Today is the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. I had the chance to meet 1 of the heroes of those events.
The forgotten man, Colonel of the Polish Army, a hero saving Jews during the period of German savagery, activist of Grunwald and self-defense of Andrzej Lepper. We met in Bielsko-Biala, the colonel urged us to join Self-defense.
Tadeusz Bednarczyk nicknamed “Bednarz”, “Tadeusz” (1913-2002) In 1936, he graduated from the School of Economics and was called into the army. He was directed to a divisional school of infantry men at the 13th Infantry Regiment in Pułtusek. During the German occupation, he was a soldier of the Military Organization and then the National Army. He worked in the Warsaw Ghetto until the outbreak as a typical of the taxation Office, while serving as coordinator of the safety Corps and the AK to assist the emerging underground judaic military troops. Through it, the safety Corps donated weapons to the judaic Military Union.
In 1940 he became head of the Departments for National Minorities and Aid to Jews at the office of the Military Organization. He was the initiator of extracting Jews from the ghetto. He besides had a individual part in the establishment of the judaic Military Union.
People's Poland considered its homeland. He supported the fresh power. He became head of the Public safety Ministry sanatorium in Kudowo-Zdrój. He was the quartermaster of the Central Department infirmary III and then headed sanatoriums and vacation homes in Zatrzebi, Bierutowice and Kudów-Zdrój. In 1946 he was disciplinaryly released for besides harsh treatment of forced workers – Germans. He was the organizer and curator of the General Władysław Sikorski Museum in Warsaw. In the 1970s, he became active in the activities of the Union of Fighters for Freedom and Democracy. He published in “Reality” and “Flames”. He was 1 of the founders of the Patriotic Union "Grunwald". After 1991, he became active with Andrzej Lepper and the self-defense covenant party. He was a associate of the War Victims Association (Janosha). He was a co-editor and publicist of the “Country Weekly”.
Author of memoirs concerning the Warsaw Ghetto. Bitter memories and powerfully different from the authoritative narrative: “Fight and help. OW-KB and the organization of the opposition in the Warsaw Ghetto”, "The work stronger than death: memories from 1939-1944 about Polish aid to Jews in Warsaw" or "The everyday life of the Warsaw ghetto".
He did not have easy – Marek Edelman and the people around him concentrated, questioned not only his actions in the ghetto area, but mostly the armed action of the judaic Military Union (ZZW) This was most likely due to Bednarczyk's very critical attitude towards the actions of many Jews in People's Poland. Today, it changes a little, and historians are starting to compose about the activities of HSC. The courage to defend Bednarczyk is sadly lacking.
Bednarz recalled: “Getto had its own autonomy, its management, and its judaic police, which rapidly gained highly bad fame. The moving “for business” was very impressive, behind a penny, behind basic food items. There was a immense number of beggars. These resettled Jews in the ghetto from Podwarszawski, who were allowed to take only what they could get in the hand – and they were the fastest to stay destitute. They were starving on the street. In the Warsaw ghetto they murdered with hunger. In the evening, the dead were lying on the street in their clothes, and in the morning they were naked, covered in papers or newspapers. Clothes were torn secretly at night, for sale, or simply for rags. The corpses collected discovered wagons from Pinkert's ceremony home and Goose Street were transported to the cemetery all morning” (...) The most exclusive was the Palaise de Dance at Lesser Street owned by the Front brothers. I see it like today: shining parquet floor, the perfect Rubinstein Lop orchestra, the moody half-dark, dimmed lights, tables. On the tables, authentic cognacs and French champagne. On antresola lodges and cabinets already for circumstantial bodily pleasures. It was all meant for the wealthy, those who here in the ghetto made money for poorness and smuggling.”
Łukasz Marcin Jastrzębski
