Description
Object description
Polish civilian in Grodno, Poland, 9/1939-4/1940; deportee in Soviet Union, 4/1940-6/1941; trained as wireless operator with Polish Section, Special Operations Executive in GB, 9/1942-9/1943; officer served as wireless operator with Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) in Poland, 9/1943-11/1944; imprisoned in Poland and Soviet Union, 11/1944-12/1945; escaped from Poland to GB, 1946
Content description
REEL 1 Background in Grodno, Poland, 1920-1939: father's restaurant business; education; relations between Poles and Jews. Aspects of period as civilian in Grodno, Poland, 1939-1940: reaction to first days of Second World War including local resistance to Soviet Army and defence of Grodno, 9/1939; abortive attempt to flee to Lithuania by bicycle; arrest of brother, early 1940; elections organised by occupying Soviet forces; impressions of Soviet Army. Aspects of period as deportee in Soviet Union, 4/1940-6/1941: transfer to collective farm near Petropavlovsk, Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic; nature of work on collective farm; conditions for workers; story of removal of Pole for criticising Josef Stalin; work on construction of Akmolinsk-Karaganda Railway, Kazakhstan, 1941.
REEL 2 Continues: news of German attack on Soviet Union, 22/6/1941; attempt to find Polish Army in Soviet Union; escape from Soviet Union and making way from Iran to GB via Palestine. Aspects of training as wireless operator with Polish Section, Special Operations Executive in GB, 9/1942-9/1943: recruitment, 9/1942; other personnel recruited by Special Operations Executive to work underground in Poland; cover name and story. Recollections of operations as officer with Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) in Poland, 9/1943-11/1944: parachuting drop and reception at Wiszkow, 14/9/1943-15/9/1943; nature of contact; meeting General Tadeusz Bor-Komarowski in Warsaw; change of codenames and identities after Gestapo arrests; allocation to work in Lublin area.
REEL 3 Continues: billeting near Majdanek Concentration Camp; local knowledge of atrocities in camp; sight of camp inmates; signals communication role within Lublin area relayed via Stanmore, GB; attachment to Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) group as signals officer in Lublin; requesting and receiving partisan military support for wireless operation role; method of operation with 9th Podlasie Infantry Div of Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) group; luring German troops into ambush at Wygoda, 30/4/1944; arrival of Soviet Army troops in Lublin area, 7/1944; conduct of troops; comparison between German and Soviet Army.
REEL 4 Continues: arrest of Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) personnel by Soviets; contact with Soviet Army in Lublin area; disintegration of Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) group. Recollections of arrest and imprisonment in Poland and Soviet Union, 11/1944-12/1945: arrest by Soviet People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD), 22/11/1944; imprisonment and interrogation in Lublin, Poland; reaction under interrogation; his sentencing to death for membership of Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa), 17/2/1945; writing to President of the State National Council, Boleslaw Bierut requesting pardon; plan of escape; learning of prison guard's membership of underground movement; guard's visits to his wife Lucyna.
REEL 5 Continues: escape plan; story of being left behind in escape from death cells at Lublin Castle Prison, Poland, 19/2/1945; commutation of death sentence; transfer to Wronki Prison, Poland then to Lubyanka Prison, Moscow in Soviet Union, 4/1945; method of interrogation in Lubyanka Prison.
REEL 6 Continues: handling of prisoners at Lubyanka Prison; character of interrogation; trial, 7/1945; reasons for not being called as witness at trial of former Chief of Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) Leopold Okulicki; transfer to Butyrka Prison, Moscow, Soviet Union, 7/1945; removal to Mokotow Prison in Warsaw, Poland, 7/1945; return to Wronki Prison, Poland; story of wife Lucyna arranging reduction of sentence and final release, 27/12/1945. Aspects of escape from Poland to GB, 1946: re-entering Polish underground movement.
REEL 7 Continues: story of being hunted with wife by Polish Communist authorities, 1946; plan to escape to Sweden from Gdansk; plan to escape to Western Germany via Czechoslovakia; reporting to remnants of Polish Section, Special Operations Executive in GB, 1946.