European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

Tadeusz’s first serious action

The head was this socialist poet, Mr ‘Hagen’ was his pseudonym.

We called him ‘Robert’.

I guess he was the commander of the group.  
So he praised me a lot and asked if I wanted to go for a real sabotage job.

I, naturally, said yes.

‘Then please wait for further orders.

Later I asked my brother Jerzy what kind of action it was supposed to be.

He replied, that the Germans kept police cars and other military trucks under the bridge.

And we were supposed to set them on fire.

My brother says: ‘Listen, we’ve got this unpleasant situation, I have this present for you.

In case they catch you and beat the hell out of you, or they massacre you too much so you can’t stand it anymore,

then here is this vial, a small glass bottle…’ – it looked like an injection vial – ‘…just bite it.’

I tell him: ‘Don’t be silly, I’ll get cuts.’

My task, as they later told me, was to walk along the pavement in the same way

as the watch guard did guarding those trucks.

He was quite visible wearing a white coat.

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.