European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

But after this time we went to another place, a bad one, because it was close to a road.

It ended sadly, because the Germans attacked. It was too close to the road and these people died.

Yet we luckily were left unharmed. Nobody attacked us.

Contrary, in the Mechlin village, where we stayed for almost a month,

they organized a sweep operation, attacking us with all the forces of Kalmucks, those Vlasov followers from the RONA.

You know, these Soviet troops which were taken prisoner by the Germans and then incorporated in the German army.

The Germans mainly used them to liquidate the guerrillas, the Warsaw Uprising

and these people showed incredible cruelty. These were savage people.

They attacked the Stefanów village, where the 25th regiment was stationed,

nearby there was the village of Gałki, where the 72nd Regiment was, smaller, around 500 people.

So both these regiments fought a whole day battle with the Germans,

Defeat in Okecie

In 1943, I got into the Home Army.

So, unfortunately, I wasn’t fighting with my friends from scout times in the Warsaw Uprising,

because I was already a Home Army soldier, stationed at the 7th Infantry regiment called ‘Garłuch’ at Okęcie.

It turns out that the commander of the regiment, major ‘Wysocki’,

it was his pseudonym, his real name was Babiarz,

found out that the Germans had fortified the airport strongly.

They had collected a huge load of arms, machine guns and so on.

The Home Army had very few weapons, actually none.