European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

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

They gave us a warm welcome, they even gave us pay.

Yet the very first night ‘Lanca’ ordered to saddle up horses, pack the wagons and he retreated from the unit, God knows where.

In fact, he just took the pay and ran away.

The good thing was that our commander, lieutenant ‘Osuch’ was on friendly terms with the commander of the regiment in Włodzimierz,

and he supported us and the major accepted us in the regiment after all.

In this regiment we secured its position in the village of Mechlin. For almost a month.

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.