The train ran all night, with rare downtime. When the captives realized that the wagons were heading more or less to the northwest, they were overcome with excitement. "Are we really going to Poland?" Many of them thought.
Soon the train stopped. Forty-six-year-old Fr. Antoni Aleksandrowicz heard the whir of a car engine from behind the windowless wall of the wagon and quick steps. Nearby, someone suddenly shouted:
- They are unloading!
Normal transfer action?
Soon after, an NKVD officer entered Aleksandrowicz's compartment. He ordered to take his belongings and set out to leave.
When the priest stood in the door of the dark wagon, he noticed, squinting his eyes against the April sun, that the train was stuck some 200 meters in front of the station. It is not known whether the priest noticed the name Gniezdowo. He was surprised that there was no soul on the neglected platform.
Between the train and the platform there was a large square, partly covered with grass. On the left side it was separated by a forest road running perpendicular to the tracks. Next to it was a low rail fence. There were bushes and trees all around. There were many Soviet patrols and a few senior officers wandering around the square. Aleksandrowicz noted that almost everyone had attached bayonets to the weapon. "Why so much trouble for an ordinary transfer action?" He thought.
The article is an excerpt from the book Priests of Katyn , which has just been released on the market by Znak Horyzont Publishing House
By the road there was an ordinary - as you thought for a moment - a passenger bus. It looked normal, but the windows were smeared with lime. After a while, the vehicle drove up to the wagon and positioned itself through the rear door to the entrance. Aleksandrowicz was able to jump to the car shed straight from the step of the train. There were NKVD men on either side, weapons with those disturbing bayonets in their hands. Father Antoni managed to see another prison car with an NKVD colonel standing next to it, his hands in the pockets of his long military coat.
When about 30 prisoners were inside, the engine roared and the bus started towards the forest road. He soon disappeared behind the trees.
The story of Father Antoni Aleksandrowicz
Contrary to the fate of Fr. Ziółkowski, the story of Fr. Maj. Antoni Aleksandrowicz hides more secrets and white spots. However, it is equally tragic, although of course it is not appropriate to apply a mathematical grading of the level of "tragic" here. Compared to Ziółkowski, Aleksandrowicz spent very little time in Kozelsk:only the last few weeks of his life. However, he managed to learn in-depth about the fate of a prisoner on "inhuman land" .
Antoni was born on July 11, 1893 in Minsk Litewski (today the capital of Belarus) as the son of Leopold and Antonina née Tarajkowicz - to a Polish Catholic family. So, unlike most of the heroes of this book, he was not brought up in the countryside. In Minsk, he completed primary and secondary school. One should remember about the intense Russification, carried out at that time by the tsarist partitioning powers, which only slightly eased after the revolutionary turmoil of 1905.
After leaving the gymnasium in 1911, Antoni decided to follow the priestly path. It is not certain whether it was his own decision, or whether the plans and persuasions of the family played a role (as in the case of Father Ziółkowski). The further fate of Aleksandrowicz showed, however, that he must have discovered his true calling.
There was a choice of a place where it could be realized. Ultimately, Aleksandrowicz decided to attend the Roman Catholic Theological Seminary in distant St. Petersburg. Why exactly there? It is not known. The facility operated under the watchful eye of the Russian authorities. Only those who completed at least four years of classical gymnasium were allowed to study here. In addition, the candidates had to provide a baptism certificate, a testimony of the local authorities' cleanliness and integrity, a recommendation from a bishop, as well as a description from a local parish priest or catechist. Then you had to pass an entrance exam in the knowledge of catechism, the Bible, but also Russian and Latin as well as Russian history and geography.
Young people from the entire tsarist empire attracted to the seminar, mainly Poles, Lithuanians, Latvians, Belarusians, few Russians, and even exceptionally French and Germans. Young people from the Kaunas, Vilnius and Vitebsk Governorates dominated in numbers.
Antoni spent six years in St. Petersburg. Here he survived most of World War I, and was ordained a priest in 1917. Almost immediately he was sent as a catechist (with the official title of "prefect of schools") to Bobruisk - a city in today's central Belarus. A few months later, still as a catechist, he returned to his hometown of Minsk.
Father Major Antoni
Aleksandrowicz (in the top row
) with children
The times were turbulent:the war was just ending, Poland was born, it was necessary to fight and defend its borders. The young priest fell into the trap of a great history :in 1919 he joined the Polish Army as a volunteer and took part in the Polish-Bolshevik war as a military contract (and therefore temporary) chaplain.
He turned out so well that in August 1920 - at a time when the future of Polish statehood (and perhaps the future of Europe) was at stake on the front line along the Vistula - he was appointed a professional chaplain with the rank of captain. He performed this function with the 4th Polish Army. This army, formed only four months earlier, took part in the famous August maneuver of the Polish troops, which went down in history as the Miracle on the Vistula. and who launched the Polish counteroffensive to the east. Father Aleksandrowicz participated in the Battle of the Nemunas, and together with the 4th Army he conquered, among others, Grodno and Baranavichy. In October 1920, after the liberation of his native Minsk, a truce was announced, and a few months later, after the signing of the Polish-Soviet peace treaty in Riga, the 4th Polish Army was disbanded.
During this short time spent at the front, Fr. Antoni was well remembered by his superiors. In the service opinion prepared in December 1920 by Fr. Stanisław Gawła, dean of the ministry of the 4th Army, we read:
Open character, a lot of enthusiasm and initiative at work, priestly zeal, total dedication and dedication to work on the soldier. He often goes to the barracks and seeks personal contact with the soldiers. In private life, impeccable.
Aleksandrowicz was "sociable, polite, very easy and tactful in his way." He quickly gains the sympathy of his superiors and colleagues. He actively participates in organizing Polish society in the borderlands and brings his enthusiasm there ”. Only "less suited to office work."
In a word: energetic, enthusiastic, zealous priest, not caring too much about bureaucracy . These assessments were confirmed in quite original Polish by the commander of the 4th Army, General Leonard Skierski:
Chaplain Fr. Aleksandrowicz is a very positive and highly desirable type of educator chaplain, because both his private life and his impeccable conduct, as well as his passionate fulfillment of difficult duties, which are very difficult in the present day, influences the masses of soldiers.
In recognition of his services to the front, the priest later received the Commemorative Medal for the War of 1918-1921 and the Medal of the Decade of Regaining Independence.
After the disbandment of the army, Aleksandrowicz was sent to a garrison in the spring of 1921 as a chaplain in the town of Słonim, at the mouth of the Issa River. The garrison belonged to the military chaplaincy structure in Baranowicze, which in turn was part of the Corps District Command No. IX with the headquarters in Brest-on-the-Bug. We do not know the details of the ministry of Fr. Antoni from this period. It is known that he proved to be an excellent preacher, drawing the attention of the audience.
Mass grave - exhumation 1943
Soon he became a parish priest and in 1926 he was promoted to the position of administrator of the military parish in Słonim. He spent the next four years there. As praised in the application for the Silver Cross of Merit:
[...] being the chaplain of the garrison for over 9 years and then the parish priest of the military parish in Słonim, he made a great contribution in the field of pastoral care, having a deep passion for spreading good spirit among soldiers [...]. He was an exemplary chaplain and soldier, setting a good example for those around him.
Of course, it is difficult to expect that such an application would criticize the candidate for the award, but this opinion was supported by the command of DOK No. IX, and the application was considered positively.
In 1930 Aleksandrowicz left Słonim and moved to the military chaplaincy in Vilnius, subordinate to the Command of the Corps District No. III based in Grodno (priest Ziółkowski worked there a few years earlier). In addition to performing chaplaincy duties, Antoni took care of three military chapels in Vilnius and served in the Military Investigation Prison.
A year later he was promoted to the parish priest of the military parish in Vilnius. However, he did not stay here any longer:in 1932 he returned to the wings of DOK No. IX, taking the same position as the priest of the military parish of St. st. Antoni Padewski in Baranowicze - more significant than the one in Słonim. He stayed here until the outbreak of World War II. Earlier, in January 1936, he was promoted to senior professional chaplain with the rank of major.
In March 1939, the news of the mobilization announced by the authorities in connection with the threat of conflict with Germany passed through Poland. Father Franciszek Piwowarski, one of the chaplains of DOK No. IX, remembered that he had discussed with his colleague, Fr. Aleksandrowicz on the subject:"He replied with cheerful anecdotes, because he also did not believe in the possibility of war, but he seriously said that you must speak to the soldiers cordially, briefly and simply - this advice came in handy soon ...".
The fate of war
After September 1, 1939, Aleksandrowicz was sent to the front. Probably he left Baranavichy with the units formed in the so-called The Surplus Collection Center of the 78th Infantry Regiment. According to some sources, he served in the 20th Infantry Division, fighting incl. near Mława. Soon, under unknown circumstances, he was wounded in the leg, and immediately after that he was taken into Soviet captivity.
We do not know what happened to him in the following days, in what distribution camp he was. Perhaps he ended up in Nowogródek for a short time. Eventually, however, he was transported to Starobielsk.
In the conditions of battle, and then prisoners of war, he could not heal himself properly. His companions from the camp remembered that he was constantly limping. Nevertheless, he was one of the most active priests in the catacomb conditions of Starobielsk. The man with a long beard, leaning on a stick, must have reminded other captives of an Old Testament prophet. He secretly celebrated masses and prayers, heard confessions, comforted and blessed.
As in Kozielsk, confessions took place mostly during walks around the camp square. So if you saw two officers walking by arm and engrossed in serious, quiet conversation, it could be assumed that one of them was attending the sacrament of penance. Another form of confession was remembered by Fr. Leon Musielak: "The chaplains were confessing in such a way that two men were sitting next to each other at a table, picking up Soviet newspapers," Pravda "or other, and supposedly reading - and that was a confession.
It happened that people who did not qualify as practicing Catholics before the war, under the influence of the reality of the camp, now had a lifetime confession. It cannot be ruled out that others for the same reasons turned away from their faith.
Service in Starobelsk
The day of November 11, 1939, when Fr. Aleksandrowicz decided to honorably celebrate with a special service. It takes place in one of the barracks, and the painter Józef Czapski was an eyewitness to the events:
In the dirty corridor filled with prisoners [...], Fr. Aleksandrowicz from the Latin breviary translated the Gospel text about the girl whom Christ resurrected into Polish. Everyone knew the gospel, and now they listened as if they had heard it for the first time, and cried in remorse that they had little faith and that they had moments when they doubted that the girl was not dead, but asleep.
The heartwarming story of the resurrection could give hope that they, the world-forgotten prisoners of the Soviet camp, would also return to the world of the living. Their story, however, was deprived of a happy ending.
Katyn knot - hands tied on the victim's back
Despite taking precautions, Aleksandrowicz's activity was so great that the Soviets could not help but notice it. The priest was faced with severe and cruel punishments, perhaps greater than with most other prisoners. According to some reports, it ended up in a small cubicle located in one of the church towers, where it remained in complete solitude until the last days before Christmas in 1939. Then, just before Christmas Eve - as some sources argue - he found himself in a small group of clergymen of various denominations who had an unexpected "adventure".
Pick up
According to one of the reports, on the night of December 23-24, Fr. Anthony was attacked by NKVD men and ordered him to pack immediately. With trembling hands, he arranged his modest possessions at the sudden urging of the Soviets. Despite the pressure, he lingered as if feeling that nothing good would happen to him. A moment later he was led towards a few cars, already waiting with their engines running. He saw that he was not alone, that several people - whom he could not recognize in the confusion and darkness - were also heading this way. A few random onlookers watched the scene:other captives. Some of them remembered that Aleksandrowicz leaving the building assisted by armed soldiers was dead pale and looked as if he was very scared.
Some confusion here is caused by the published memoirs of Bronisław Młynarski, who remembered the scene of the priest's deportation. However, there are two problems with this relationship:first, the priest was supposed to be together with other officers, not in solitary confinement (it is possible that he left it earlier). Secondly, Młynarski writes about "Father Adamski" - but as I mentioned in the introduction, he could have meant Aleksandrowicz. All in all, the memories are quite vague, but it is worth quoting some fragments of them:
[…] that night, when most of them were asleep, and I could not go to sleep, I heard clearly from the corridor side the steps of a few people and the hushed Russian speech. I nudged Zygmunt [Kwarciński]. We both looked - down at the entrance to the room, despite the dim light, we immediately recognized the broad shoulders and [the politician's] Stepanov's head, next to him - the wrinkled face of little Kopiejkin and the shaggy head of the night watchman next to him. I knew they had come for someone else's soul. […]
Without much searching, they found their way directly to their victim. Kopiejkin rose on the planks to the level of the second floor and whispered in a whisper, yanking the lying victim by the legs:
- Hey, you there, Adamskij! Get up immediately! Get your things together. Live!
So what we feared happened happened. They came for our chaplains. The ominous addition "with things" indicated the gate of the camp, and what is behind it - God only knows.
The priest obediently rose from the bed and stood in his underwear, barefoot, in the mud between the bunks. Without a word, he got dressed and painstakingly put his trinkets down to the blanket. He only moved his lips as if in prayer. Meanwhile, in the room awakened from sleep, at first the whisper of the Crescend grew to a loud buzz. People rose from the beds, sat, looked, and many of them spoke loudly to the priest with words of farewell.
- Everyone lie down! Be silent! - Stepanov roared furiously, purple in the face. And then he continued to puke his excess anger at the priest, pushing him brutally […]. Complete silence fell over the room, when Father Adamski, ready to leave, threw his bundle on his beggars' back, raised his right hand high and with the sign of the holy cross he said goodbye to his colleagues, frozen in the amazing vivid painting. 150 heads looked like long rows from three-story bunks onto the narrow passage where the Politrucy and Father Adamski stood.
To further complicate the picture, it should be added that there is also a chronological problem with Młynarski's account. Some sources, and credible ones at that, require that Fr. Aleksandrowicz to a group of 10 clergymen of various denominations, who were deported from Starobielsk not before Christmas Eve, but only on March 2, 1940. How was it really? Młynarski may have mistaken the dates, but the description itself - with the preserved emotions and impressions - remains authentic. Or maybe "Adamski" is not Aleksandrowicz? The historian is sometimes helpless in the face of mutually exclusive data that cannot be fully confirmed or disproved. It cannot be ruled out that there were, in fact, two shipments:in December and March.
Still from the movie "Katyn"
One thing is certain:after several dozen hours of travel - maybe with changes - Fr. Antoni and others reached one of the NKVD prisons in Moscow. What was wrong with him? How much has he suffered? Again, these questions remain unanswered.
Anyway, Fr. Antoni most likely ended up in the notorious prison in Butyrki or the equally gloomy facility in Lubyanka where he had to endure hours of interrogation, long days of loneliness, and perhaps beatings and torture. We know the least about this period. Did he spend three months there, or only a dozen or so days? Father Franciszek Tyczkowski, another Moscow prisoner who managed to survive the war, recalled years later:“Fr. Aleksandrowicz. The feeling of this brotherhood greatly sweetened the gloomy mode of prison existence. ”
Ultimately, most likely in March, Aleksandrowicz was transported from Moscow to Kozelsk. Perhaps he ended up in an isolated room where other priests were kept, or perhaps in one of the "ordinary" barracks. Did he meet Fr. Ziółkowski? It is not known. I wonder if he perceived the conditions in the Kozielsk camp as better or worse than those he met in Moscow and Starobelsk . We'll never know that again.
A deceptive hope
Meanwhile, in March, the first signs of spring appeared in Kozielsk. From the forests and fields the smell of fresh, born life was flowing. There was still snow everywhere, and the nights could be frosty, but it was clear that spring was already approaching. One of the surviving prisoners recalled:
There was some comforting force in the clean, frosty air, and the smells of the awakening nature caressed the senses. The snow in the sun was dazzling white, and at night it sparkled with the reflection of stars. During the day, the prisoners gathered at the church walls in places sheltered from the wind, unbuttoned their coats, took off their hats and indulged in the caresses of the sun's rays. Some of them were tanned almost as in the pre-war days on skiing trips.
When, additionally, rumors about the camp's collapsing began to circulate in the church halls, many prisoners began to suspect with a suddenly renewed hope that not only nature was waking up to a new life. Father Aleksandrowicz could hear full of emotion, but in a low voice the words of a prisoner with an optimistic view of the future, recorded in the memoirs of Stanisław Swianiewicz:
Gentlemen, it is certain that the Soviet authorities are very puzzled by our cause. They were so careless in the fall of last year that they seized a huge number of Polish officers - and now they don't know how to get out of the situation. After all, we are allied officers. Because of us, the Soviets are threatened with a conflict with the powerful Franco-English coalition. At any moment, the French offensive will begin on the Western Front. The Soviets cannot afford to further irritate relations, because [the French general's] Weygand's air force can bomb Baku within a few hours and immobilize Russia's largest oil industry centers. Recently, a politician who was in our block told us that we cannot even imagine how much screaming there is in the world because of us!
The tragic fact is that this officer was wrong in practically every sentence. The Soviets knew how to get out of this "situation" by the beginning of March at the latest. Swianiewicz commented:
And the sun poured out its light and decorated the tattered walls of the Koźle monastery with them; the snow sparkled white and shrinking slowly, lapping slightly on the surface. The world was so beautiful and everything breathed so much hope for a new flowering of life that even the most resistant skeptics wanted to believe in the correctness of this reasoning.
Is Fr. Antoni also got carried away by illusory hope? He did not die after his deportation to Moscow, maybe now it will be even better? Certainly there were those who thought the scenario of handing over the prisoners of war to the Allies unlikely. For them, however, genocide was unimaginable. Rather, they expected to be sent back to their places of residence (given during interrogations), and thus often to the territory of German occupation. In the worst case scenario, they expected either direct surrender to the Germans (as prisoners of war), or transfer to other Soviet camps or exile - as in the times of the partitions. The reality has surpassed the darkest scenarios.
Wednesday, April 3, 1940, promised to be another normal day in Kozelsk, although the rumors of the camp being closed became clearer and clearer. About noon, a guard burst into the room where Aleksandrovich might have been and called one of the officers by name. Initially, no one paid any attention to it:such scenes had been repeated many times during the day for many months now. Unexpectedly, however, the officer, after reading the name, added the characteristic words sobirajtes's prophetess, meaning "go with your things".
A murmur of surprise passed through the room. Such an expression meant that the summoned person would for some reason be isolated from the rest and deported. There was not much to take anyway:many prisoners only had a blanket or a coat. The surprise came from the fact that this officer was not some exceptional figure - just an ordinary prisoner of war, a line officer who had no connection with the special services of the Second Polish Republic or even with the Border Protection Corps. So where did this "distinction" from the Soviet camp authorities come from?
As the officer left with the guard, everyone argued lively about the strange matter. Then a prisoner of war from another block burst in and said that one of his friends had also been summoned from his room with fortune-tellers. The interest of Fr. Antoni and the others grew as reports of similar incidents began pouring in from everywhere. Dozens of summons were quickly counted up. It became clear to everyone that the long-awaited liquidation of the camp had just begun.
In the afternoon, Aleksandrowicz heard even more sensational information:here the monastery was started to be visited by friends from the skit in groups of a dozen or so people. They showed up with all their modest possessions. Until now, they had been strictly separated from the rest. Now no one was against them stopping, talking, exchanging information. This fact caused a joyful excitement:had the policy of the Soviet authorities changed? Did they not already consider the incorporation of eastern Poland into the USSR as a completed fact?
Both those called from the monastic cells and the newcomers from the skit were directed to a room called the "club". It was a large hall, where prisoners of war were occasionally chased to screenings of Soviet propaganda films. Perhaps Fr. Aleksandrowicz and his companions also set off towards the "club". Like the others, he was curious what would happen next. The entrance to the "club" was guarded by guards, so the rapidly growing crowd of onlookers lined up in improvised lanes in front of the building. Only the summoned persons and the "skitchers" were allowed in. The latter were greeted with particular enthusiasm by the remaining prisoners, all were greeted with shouts and wishes.
It's time for dinner. Aleksandrowicz and the others noticed a new, unusual phenomenon: here the officers selected for departure received an almost exquisite (for camp conditions) meal. "Apparently, the Soviets want to leave a good impression," everyone commented. Moreover, the chosen ones also received provisions for the journey:800 grams of bread, a little sugar and three herring each. It was sensational that the provisions were wrapped in paper:brand new, gray clean paper. It was a commodity worth its weight in gold:scarce and extremely useful at the same time, on many levels:from writing letters to rolling cigarettes to… physiological activities.
Hundreds of food parcels, generously wrapped in fresh paper, made a great impression on everyone. "Oh, the Russians show how high, socialist culture they have" - could be heard in the crowd. But there was hope behind this sarcasm:at last the chance of leaving the camp was concrete, and the way the first chosen ones were treated seemed to suggest that they would be sent west. Just be happy.
In the evening, after an eventful day, it was quickly calculated that the first transport included about 300 colleagues. Most of the others wanted to share their fate as quickly as possible. The West seemed to be the best possible direction.
The article is an excerpt from the book Priests of Katyn , which has just been released on the market by Znak Horyzont Publishing House
In the following days a certain routine of activities was established. In the morning it was not known yet whether the transport from the camp would go on that day or not. Around ten o'clock the camp commandant received a phone call from Moscow with information about the date of transport and the names of prisoners selected for him. Such a conversation dragged on mercilessly:the voice in the receiver read a total of about 300 names, often difficult to pronounce for Russians. The prisoners from the rooms near the commandant's quarters could even hear them.
After spelling the first several dozen names, the guards scattered around the barracks, summoning selected prisoners to pack up and report to the "club". There, the chosen ones received a nice lunch and provisions for the journey. The fact that everything was decided directly by Moscow was encouraging:it seemed logical to reason that the Soviet authorities had reached some kind of agreement with the Allies, possibly with Germany. Most of the prisoners unknowingly assumed that people were being taken abroad. > Some of the politicians suggested it. Some of the prisoners wondered how the Allies could force anything against the USSR, or why the Germans would want thousands of Polish officers on their heads. However, uncomfortable questions were put aside.
It is not known what opinion Fr. Aleksandrowicz and what he was counting on when his name was finally read, entered on the Moscow list as No. 017/1, item 1, case No. 4915. It is certain that he got on a train headed towards Smolensk and all information about him was lost .
*
Corpse of Fr. Aleksandrowicz were not identified during the German exhumation in 1943. However, his life and martyrdom were symbolically commemorated:in November 2007 he was posthumously promoted to lieutenant colonel.
The article is an excerpt from the book Księża z Katyn, which has just been released on the market by Znak Horyzont Publishing House