Not all of the daring actions of the Home Army came down to shooting. Underground Poland had many ways to free its people from the degenerates of the death's head. Cunning, innovative or just crazy. Sometimes a simple visit to the dentist was enough. Other times, a fake corpse had to be planted.
It was the fall of 1941. Stanisław Miedza-Tomaszewski "Painter", a heroic soldier of the Polish underground who had been captured by the Germans for several weeks, was brutally interrogated in the Pawiak prison. He felt he couldn't take it anymore. In secret messages he asked for poison, threatening that if he did not get it, he would pour it. He was told that the poison would be sent after consulting with the family. We cannot decide by ourselves. Hold on .
Stanisław Tomaszewski "The painter" himself.
Easy to say. He endured a lot. Despite beatings and cruel tortures, he told his torturers the same story over and over, which of course had little to do with the truth.
How did he get in? He was caught one September day in 1941 in an ambush organized by the Gestapo. He was supposed to deliver the parcel to the indicated premises. Routine task. Unfortunately, the Germans were already waiting for him.
While "The Painter" waits for the poison to end his suffering, an idea appears in the underground to save the unfortunate man. But how to do something like that? It was not yet the time of action at the Arsenal. The conspiracy did not have any sabotage troops in the city. It was therefore decided to use more sophisticated means.
Best typhoid fever
One day, Miedza-Tomaszewski unexpectedly heard that he was to come to the dental clinic. He didn't understand what for. On the other hand, he knew that in Pawiak it was better not to be surprised by anything, but to follow orders. Two doctors took care of him on the spot. I don't remember - he wrote years later - that they would do something with my teeth, but manipulated my mouth .
The mysterious "manipulations" quickly made themselves known. Barely two days later, he did not feel well. Chills, fever, buzzing in the head, dry throat. A blood sample was taken. The result was unequivocal:typhus. He immediately understood. He was infected on purpose!
The Germans feared few things as they were afraid of infectious diseases. Terrified by the prospect of an epidemic in Pawiak, they allowed the patient to be taken outside the prison walls. Already in the infectious diseases hospital, he was informed that everything was on the way. They'll free him! All you need is patience.
The prison in Pawiak during the German occupation was a threat to every Varsovian. Over 90 thousand people passed through its walls. people. Half of them were tortured on the spot, executed in public executions or murdered in concentration camps.
He had to show a large dose of it when one night several underground soldiers burst into the unit. They did not come for the "Painter", but for a certain colonel, although they also offered Miedzy-Tomaszewski the opportunity to escape. One more won't hurt. Refused. He knew that someone else was already working to save him. Patience…
The decision almost cost him his life, as everything grew unexpectedly complicated. The Gestapo decided to take him to Szucha. How much can you heal in the end! The investigation cannot wait. Fortunately, the doctors and nurses knew what to do. The Painter was instructed to pretend to be appendicitis. The actor turned out to be so brilliant that the Germans were fooled and allowed him to be taken to a surgical hospital for an operation.
Corpse needed!
At the same time, a feverish search for the body of a man similar to Miedzy-Tomaszewski was going on in Warsaw. The idea was to replace them on the table during the operation and convince the Nazis that the patient - unluckily - died .
After his "death", Stanisław Tomaszewski received a new identity. Here are some of his fake documents. The illustration comes from the memoirs of the "Painter" entitled "Conspirator's Benefit".
But it's easier said than done. This one is too tall. This one is too fat. That one too old. Eventually a suitable "candidate" was found. Two ambulances drove up to the hospital at the same time. First the corpse was brought in, then the "seriously ill" patient. The change in the room was successful. Unaware of anything, the Germans once again fell for it. The "painter" was free, and the Gestapo men had to admit that they simply had no luck in hospitals.
Those naive Germans!
But how can you talk about happiness when you keep making the same mistakes? In this way, by letting doctors lead their nose, they lost someone much more important to them than Miedza-Tomaszewski.
Jan Karski "Witold", the legendary courier of the Polish Underground State, was arrested in June 1940. It happened during a mission aimed at delivering extremely important materials from occupied Poland to France. Unfortunately, he was not able to reach the Seine. His trip ended in a country cottage in Slovakia near Prešov, where he fell into German hands.
A difficult time began for him. As we can read on the pages of the "Secret State", in a prison in Presov, he ended up in a small, dingy cell, in which there was nothing but a mattress and a bucket . Almost every day he was summoned to interrogations accompanied by torture. His torturers did not hide their intentions. One of the Gestapo men - extremely obese, seemed to be made of some homogeneous, greasy mass - calmly, he said to the prisoner: I don't care whether you talk or not. If you are reasonable and tell the truth, you will survive. If not, you will be beaten to death .
Razor blade…
Even if it made an impression on "Witold", he did not take advantage of "good advice". He decided it would be wise to stick to one version that he went to Switzerland to study away from the war. Unfortunately for our hero, the Germans were well aware that they were dealing with a courier of the Polish underground.
His boastful demeanor caused more and more fury among the executioners in black uniforms. After one of the following interrogations, which resulted in the loss of four teeth, Karski realized that either he or they. Someone has to end this. He decided to take final measures. He pulled a razor blade from the mattress and cut both wrists . Blood spurted like a fountain .
… and death that never happened
To his great surprise, after some time the courier realized that he had not died. But how? After all, he committed suicide! Why is he still alive? Who dared to save him !? The loss of a significant amount of blood made him too weak to do anything. All he could do was listen to the hospital staff's promises that they would do their best to help him.
Nowy Sącz turned out to be a happy place for Karski. He had many friends from the underground who did not leave him to his fate.
In fact, within a few days "Witold" began to feel better and better. Physically, because mentally he was still functioning on the border. As he wrote on the pages of the "Secret State", on the one hand he felt joy that his strength was regaining, on the other hand he was tormented by deep depression and fear at the prospect of new interrogations at the Gestapo . And the Germans have not forgotten about him.
They inquired regularly if it was already. And they regularly heard that not yet. They were repeatedly told that the patient needed to rest, and that the first questioning in his current state was a sentence for him. It worked. However, there was one question in all of this:how long?
Light in the tunnel
One day, however, something unexpected happened, Karski was visited by a German. Who she was and why she came to him - it is not known. All she said was that she wished she had recovered. The guard heard it all. He immediately reported the matter to his superiors.
They didn't take much time to come to the conclusion that someone wanted to rescue their prisoner. Just in case, they took him to another hospital, to Nowy Sącz. They made a mistake. They sent "Witold" to the city, where he had many friends.
From that moment on, the events began to happen very quickly. Through the staff of the hospital, Karski made contact with the local underground network. This one did not delay.
Witold found out about it a few days later, when a young doctor […] with the simple-minded face of a country boy he said freely, without whispering: Well, you'll be free today . Karski was literally terrified. Terrified, he began to silence the reckless medic, to which he heard that he had nothing to fear. The escape was to take place the same night. To make it happier - exactly at midnight. Almost like a western. Only no shooting.
Naked to freedom!
As announced, when the clock chimed twelve times, the doctor stood in the doorway of the room where Karski was lying. Without looking at him, he calmly lit a cigarette and disappeared. It was a set signal. In advance, the bribed guard pretended to be asleep. To make the role more plausible, he snored loudly several times. "Witold" did not need to be repeated twice. He got up and… completely naked he left . So later he recalled those tense minutes leading up to deliverance:
Jan Karski, the most famous courier of the Polish underground, in a photo taken in 1935 (source:Polish History Museum, courtesy of the Hoover Institute Archives in California).
In a bit of a daze, I looked around the hallway bathed in twilight. I got lost straight away, and since the stairs looked similar, I couldn't figure out which of them led to the front entrance and which led to the back of the hospital. On the dot, I suddenly felt a gust of cold air on my back. I decided that someone had opened the window for me, because whoever had planned the whole action probably decided that I would not be able to open it alone without help .
He quickly found the right window on the landing. There was a pre-arranged sign on the floor right next to it - a rose. Karski hesitated for a moment. An outside voice urged him to make his decision. He jumped into the darkness. Freedom waited there.
A few days later, "Witold" ended up in the countryside. Warsaw, underground, Gestapo - it all seemed distant and unreal - he recalled. But in order for him to remember anything, he needed the help of the underground. It did not forget about its people. Never.