She was only 16 when World War II broke out. She quickly became one of the most outstanding agents of the Home Army intelligence service. What was the beginning of Halina Szwarc's activity like?
- What the f * ck, you don't know the risk, we almost lost it! She is too young and too valuable - one of the officers is furious. - Who ordered her to lead this Jew to the General Government?
"I," says the short AK, "how was I supposed to know ..." "On foot?
- This was the task at hand.
- For her?
- But she did not want to sign the volkslist, she asked, begged for a different, even more risky mission. Colonel Zygmunt Janke, head of the Łódź ZWZ District, opens his eyes wide with amazement.
- What does "she did not want" mean? After all, it's not a choice! This is war. And the order.
Young Agent
While writing her notebook, she wonders:what was she doing all this interview for? Perhaps it was the pre-war patriotic agitation that decided:
Today I realize how much hype was in our representation and propaganda. We, the Polish youth, were to some extent the sum of the principles instilled in us.
Or is it because of a conflict with my parents?
My father [...] condemned my youthful enthusiasm, ignoring material values, and the property he tried to accumulate with such effort and consistency. With my mother always worried, dissatisfied with my life, I did not find common topics [...]. Consequently, the house seemed almost alien to me. And maybe that's why I found that I have to go my own way.
Or maybe the Germans asked themselves?
I recognized the enemy immediately in all his race, barbarism:murdering civilians, killing on the escaping roads [...]. It all hit me like a bludgeon. I didn't know any Germans until September 1939.
The article is an excerpt from the book Igły. Polish agents who changed history Znak Horyzont publishing house
It could also be therapy:
As proof of how great changes took place in me, in my psyche at the beginning of the war, I will quote one fact:namely I started to avoid music [which I loved before]. When I was walking down the street and I heard the sounds of playing the piano, I had very unpleasant feelings, I wanted to escape from myself and the world. Today I would describe my state of depression at that time. Maybe the conspiracy made me feel better.
The depressive state will pass when he hears from one of his friends:"Na Julianowska, third house from the left." (In 1939, when it was all just crawling, she was not canceled by a blunder she was about to commit). He will go, knock. Password? What password? She will simply say, loud enough to be heard through the closed door:"Hello, I would like to join the underground!".
An exemplary student in Łódź
Another order for an 18-year-old agent without training:leave Łódź. Let this BDM member applying for the Volkslist disappear from the eyes of friends and neighbors. Despising, understanding, compassionate, guessing true motives, whatever. He leaves for Kalisz - the westernmost city of the Warta Region. Is admitted to one of the high schools under a condition. In the class - only members of the Blue Volkslist. They look sidelong at Halina, prefer not to talk. You know what genes toto has, what origin? He's scared, so he sleeps for three or four hours. The rest of the time - in the books. Day after day, for weeks. It will pay off. One day the classroom door opens.
- A visit from the board of trustees - one of the teachers announces two gentlemen, but the black uniforms and skulls on the caps make it possible to suspect any reason for the visit.
- We want to check the progress in your school by new citizens of the Third Reich. What is the lesson on? The lesson is devoted to Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, a German enlightenment playwright.
Halina during the underground work in Kalisz, 1941.
- Who will tell us about the great compatriot? - Hans Ziepult, the headmaster of the lesson, asks with forced enthusiasm. No one. Silence. Increasingly longer. Ziepult pales. Halina has a better chance than ever. He reports himself, gets up and sprays with information like from a sleeve:Lessing's political thought, the most important dramas, the position of theater director in Hamburg, a move to Leipzig and, of course, a deeply hidden love for the Germanic race (as in Beethoven, Schiller, Goethe). Everything. The SS visit was impressed.
"I have something else for you, Halinka," says director Ziepult and gives her an autographed book at the end of the semester. As a reward. In gratitude for saving the skin. Halina opens an elegant copy of Mein Kampf , reads smoothly: Als Auszeichnung im Auftrage des Herrn Reichsministers für Wissenschaft, Erziehung und Volksbildung für besondere Leistungen überreicht. Kalisch, am 52 Gebursttage des Führers (Awarded as a decoration at the request of the Reich Minister of Science.
Activities in Kalisz
Another order for Halina was to leave Łódź - she goes to high school for Volksdeutsche in Kalisz.
- And I have something else for you, miss. Because I know that the committee considered Halinka's application. And we managed to put Halinka on the volkslist of the first category. One! The best list! Without proven origin and pre-war Germanness. "The good director of the Home Army's intelligence service has served," thinks Halina and kisses Ziepult on the cheek with genuine joy.
A year later, she is the only one in her class to pass high school diploma with honors. These two years at the Kalisz school are a great leap in its espionage development. He is on the list, he has knowledge, knows the language (and uses it without a trace of accent). He becomes one of the most valuable spies of the Home Army in the Reich.
A village teacher
"If only you would use it well, not waste it, but also not drown it, throwing it into too deep water," thinks Colonel Zygmunt Janke. And she decides to raise the bar for Halina, depending on her age and skills:she will take the position of a teacher in a rural elementary school in the village of Piwonice near Kalina. It was a former primary school, now children of Germans repatriated to the Warta from the eastern territories study there. Intelligence found out that the seven-year-old son of Obersturmbannführer Ben Vigra was also attending.
Lieutenant Colonel Vigro is the master of this land. Direct manager. He decides about the deportation of every Pole, admitting the repatriates, and signs orders for the deportation of Jews from Kalisz to the Łódź ghetto. A busy clerk. He rides a lot and likes to personally check how his orders are being carried out.
In mid-1941, Halina knocks on the door of the villa where Vigro lives. Son's teacher? Great. Is the school building being renovated? Was she accommodated in a small dingy Polish cottage? The lieutenant colonel invites you for coffee. He would pick up the coat from the lady, as if casually checking the documents. After five minutes, he will be infatuated. After an hour, she will offer Halinka an apartment in one of the rooms on the villa's floor. A few days later, he would examine her documents carefully. He will see an outstanding high school diploma and an entry on the blue volkslist.
He will be proud of the decision made. In two years, dismissed by Halina's case, seized by a Gestapo officer, will swear by the Führer that he did not even guess. Because and where from. He trusts this tiny blonde without reservation. So much so that when he goes out into the field, he does not close his office. In monthly reports, Halina describes everything she sees, every word she finds in the documents left on the desk by one of the most important German dignitaries in the East. Nothing is.
A plaque commemorating Halina Szwarc on the front wall of the CMKP headquarters at ul. Marymoncka 99/103 in Warsaw
He sits at a large mahogany desk where decisions about life and death are made, barely reaching the floor with his feet, writing reports for Polish intelligence. Later, she puts the documents back where she found them, making sure that every lint, every scrap of paper was where she found them. A divorced Vigro is fond of a young German teacher. A luxurious room, small gifts, shared meals, walks. However, it does not go any further. Prussian kindersztuba.
In the enemy's house
- We will have guests - Vigro asks excitedly to Halina. It is the beginning of 1942, the German army is fighting near Moscow, which Hitler then treats as one of the most important goals of the Russian campaign.
The villa in Kalina, in which Halina lives, is situated a few hundred meters from the railway tracks, on the main Berlin-Smolensk bus. Shipments of weapons and troops continue to the east day and night. You cannot hear the clatter of the wheels only for an hour and a half a day. The entire future administration is also going to Moscow to wait for the city to collapse just behind the front lines. The mayor, his deputy, officials responsible for displacement, politics towards Jews, finance, and cultural affairs. The entire Moscow shadow administration will eat dinner at Ben Vigra, a friend of the future mayor of the Russian capital. For many of the distinguished guests now coming down to the dining room, this is the last such gourmet meal this year ...
They do not even consider the scenario for a moment that some of them will return to Berlin disappointed, and some will die. Exactly in a year, on a lap, when it turns out that the assumption of high positions in Stalingrad also strands. Now they eat, joke, pour wine, show with appreciation the window from where the constant clatter of railway wheels is coming from. Invited to dinner, Halina smiles at the right moments, remembers names and future functions. "But what for Polish intelligence?" - thinks. "What are the English people working with us for? Why do they know which official the German army is sending to a nearly conquered Russia? ”
The article is an excerpt from the book Igły. Polish agents who changed history Znak Horyzont publishing house
- I'll add your wine - announces the future mayor of Moscow. - Because I wanted to make a toast. Collective toast. I am asking you to raise your glasses:for the victory, the Fuhrer, our soldiers and German Russia! Halina picks up the glass to her lips and swallows. I feel very lonely.
At the end of the school year, she is canceled by the Germans in connection with the obligatory Kartoffelferien (break for digging and harvesting potatoes). This is a good time for intelligence to withdraw her from Vigra. Another mission, even more serious, awaits her. An agent shouldn't stay in one place for too long. In the underground establishment in Łódź, he learns little:he will go to Vienna, find a place to live, take the package (full of newspapers and leaflets) - a colleague from the branch places a suitcase-sized package in front of Halina - and sends it to as many German families as possible. End. How she will do it, where she will live, how she will conspire - that is her concern.
The article is an excerpt from the book Needles. Polish agents who changed the history of Znak Horyzont