European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

It was October, but the Germans cared about their soldiers, they dressed them well.

And this guard would mostly walk from Dobra street in the direction of the city, then to the right and back.

I was supposed to walk on the opposite side of the street, seeing his white coat.

They told me to smoke a cigarette and, watching the spark from my cigarette, they knew where I was and thus were the guard was.

Depending how far away he moved, they were able to plant the firebombs, usually between the wheel and the mudguard.

Rubber is flammable. If this catches fire, then there’s no stopping it.

I used to go to school at Powiśle, in Sewerynów street and I had this friend there who lived at 3, Trzeciego Maja Alley,

that’s right opposite the place where those German trucks were stationed.

And this friend, Jurek Suchanek from the scout troops and my classmate, told me:

‘You’re not gonna believe this: last night there was a huge affair in our street!

They were shooting around at midnight, there was a huge fire under the bridge!

Some saboteurs burned the trucks! The Germans were shooting! The whole commotion! The ambulance sirens!’

And I asked: ‘Well, did they catch those guys?’

‘No, I guess not! Anyways, they got really mad because 12 or 13 trucks got burnt.’

Tadeusz joins the scouts, later the resistance army

In my school, the head teacher was an aunt of this boy who went to the Staszic school,

there was this very good 16th Zawisza Czarny Warsaw Scout Team.

Soon after that, the instructors from this team told our head teacher

that they wanted to recruit some people in our school.