European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

The Germans wanted to get rid of the guerrillas and sent these Kalmuck troops to our forest.

On 5 November we were staying at the village of Boków

and on the 4th the 25th Regiment had a fight in Boków.

A lot of people died there. Both ours and Germans.

Becoming a partisan; battle against Germans

We got into the Chojnów forests and joined the guerrilla unit ‘Lance’.

A squad that came from the Zamość region.

Pretty well armed. We started our guerrilla life there.

Together with ‘Lance’ we crossed the Pilica river.

Because I could ride, and somebody from the horse patrol had just died,

they put me on a horse and I liked it there.

You know, for a 15 year old boy who suddenly found himself in a guerrilla squad and was given a horse, it was real fun.

Of course, it did not soothe my pain not to be in the Uprising.

After all my sisters were there, my mother stayed in Warsaw too, and my grandma as well.

And me, so far without an injury... nothing happened to me.

I’m in the guerrilla troop, moving away from Warsaw.

Having crossed the Pilica we reached a village, where a large guerrilla group was stationed in a forest,

around a thousand soldiers. The25th Piotrków Infantry Regiment.

‘Lanca’ decided to join this unit, because it was a small group.

Just around 150 people. The 25th Regiment was quite a big unit. It was a regiment, a thousand people.