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Polish soldier stories [50]
Kazimierz Tkacz : A Polish resistance fighter
PART 2Kazimierz Tkacz found himself in a hospital in Cracow where the staff was Polish and German. He thought to himself that this was a good situation, although the hospital was guarded by German sentries and the wounded Polish soldiers were still treated as prisoners of war. However, he began to think that when he had improved a bit and could move around on his own, he might manage to escape. This is how he recalls it:
The doctors and nurses in the hospital were mixed – Germans and Poles. Amongst the Polish nurses were some nuns, I no longer remember from which order. It was then that I thought that only they could help me escape. One day a number of doctors arrived and examined me, then I was brought a form filled out in German. I still have it. It contained a description of my wounds and a statement by a board that I had lost 75% of my health, in other words I was a war invalid. On the one hand, I was glad, on the other I kept wondering how to get away. One day when I was alone for a moment with a nursing sister I told her that I wanted to escape from this hospital, and could she help me by bringing some civilian clothes. I would change and walk out lost in the crowd of civilian hospital employees. So it came to pass. This nun also put a little money in my pocket. I immediately went to the railway station and took a train to Kielce. There I changed for Częstochowa, from where it was but a short distance to my native Radomsko. When I got home, my family at first burst into tears at my dreadful appearance and then started hugging and kissing me. I told my mother: “Mummy, I’ve had that religious picture with me all the time and I’ve still got it.” I took it out of my pocket and showed it to her.
He stayed at home for a dozen or so days telling his family and friends about his path of thorns from the very first days of the war. One could certainly say that he had survived by a miracle. But what would have happened, had he remained in the Soviet zone of occupation? The local doctor in the county hospital looked at his fortunately healing scars. He prescribed some medicines, peace and good food. Many acquaintances visited Kazimierz at this time, including some of his school friends Stanisław Janiszewski and Witold Piwoński. It was they who told him that a secret armed organisation called the Union for Armed Struggle (ZWZ) had been formed in Radomsko. Tkacz was so interested in this that he decided to make immediate contact. This was not difficult, since the ZWZ organisers in the area were also friends of his: Marian Nitecki (a pre-war officer in the 1st Regiment of Light Horse), Stanisław Sojczyński (before the war a teacher in the village of Rzejowice and then just before the war a school head in Bór Zajaciński near Częstochowa and a reserve officer in the 27th Infantry Regiment in Częstochowa.
They had a meeting in mid-1940. He was sworn in by Lieutenant Marian Nitecki ‘Pikador’ ] and Lieutenant Stanisław Sojczyński ‘Zbigniew’ (later ‘Warszyc’). Kazimierz Tkacz took the nom de guerre ‘Hardy’ (later ‘Karol’). Although he wanted to be active, he was told to let his wounds from September 1940 heal. At the beginning of 1941, Kazimierz Tkacz started recruiting proven people to the organisation. Weapons were stored and secured, and young people who had not yet ‘smelled gunpowder’ were trained. A sector, the equivalent of a county, was formed in Radomsko, with sub-sectors the equivalents of local districts, and outposts in the largest villages or forester’s lodges. The first underground organisation was formed: radio monitoring.
Meanwhile Nazi terror was growing and there were numerous arrests and even public executions. ‘Hardy’s’ hands were itching to avenge this human and material damage with a pistol. In 1942 he uncovers some agents, in other words Gestapo and field police informers. There was not long to wait before the sentences on these traitors were carried out. Various acts of sabotage were also organised. In 1943, in revenge for arrests and executions, an ambush was set up for the head of the German field police in Pławno, the infamous persecutor of Poles Schwarzmajer. The sentence was carried out on the main road between Radomsko and Pławno. ‘Hardy’ and some of his friends took part in this operation. In the attack on the head of the Gestapo Willy Berger and his deputy Johan Wagner the sentence was carried out by Second Lieutenant ‘Robotnik’ (Bronisław Skoczyński) and Officer Cadet ‘Staw’ (Zygmunt Czerwiński). Kazimierz Tkacz, that is ‘Hardy’, covered the operation and organised the withdrawal after the sentence had been carried out.
When in August 1943, on the basis of a tip-off, the Germans carried out a round-up in the village of Rzejowice, called by them Banditendorff and burned some homesteads and arrested several dozen peasants and Home Army members, the Kedyw commander ‘Zbigniew’ (Stanisław Sojczyński) immediately decided to rescue the prisoners. Therefore, he rounded up 105 partisans and 50 wagons to carry the partisans and the rescued prisoners. He split the partisans into 5 groups, of which 4 were to cover the German barracks and posts, while one was to make the direct attack on the prison. Second Lieutenant ‘Robotnik’ (Bronisław Skoczyński) commanded the assault team, while his 2 i/c, Officer Cadet ‘Hardy’, was entrusted with leading the team through the streets of Radomsko and the actual assault on the prison. ‘Hardy’ daringly overcomes every obstacle and, after they have blown up the gates, the partisans are inside. They then overpower the prison guards, open specific cells and release the prisoners. The Germans raise the alarm, but the covering detachments pin them down with machine-gun bursts. The prisoners are loaded onto the wagons and there follows an evacuation which is covered by ‘Hardy’. Altogether 56 prisoners were freed, including 46 Home army men and 11 Jews. The partisans suffered no casualties. A few days later the BBC in London carried a report on this daring large-scale operation. For the operation the commander, Lieutenant ‘Zbigniew’ (Stanisław Sojczyński), received the Virtuti Militari, while Second Lieutenants ‘Robotnik’ and ‘Postrach’ and Office Cadet ‘Hardy’ received the Cross of Valour.
In mid-1944 a re-organisation of the Home Army structure takes place. Two Home Army regiments, the 27th and the 74th, are formed in the Radomsko, Częstochowa and Włoszczowa sectors. Each had two battalions and each battalion had between 2 and 4 companies and so on. Kazimierz Tkacz, after completing Home Army officer training school, is promoted Second Lieutenant and becomes a platoon 2 i/c in the 74th Regiment. He takes part in a great many operations in the above-mentioned sectors.
When the march to relieve fighting Warsaw was ordered, the doctors checked the soldiers’ physical endurance ahead of such a long march of over 200 kilometres. Kazimierz Tkacz failed because he was not fully fit from his 1939 wounds. Despair followed; he could not imagine this march taking place without him, particularly after he had heard on the radio that the Germans had been murdering not only insurgents, but the civilian population. Eventually, after an intervention by Second Lieutenant ‘Robotnik’, Kazimierz Tkacz is allowed to take part in this difficult and dangerous march. When they reached the Kielce ‘Jodła’ Corps’ assembly-point in the area of Przysucha on the 26th of August 1944, they learned that the relief march had been called off by district HQ, for the Rising was dying down. Kazimierz Tkacz ‘Karol’ took this badly. He decided to avenge the damage inflicted on the inhabitants of Warsaw and take an active part in so-called Operation ‘Tempest’ in his own area.
He took part in a number of operations, including blowing up German trains on the Warsaw-Częstochowa and Częstochowa-Kielce lines. The high point of his struggle with the Occupier was the five-day battle in the Włoszczowa forests between the 25th and the 30th of October 1944 where the ‘Las’ battalion, supported by ‘Wojna’ battalion, including a company from the Peasant Battalions, forming the 74th Home Army Regiment moved from the defence to counter-attack causing the Germans considerable losses of men and materiel. Amongst other things, they took 99 prisoners, three wagons of arms and ammunition and an 81 mm mortar. Second Lieutenant ‘Karol’ received a bar to his Cross of Valour for his conduct in this action.
The winter of 1944/45 was approaching and many of the detachments were stood down for the duration of it. There remained a so-called skeleton detachment, which in the spring was to reconstitute the previous armed underground formations. Second Lieutenant ‘Karol’ (Kazimierz Tkacz) continued to be active and on the 3rd of January was present at the meeting with General ‘Niedźwiadek’ (Leopold Okulicki) the Home Army Commander-in-Chief which took place in the Zacisze forester’s lodge near Radomsko. Then, on the recommendation of the CO of the ‘Jodła’ District, Colonel ‘Mieczysław’ (Jan Zientarski), the general gave him his commission. He also decorated Kazimierz Tkacz and several other officers with the Virtuti Militari.
When the Soviets arrived in the area and Lieutenant ‘Robotnik’ and his 2 i/c were unaware of the Home Army Commander-in-Chief’s order disbanding the Home Army, they came across a retreating German unit in the forest. A firefight began and Lieutenant ‘Robotnik’ came within an inch of being killed, but beside him he had his reliable friend and first-rate riflemen Second Lieutenant ‘Karol’, who decimated the Germans with his automatic pistol.
The time came to come out into the open, for there was a threat of arrest by the NKVD and the UB. Despite being urged by ‘Robotnik’ to come into the open, ‘Karol’ decided to fight on, making contact with Lieutenant ‘Warszyc’ (Stanisław Sojczyński) who was forming a new armed partisan organisation called the Underground Polish Army (KWP).
It was at this time that ‘Karol’ learned of his mother’s death. He decided that he had to bid her farewell. His friends warned him not to do so assuming that the NKVD and the UB would take this opportunity to ambush him. To this ‘Karol’ said: “I must see my dead mother, even if it means my death.”
He loaded two Colt 12 pistols and headed home. He went inside and knelt down by his deceased mother, said a prayer and placed the picture of Our Lady of Częstochowa in her hands, then he kissed her forehead and left the house. There he saw men from the NKVD and the UB standing with weapons pointed at him. At the shout of “Hands up” in Russian ‘Karol’ slowly began to raise his hands. Then they lowered their barrels, confident that that they had in their hands a ‘bandit – a dwarf of reactionary filth’. In a fraction of a second, ‘Karol’s’ hands are inching inside his jacket. He shoots at them a gun in each hand, like a cowboy. The surprised attackers raise their weapons, but ‘Karol’ makes a lightning dart to the side behind one fence, then another. They shoot at him, but miss.
Recalling this incident, Kazimierz Tkacz says: “This symbol of our faith, the picture of Our Lady of Częstochowa, must have saved my life again. I resolved to continue hiding in the forests, for there was nothing else I could do. Once with my boys from the forests I ambushed a train with Soviets who were transporting requisitioned cattle from Germany. We stopped the train with bursts of automatic weapons fire. The Soviet soldiers surrendered. We told them that ‘We are free Polish soldiers and that we will not shoot at men surrendering, but we shall hold you until all the cows have been unloaded.’ We immediately informed all the neighbouring villages so that the peasants could take the cows. Some of the cows were not claimed and for some time wandered around the forest like deer, but were later caught by the peasants.”
Kazimierz Tkacz continued to be active, taking part in actions against the NKVD and the UB. He even wanted to mount a raid by a larger KWP detachment to rescue from prison in £ódź Captain ‘Warszyc’, who had been treacherously arrested in Częstochowa, but his friends, especially Lieutenant ‘Robotnik’, restrained him, for there would have bloodshed and loss of life, and it was unclear whether they could rescue ‘Warszyc’.
‘Karol’ continued to stay in hiding. He did not respond to announced successive amnesties to give himself up. He survived until the so-called ‘thaw’ and then came into the open. A UB officer told him: “You were lucky, for we made sweeps for you several times, but you always managed to get away.”
When, many years later, Kazimierz Tkacz applied for a war disability pension, the board turned him down. At that time former Home Army men were not normally granted disability rights. Eventually after further attempts, a board as a favour recognised a 30% loss of health. At that Kazimierz Tkacz produced the document from the German Military Medical Board of 1939 declaring a 75% loss of health, thus shaming his ‘fellow countrymen’ on the biased board, which at that time was awarding disability pensions to others for no real reason.
Starting in 1990 Kazimierz Tkacz nearly always took part in veterans’ events commemorating the battles of Home Army soldiers. He usually served as an altar boy or read the lesson in army uniform. He has been depicted in many books on the history of Home Army operations in that area. After successive promotions, he reached the rank of colonel in the Polish Army. He was also president of the Radomsko branch of the World Association of Home Army Soldiers working actively to erect monuments and memorial plaques and providing assistance for the poorest and sick comrades. He was well liked and valued not only in his circle. His last public appearance was the presentation of the 27th Home Army Regiment’s colours to the Knights’ Hall at Jasna Góra. This is what he said just before his own ‘final parade: “I tried to be faithful to my God and Country. God now is summoning me and maybe he will forgive me for my mistakes.”
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