoured its own followers.

In 1927, the secret headquarters of the KPP Central Committee, located in the Owsianko family apartment at 89 Żelazna Street, Apartment 63, was uncovered by the Polish authorities. The discovery triggered a wave of arrests. Police seized large quantities of illegal publications, correspondence with the Comintern, and organizational documents, leading to criminal trials and prison sentences for numerous communist activists.

    [The Comintern (Communist International), headquartered in Moscow, coordinated communist parties around the world and exercised enormous influence over the KPP].

After serving their sentences or being released on bail — decided to cross the border illegally and flee to the Soviet Union. This protected them from further arrests in Poland, but at the same time permanently tied their fate to the Stalinist state apparatus. However, according to biographical information published on the Russian website “Chronos” (https://www.hrono.ru/vvedenie.php), Owsianko himself left for the Soviet Union as early as 1924, something he never mentions anywhere in his publications. He therefore could not have been a direct witness to the events described in the article Żmijka or in his other articles dealing with earlier events.

From 1920 to 1924, Owsianko served in the Polish Army as a non-commissioned officer and subsequently worked in the quartermaster service in Warsaw. At the same time, already during this period, he was cooperating with the Military Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and with Soviet military intelligence (1923–1924). A document written by Heinrich Lauer on November 25, 1924, states: “Owsianko, while serving in the Polish Army, was a member of our military organization, but recently he has devoted himself to serving the Intelligence Directorate.” So, even at such a young age, he was a spy and traitor!

On the orders of Feliks Dzierżyński, he was assigned to the border troops. In 1924–1925, he commanded a unit guarding one of the sections of the Soviet-Chinese border in the Far East. He subsequently served in the Leningrad Military District and, from 1927 to 1930, also worked for the local GPU.

In 1936, he graduated from the Stalin Military Academy of Mechanization and Motorization of the Red Army. According to independent historical studies, he had previously been trained by the Soviet secret services and is therefore sometimes described as a prewar agent of Soviet intelligence.

After graduating from the Academy, he was assigned to work in military intelligence. While remaining at the disposal of the Red Army Intelligence Directorate, he was illegally in Portugal in 1936–1937. In June 1937, he was summoned to Moscow and subsequently transferred to the Red Army reserve. In the second half of 1937, he himself became a victim of repression, yet he escaped the fate of the vast majority of his comrades, who were executed or sent into exile during the Great Purge. Since he was later awarded a commemorative medal for participants in the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939, I assume that he was somehow sent to Spain. If that was indeed the case, his participation in the Civil War may have contributed to saving his life.

    [The Great Purge (1936–1938) was Stalin’s campaign of mass arrests and executions. Hundreds of thousands were killed, including many devoted communists from both the Soviet Union and abroad].

During the war, he served as an officer in Polish military formations created in the USSR under communist control. He returned to Poland after 1948, already holding the rank of colonel.

Bronisław Owsianko spent more than two decades in the Soviet Union — the entire 1930s as well as the period of the Second World War. His stay there encompassed both political and intelligence activities and military service.

In his memoirs, the author mentions his mother, Sabina, his father, Jan, his older brother Adam, and sister Leonia (who was 19 years old in 1927). During the raid on the Central Office in 1927, when the police found incriminating materials during a search, she admitted to possessing them. The entire family was deeply involved in the activities of the Communist Party of Poland. I believe that most of them soon found themselves in the Soviet Union. Interestingly, I have been unable to find any information about their subsequent fate. It is therefore quite possible that some of them fell victim to Stalinist terror — something Owsianko completely fails to mention in his publications. He merely states that, of the eight members of the family, four returned to Poland in 1948. What happened to the other four?

Another interesting biographical detail concerns his marriage. Bronisław’s wife, Krystyna Owsianko, was born Andrieyeva (Андреева). The couple met in Moscow, and after settling permanently in post-war Poland she adopted a Polish form of her first name and her husband’s surname.

Independent historians specializing in the history of the Polish Army and the defense industry agree that after 1945 colonel Owsianko actively participated in introducing the Soviet model of military organization into Poland. In 1947 he became commandant of the Central Scientific Research Proving Ground, later known as the Experimental Station in Sulejówek. There he worked side by side with Red Army officers assigned to Poland. One of the group’s principal tasks was to purge politically “unreliable” personnel from the Polish arms industry and bring it fully under Soviet control. 

The head of a similar military engineering training ground was a Soviet officer, Colonel Anatol Paranov. Another Soviet officer, Lieutenant Colonel Kuzma Topolniak, was responsible for explosives and the experimental station. Similarly, in the Air Force, the commandant was a Soviet officer, Colonel Borys Malczaniuk. The Soviet-style reorganization became the basis for the dismissal of many military and civilian employees.

The commanders of the units carrying out work for the army were Soviet officers in Polish uniforms, popularly referred to as "popes"—"acting as Poles" (in Polish: "Pełniący Obowiązki Polaków". This is also a play on words, because in Polish "pop" means a clergyman of the Russian Orthodox Church).

This reflected a trend that was taking place in the Polish People's Republic. In March 1945, "popes" constituted just over half of the officers in the armed forces. By the end of the year, 86% of the army's generals were Soviet officers. In 1949, even the Minister of National Defense, Soviet Marshall Konstantin Rokossovsky, belonged to the "popes" group, a phenomenon even in the Soviet bloc. In other people's democracies, "popes" limited themselves to advisory roles and did not become official members of government. Under such circumstances, independent modernization of the army was out of the question.
[Source: Wynalazki pod kontrolą. Parę uwag o wojskowym zapleczu badawczym po II wojnie światowej (Inventions Under Control: A Few Remarks on Military Research After World War II) by Marcelina Smużewska].

During the 1960s and 1970s, Owsianko transformed his underground experiences into officially approved memoirs and propaganda literature published by the Ministry of National Defence Publishing House (MON). His most important works included:

    • Provocateurs and Conspirators (1968; expanded edition 1977) — a book describing the infiltration of the communist movement by the political police and military intelligence of pre-war Poland.

    • Escape from Pawiak (1977) — a fictionalized account of the prison escape in which his mother played a significant role.

    • The Defence of the Secret Secretariat — an adventure novel for young readers that reinforces the myth of heroic communist underground resistance in the Second Polish Republic.

[MON (Ministerstwo Obrony Narodowej) was the publishing house of communist Poland’s Ministry of National Defence. It produced military history, memoirs, and many books that also served as vehicles for official state propaganda].

Another Remarkable Publication

One publication deserves special attention. In 1977, a book entitled Comrade Józef: Memories of Feliks Dzierżyński was published under the auspices of, among others, the Central Archives of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR). One of its chapters—“A Meeting with Feliks Dzierżyński”—was written by Bronisław Owsianko.

In it, the author describes his alleged personal meeting with the founder and chairman of the Cheka. Did it really take place? It is difficult to verify this today. Communist propaganda very often distorted facts to suit the needs of its own mythology. On the other hand, according to the biography mentioned earlier, “on the orders of Feliks Dzierżyński, he was assigned to the border troops.” It is therefore quite possible that Owsianko really did have a brief meeting with one of the most powerful figures in the Soviet apparatus of terror.

    [Feliks Dzierżyński (1877–1926), known as “Iron Felix,” was a Polish-born revolutionary who founded the Cheka, the first Soviet secret police. The Cheka became the predecessor of the NKVD and, eventually, the KGB].

Owsianko as a Communist Publicist

Throughout the communist era, Bronisław Owsianko occasionally published newspaper articles devoted to the history of the Communist Party of Poland. They all share the same unmistakable tone: ideological orthodoxy and an almost unquestioning admiration for everything connected with the KPP.

In 1981, he published The Proletarian Jacobin in Żołnierz Wolności (“Soldier of Freedom”), the official newspaper of the Polish Army. A year later, during martial law, Sztandar Młodych (“Banner of Youth”) printed his articles Poles in Defence of October and The Communist Party of Poland.

    [Martial law was imposed in Poland between 1981 and 1983 in an attempt to crush the Solidarity movement and suppress growing opposition to communist rule].

In the April 27, 1981 issue of the weekly Głos Nauczycielski (Teachers' Voice) published in connection with the May Day holiday, an article by Bronisław Owsianko entitled Dom przy ulicy Żelaznej (The House on Żelazna Street) appeared on page 3. In it, the author repeats much of the information previously presented in his article Żmijka.

At the end of the article, he writes:

“To commemorate the comrades, distinguished activists and leaders of the workers’ movement in Wola (a district of Warsaw) and internationally who stayed in this house, a memorial plaque was unveiled. The bronze inscription reads: ‘Here, in the years 1918–1927, in the house then located at 89 Żelazna Street, apartment 63, clandestine meetings of the leadership of the Communist Party of Poland were held. This plaque was installed on the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of Poland.’”

In the same article, Owsianko mentions many members of the Communist Party of Poland who visited this clandestine meeting place — both those already mentioned earlier and several new names. I decided to find out more about what happened to these comrades:

✝ ☭ Jerzy Heryng, pseudonyms Jerzy Ryng and Henryk Jeż (1886–1937). During the Great Purge in 1937, he was arrested by the NKVD on September 29. On December 25, 1937, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced him to death on charges of belonging to an anti-Soviet espionage, sabotage, and terrorist organization. He was executed the same day. His body was cremated at the crematorium at Donskoy Cemetery, and his ashes were buried anonymously.

✝ ☭ Edward Próchniak, pseudonym Sewer (1888–1937). During the Great Purge, he was arrested by the NKVD on July 8, 1937. On August 21, 1937, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced him to death on charges of “participation in a counter-revolutionary organization.” He was executed the same day. His body was cremated at Donskoy Cemetery, and his ashes were buried anonymously.

✝ ☭ Franciszek Grzelszczak, pseudonym Marcin Grzegorzewski (1881–1937). During the Great Purge in 1937, he was arrested by the NKVD and executed.

✝ ☭ Henryk Lauer, pseudonym “Ernest Brand” (1890–1937). During the Great Purge, he was arrested by the NKVD on May 22, 1937. On August 21, 1937, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced him to death on charges of espionage, sabotage, and participation in the Polish Military Organization (POW) espionage organization. He was executed by firing squad the same day. His body was cremated at Donskoy Cemetery, and his ashes were buried anonymously.

✝ ☭ Izrael Gajst. He was executed in the USSR around 1939, shortly after Joseph Stalin and the Comintern ordered the complete dissolution of the Communist Party of Poland.

🍀 Roman Jan Jabłonowski, pseudonym Gruszecki (1886–1963). In 1934, following accusations of Trotskyism, he ended his activities in the Communist Party of Poland (he was lucky!). He did not participate in political life afterward because, due to his position after 1934, he was treated with suspicion by the party leadership. After 1956, his membership rights in the Polish United Workers’ Party (PZPR) were restored.

Of course, Owsianko does not mention a single word about the subsequent fate of these comrades and friends — he remains silent about their murders in the name of the triumph of communist ideology, and presumably also because he did not want to risk falling afoul of the authorities of the Polish People’s Republic.

And, as an aside — this was the first time in my life that I had ever come across Głos Nauczycielski (Teachers' Voice), and I must admit that I was shocked by the articles it contained about Lenin, the Soviet Union, and other similar subjects. It was an incredibly pro-communist and pro-Soviet publication! Thank God our teachers did not try to put the ideology presented in it into practice or use its articles during their school lessons. 

And how fantastical and surreal those articles now seem—glorifying communism, Lenin, the Soviet Union, the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR), Gierek, and an entire system that was already beginning to crumble, when only a few months later an enormous wave of strikes swept across Poland, leading to the birth of Solidarity and exposing the country's catastrophic economic situation.

The article that fascinated me most, however, was an extensive feature entitled “Messengers of the Revolution on Duty,” published in the weekend edition of Życie Radomskie on June 2–3, 1979.

What makes this newspaper particularly remarkable is its front page. The headline announced one of the most important events in modern Polish history:

“Today Pope John Paul II arrives in Poland. We welcome him to his Homeland, in the capital of the Polish People's Republic.”

Meanwhile, on pages five and six, readers were presented with a lengthy article celebrating the first communist deputies in the parliament of the Second Polish Republic. It is difficult to imagine a more symbolic juxtaposition of two completely different visions of Poland.

    [John Paul II’s first pilgrimage to communist Poland in June 1979 inspired millions of Poles and is widely regarded as a turning point in the country's peaceful struggle against communist rule].

“Poland Will Become a Semi-Colony…”

Quoting communist deputy Adolf Warski, Owsianko writes:

“In his parliamentary speeches, Warski warned of the danger to Poland’s independence posed by the capitalist world... He compared Poland to a great auction hall... You are turning Poland into a colony or semi-colony of foreign capital.”

How astonishingly ironic those words sound today.

After the Second World War, Poland did indeed lose its sovereignty and became a dependent state—but not of Western capitalism. It became politically, economically, and militarily subordinate to the Soviet Union. The very people who denounced foreign domination eventually became the architects of Soviet domination in Poland--and traitors. Bronisław Owsianko belonged squarely to that group.

“Communists Know Everything”

Another passage genuinely made me smile. Owsianko recounts a debate involving deputy Jerzy Czeszejko-Sochacki:

“During a parliamentary debate on the budget of the Ministry of Agrarian Reform, someone from the right shouted: ‘What do you know about agriculture?’ Sochacki immediately replied: ‘Communists know everything concerning workers and peasants.’”

That sentence instantly reminded me of books describing Communist China during the Cultural Revolution. Workers were often quoted as saying that whenever they encountered a difficult problem, they simply opened Mao Zedong’s Little Red Book, read a few appropriate quotations, and somehow achieved what had previously seemed impossible.

Reality, however, was far more brutal. In the Soviet Union, forced collectivization led to the deaths of millions of peasants through famine and devastated rural life on an unimaginable scale. Against that historical background, the claim that “communists know everything concerning peasants” sounds less like political confidence and more like exceptionally dark irony. Looking back at life throughout the Soviet bloc, it is hard to imagine a better parody of communist propaganda.

A Photograph That Tells a Tragic Story

Owsianko’s article includes a group photograph of the Communist Parliamentary Fraction, taken on December 18, 1924. It shows ten people—nine deputies and one associate.

A brief online search, supported by Wikipedia and historical studies, allowed me to trace their later fates. The results were chilling:

✝ ☭ Six were sentenced to death in the Soviet Union and executed (Łańcucki, Paszczuk, Bej, Królikowski, Prystupa; Wojtiuk was sentenced to 10 years of labour camp in 1933, was tried again in 1937, sentenced to death and executed).

✝ ☭ One committed suicide during Stalin’s purges (Jerzy Czeszejko-Sochacki jumped out of the window of a Moscow prison, leaving a letter with the following content: "I remain faithful to the Party until the end.")

☭ Two individuals spent ten years in Siberian labour camps. One (Erlich) died less than a year after being released in 1945 and the other one (Minkowski) was released in 1946 and died in 1971.

👍 Only Józef Skrzypa (Osyp Skrypa) avoided persecutions and/or death sentence for a very prosaic reason: he fell ill and died in 1929.

✝ ☭ As I mentioned earlier, Adolf Warski also received his own “Stalinist reward” when he was executed in 1937.

It is difficult to avoid the bitter conclusion that the revolution proved most merciless toward its own believers.

How Owsianko Ends His Article

Owsianko concludes with these words:

“Great were the achievements of the messengers of the Polish revolutionary proletariat and the Communist Party of Poland... Through the difficult years of class struggle, from 1920 to 1935, they remained steadfast and fearless in serving the working masses, and their activity forms part of the historic legacy of the class from which they came.”

I must admit that I hardly know how to comment on this.

Nowhere does Owsianko mention what became of most of the very people he praises. He completely ignores the fact that they left Poland for their promised socialist homeland—the Soviet Union—only to be physically annihilated by the same regime they had served so loyally. To me, this is one of the clearest examples of the selective memory with which communist Poland presented its own history.

Even more striking is the fact that Owsianko himself remained faithful to that ideology until the end of his life. After the war, he did not merely support the Soviet system—he actively helped implement it within the Polish Army, contributing to the transformation of Poland into one of Moscow’s satellite states.

In my eyes, Owsianko appears to have been an extremely devious person, willing to completely distort history and conceal the crimes and murders committed by the Soviet Union in the name of communist ideology. He was also a traitor to Poland almost from the moment it regained its independence — as a soldier in the Polish Army, he cooperated with Soviet military intelligence and later completely subordinated his life to the Soviet Union and communist ideology.

My Own Hypothesis About the Plaque at 89 Żelazna Street

Finally, let me offer a personal hypothesis.

In the main article, I wonder who initiated the installation of the commemorative plaque on 89 Żelazna Street in 1978. My strongest suspicion is that it was Bronisław Owsianko himself, then 78 years old.

After all, he was one of the very few surviving people who not only knew the history of that apartment intimately but had personally taken part in the events commemorated there. He had survived Stalin’s purges, the Second World War, and remained a devoted communist while maintaining connections with many influential Party officials.

Most likely he attended the unveiling ceremony, perhaps surrounded by a small group of elderly comrades who had lived long enough to see the Poland they had fought for become reality. Sometimes I imagine him returning to that building years later, pausing beside the somewhat awkwardly placed plaque and remembering the comrades whom history had long since consumed.

And who knows... perhaps, as a boy running on the school playground, walking along Żelazna and Ogrodowa Streets—or patiently waiting beneath that very plaque for a bus to take me to high school between 1977 and 1981—I passed him without ever realizing who he was.

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PART FOUR

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In the next installment:

• Murder of 41 Jews at Żelazna Street 89
• The "well courtyards" of pre-war Warsaw apartment buildings
• The execution of 500 Poles at Żelazna Street 87
• A pre-war building at the corner of Żelazna and Ogrodowa Streets
• Żelazna Street 91: a historical plaque commemorating Karol Kurpiński and a 1941 photograph of a dead Jewish man
• Construction schools on Młynarska Street
• The construction of the office building at Żelazna Street 87—and my impressions of the construction trade as seen through the eyes of a teenager.

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Blogi są również dostępne w języku polskim/blogs are also available in the Polish language

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More from the author

This entry is part of a broader collection of personal research and historical documentation across multiple blogs:

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