Red. – In 1885, Stefan Paweł Rowecki was born in an authoritative household of nobility, in 30 1000 Piotrków Trybunalski. Biographers mention that thanks to his mother's patriotic upbringing Stefan started fighting a Russian aggressor very early...
The president – As a 4-year-old boy sitting in a window he saw a Russian officer passing by... the most peaceful in the planet spat on his decorations. An officer entered the home and demanded “criminal”Who desecrated his uniform came out. My father went under the bed and my grandma had to get him out. By the time he was 10 years old, however, he threw a firecracker in a parade of Cossacks, and this time he got into the crime scene.
Red. – In unpublished memoirs, Rowecki describes his command with the repressive branch of “Piotrovsky Scouts”. “It started with fighting Poles, sending children to Russian school (...). We broke the windows of our parents at home, and the children wearing bright coats of Russian junior advanced school... we just poured ink on them. On all occasion we beat up scabs.”
I.R.-M. – The father was an component that could not sit in a school bench – that's how his teachers remember him. In 1912 he got into a fight with a leader “Lamystraits” (i.e. children from Russian junior advanced school) and the second time he was brought to trial. As a consequence of my lawyer's uncle's intervention, this ended only with the departure of a young man “buntownika” from the household Piotrków to the Wawelberg and Rotwand Mechanical and method School in Warsaw. There he joins Polish firearm Teams participating in lectures and field exercises. Twice it crosses the Austrian border (once with the approval of parents, the second without it) aiming for military training of the Kraków PDS. Here is simply a curious fact: the course commander was an Austrian officer “Adam Zawisza”, or Michał Żymierski – later marshal. Earlier in March 1913, he arrived at the politician Piotrków on the eve of the celebrations of the 300th anniversary of the Roman dynasty. He's moving an action to prevent the celebration. Divisions “Repressive” My father is picked up by Russian flags at night, at the tallness of the first level on government buildings, writing black ink “Out with Romans!It’s okay. ” The top of everything was burning previously made and composed of garland, lanterns and flags designed to decorate the city.
Photo by Stefan Rowecki for the occupying Kennkarta (1942)Red. And then planet War I...
I.R.-M. – Yes, I just wanted to remind his school colleagues from Piotrków, the best friend Tadeusz Puszczyński, legendary captain “Wawelberg” from the 3rd Silesian Uprising, Tadeusz Żarski – later Communist MP in the Second Polish Parliament and Zygmunt Zaremba – PPS activist, later an associate from the underground. During planet War I he fights, of course, in the Legions, in the 1st regiment, whose first battalion turned into 5th regiment “cheeky”. He's 3 times wounded.
Red. Then the Legions curse crisis...
I.R.-M. – In the Piłsudski concept, the military force, which will have a decisive function in regaining independence, became a savvy POW, not Legions. In the summertime of 1917, six months after the German-Austrian act on the creation of an independent Polish state in the future, there was a alleged oath crisis. The Legionaries refused to curse to alliances with Austria and Germany. Officers are interned in Beniaminów and privates in Szczypiorno. My father, like M. Kukiel, Wł. Sikorski, S. Szeptycki, M. Żymierski, is in favour of taking an oath claiming that it is not time for idle demonstrations. However, in an act of solidarity, he arrives in Beniaminov and hence goes to Polnische Wehrmacht.
Red. – We ask for any interesting episode from the period of stay in the Polish Armed Forces...
The president – During this time, the father resides in Ostrow Mazowiecka as a lecturer at Podchorzych School, among others, with the later head of BIP KG AK Colonel John Rzepecki. Rzepecki states that during 1 of the meetings of Polish and German officers Rowecki reached the map and illustrated his predictions about the future western border of Poland by crossing a line moving consecutive from Szczecin to the south (in 1918!). Later, having only 10 people at night, they disarm the German troops in the company's strength (about 200 people) by collecting looted cattle, weapons and ammunition. For this act he received his first conflict Cross. 3 others were awarded to him for fighting in the Legions. He's besides getting for “Legions” Most precious order: Virtuti Militari.
SOURCE: Wikimedia Commons Unknown authorRed. – He then studies in Warsaw at the War School of the General Staff (later Higher School of War) from where in May 1920 in the rank of captain he goes to I Dyw. Legions under Kiev, where at the order of Gen. Rydz-Smigły order our troops broken by Budionny cavalry. During the conflict of Warsaw Rowecki (now major) is in the office of Rydz-Śmigłego...
The president I don't have much information from this period. After the war, he returns to the military college, later works (end of 1922) as the head of the most crucial faculty at the Military Institute of discipline and Publishing led by Colonel Prof. Wacław Tokar. Father calls to life and leads for 10 years “Military Review” – a quarterly, introducing Polish officers to the improvement of European military thought.
Red. – In his books and articles, he besides devotes much space to the evaluation of the Red Army, its combat tactics, the communist war doctrine with the accented function of propaganda and diversion. He was an expert in russian war doctrine, he saw no difference between Russian imperialism and Communistism, which was for him a continuationist of the first. It is characteristic that he did not believe in spontaneous revolutionary explosions outside Russia and has always seen them implement a well-planned script of the planet revolution organized for the purposes of Russian imperialism.
I.R.-M. – The father observed not only the russian war doctrine, but besides Western states, for example, he analysed most revolutionary movements in the West and described it in the celebrated book “The Street Fights”.
Red. – It is simply a paradox that the book “The Street Fights” was later a textbook alternatively for the Germans, telling how to destruct insurgents, and was written by the commander of the underground army. However, we request to follow Grot's destiny further by limiting ourselves, due to the volume “News”. So the fall of the May Marshal Pilsudski...
I.R.-M. – My father was at the Institute at the time, he was not in command of any regiment, but he survived it terribly hard, he went in civilian clothes for a while, due to the fact that there was a large worship of the Marshal in our house. The fact is that he was an opponent of armed action against legally elected president Wojciechowski and the government of Witos. His public conversation with the march is known. Piłsudski on the Castle, which was discussed by Colonel Rowecki, whom he besides knew from Sagittarius (PDS – red).
“What were you doing during the May fights? I have not seen you anywhere.”
The eyes following the adjutant marshal flashed with a vicious triumph. My father said:
“In May, Chief, I only commanded books in my institution, but if I were in charge of another weapon, he would gotta go against the chief this time.”
Accompanying marshal, the staffmen whispered that Rowecki had exhausted himself, which was untruthful due to the fact that in September 1926 his father received a nomination as the 1st Staff Officer in the Army Inspector General J. Rybak.
Red. – In this way he was separated from theoretical work and directed to linear work. In his opinion on Rowecki, General Rybak writes highly prophetically:
“A prominent officer of S.G. (General Staff – ed.), who holds the best future, will be the pride of the Polish Army.” How does the later Grot see the coming planet War II, where he is and what he does?
I.R.-M. – From 1930 to 1935, he proves 55 pp. in Leszno Wielkopolski – it was, as he always said, the happiest period in his life. From 1936 to 1938 he served as commander of the Border defender Corps Brigade “Podle”, then for 9 months he was commander of the divisional infantry of the 2nd legions division in Kielce. It was his worst time. Furthermore, the division commander Colonel Edward Dojan-Surówka was the only division commander to abandon his troops on the battlefield in September 1939. Since the end of April 1939, he has been on an artillery commander's course in Toruń. He condemned the Polish action in Zaolzi against Czechoslovakia. He is then nominated as commander of the Warsaw Pancerno-Motor Brigade, which he takes reluctantly, especially since the General of the mill had previously proposed to him to take command of specified a brigade (10 b.k.), which after his refusal was entrusted to Colonel S. Maczek.
Red. – Rowecki dreamed of commanding the infantry division, he would then become a general...
I.R.-M. – Yes, but the tasks of organizing the brigade, i.e. the over-stamping of horses from horses to tanks, although it was a real death for him. The brigade's troops stood at various points in the country, inactive had to fight over equipment, people, etc. The task of the brigade was to defend crossings in Wisla, the father was subject during the war of the army's D. “Lublin”, General Piskor, his neighbour was Colonel Tadeusz Komorowski, later “Bor”. He later fought at Tomaszów Lubelski where he most likely utilized tanks for the first time in the past of wars in a night attack. After Piskor's surrender, he refused to go into captivity.
Red. – He wanted to break through to Sikorski, abroad to the Polish army, he did not see himself at all in the conspiracy work...
I.R.-M. – Yes, but erstwhile Gen. Karaszewicz-Tokarzewski “Doctor” He showed him the power of lawyer from General J. Rómml and ordered him to presume the function of Deputy and Head of the Polish triumph Service, the father was. In November 1939, Gen. Sikorski formed a fresh organization of the Armed Forces Union, the Chief of which was General K. Sosnkowski (in Paris – ed.). Sikorski dismissed the “Doctor” from directing the underground and “sent” him to Area 3 (Lviv), which was equivalent to his deconspiration and imprisonment by the USSR, due to the fact that all kid in Lviv knew Tokarzewski as the prewar commander of the DOK. The father was appointed Commander of Area No. 1 in Warsaw, practically with authority over the full underground Poland. My father refused to accept this promotion due to the fact that he lived with “Doctor” in large friendship, but he yet submitted, but “Doctor” was imprisoned (unrecognized) immediately after crossing the border.
Red. – Yes, Sikorski's people could not forget to Tokarewski that after the May overturn in 1926 he was the head of the individual Office of the MMA and made him liable for the cleaning in the military. Chief Chief was very afraid of the senators' influence in the underground...
The president – At first, Sikorski did not trust you, he feared that his father, even though he was not a senator, but he was a Pilsudczyk, a legionnaire, would be subject to sanitization. Sikorski, for example, demanded that his father's friend and senator, erstwhile politician Henry Józewski, be expelled from the country of Marshal Rydz-Smigł. The father frequently resisted specified interferences, claiming in the case of the dismissed from Józewski's function that everyone has the right to fight for the independency of the homeland. On the another hand, with the Blade he met unofficially, which was kept secret for a long time – he acted against the order...
Red. Again, the volume of the writing is limited. The case of Major Henry Hubal-Dobrzański...
The president – I just wanted to add a fewer words about the conflict between the Grotto and the Government Delegate supported by the People's organization and the National organization in the underground. The case afraid Grot's decision to print a memorial article on the Marshal Piłsudski (on the occasion of the anniversary of his death on 12 May 1941) in the authoritative body of the OGM “Insurance”. Contrary to accusations of sanity, contrary to national politicians' intrigue, the father of the decision did not change. This event shook the underground. The Ratajski delegate banned the father from printing the article, and erstwhile it was printed – the colporteur.
Red. – People's typical Józef Grudziński (w/w/g of K. Pużak's account) was so anti-pilsudczykowski that he expressed his desire to remove Piłsudski's coffin from the Wawel crypt after the war. He could not forget that the symbol of the Witos folk movement was treated in an outrageous way in Brest. But we're asking for Hubal...
The president – There was a clear order from Sikorski that no armed action should be conducted at the time. Until the turn of 1942/43, the anticipation of fighting the occupier was excluded, it was realized that he was able to bloodyly suppress the rebellion and thereby thwart the chances of a future uprising. My father gave Hubal money for the soldiers and ordered them to dissolve into their homes. By Hubal in Konski Germany, about 700 peasants from surrounding villages were executed for revenge. Father sent to Sikorski in April 1940:
“Hubala I pursue, I want to send him abroad, in the future I will bring him to court.”
Hubal disobeyed his father's orders twice, waited for an allied army to merge from the west, but France lost the war. 2 weeks after Hubal's death, his father wrote that the heroic commander of the Distributed Branch of the Polish Army had died in an uneven fight.
Red. – Let us remind that in May 1940 Sikorski at the request of General Sosnkowski promoted Rowecki and Komorowski to the rank of Brigadier General. The Grot was specified an army commander who could never see his soldiers. He was a legend and a story to them, a symbol. At the command of Sikorski, he carried out an underground military unit with difficulty. What character it took to get through the jungle of intrigue by various groups and politicians and to gain trust...
I.R.-M. – The father changed very much from a fast decision-making linear commander became, as his co-workers write, a statesman, skillfully leading the squad of the office (14 February 1942, the Armed Forces Union was renamed the National Army-ed.). He besides changed his appearance and movements. He wore glasses, a hairpin, a mustache, and a cane from which a knife was drawn out erstwhile the spring was activated. I utilized to meet him at a coffee shop. We utilized to walk sometimes, it was fun. 1 time I went with my father, and I met a fellow colonel's daughter who told me that her father was in the camp and asked me what was going on with my father... I said I had no idea. But sometimes people bowed to their father on the street – that was erstwhile he felt bad. quite a few harm was done by London, which by the talk of couriers had contributed to unmasking his father.
Red. Grot thought Russia was our enemy number two. In his talks with his brother Stanislaw, the lawyer about Katyń Grot said that if the crime was not done by Germany, “it was done by individual who was an enemy not only of Poland, but above all of the enemy of establishing the most correct Polish-Soviet relations in the future”. He demanded Sikorski to make a permanent policy towards Russia: “I see only 2 possibilities: either the Russians are our enemies, or they are our allies. The only correct position is that the Russians will only become our allies erstwhile they feel that they are besides weak to harm us...” That's a large state husband intuition! Think clean and accurate. The attitude to a possible uprising, please...
I.R.-M. – The father and his staff hoped that at the outbreak of the uprising there would be outside aid for the country, bombarding enemy objects, air landings like Sosabowski's Parade Brigade, that Polish soldiers from the west would come by sea and get a boathead in Pomerania...
Red. - Oh, yeah. Hence, his plans to make a defensive simplification from the AK forces based on the Baltic Sea in cooperation with the Allies. It was in case the Red Army entered Polish lands. As Grot said, “the conversion of 1 business to another.” But then Grot spoke not about fighting Germany, and Russia would then be enemy No. 1.
I.R.-M. – The plan of the uprising according to the father was different from the script in 1944. The uprising could only have been triggered if it could have succeeded in the moral decay and panic of the Germans. The 1918 variant of Colonel Janusz Bokszczanin of the KG AK told Ciechanowski about the plan to establish in 1942, as Grot saw it. The father never wanted a bloody bath for Warsaw, he wanted in the event of Germans leaving Warsaw under force from the Russians to hit their rear guards, and as the Germans pass to defend the central line of Vistula, the AK leaves the city and fights outside its borders.
Red. – Yes, General Okulicki called the Grot's plan defensive or even cowardly in July 1944. Okulicki with “Borem” wanted to lock Germans in a boiler, it is in Warsaw and destroy. Grot thought differently. The blood of a Polish soldier was highly dear to him. But let's decision on to the minute of arrest. It is known that liver disease, whether the duodenum interrupted his average rhythm of work, besides increasingly felt like a hunted animal...
I.R.-M. – Oh, he felt it very much, he was a keen hunter, now he was on the victim's side. There were quite a few agents with his Colonel's image from before the war. At the last meeting, after I received his approval to be engaged to Mielczarski, after his father double-viewed him, he told me that he was going to vanish for a while, due to the fact that it's getting tighter and tighter around. He told me about plastic surgery...
Red. possibly the Gestapo knew about it due to her interview and tried to take him out before he changed... The circumstances surrounding your father's arrest...
The president – On Wednesday, June 30, 1943, after gathering with the liaison Ela Zboińska, he headed for 10 am to Barska 5 for the meeting. He had previously entered Spiska Street 14 m 10. He barely entered an flat he did not like (there was only 1 way out), 17 police cars arrived. He was shown pictures of him. The Gestapo called, having recognized him earlier, a erstwhile colleague from the 4th division of the 1920 War. Eugeniusz Świerczewski (destroyed by counterintelligence of the AK in 1944) He acted with his brother-in-law Louis Kalkstein and his wife Blanka Kaczorowska (prisoned in PRL). They were Gestapo agents, but they besides worked on the AK intelligence cell.
Red. – The cave was carried by plane to Berlin that night – Germans celebrated triumph. How did the underground and London react? And the question is, wasn't he being watched badly?
I.R.-M. – The father rejected protection claiming that he relied on himself as any soldier should. Gen. “Bor” He urged London to exchange his father for any German generals, but the Germans only wanted Hess, whom England refused to give back. At least the underground asked for a prisoner position for his father. He was treated well from the beginning. The English didn't bother to trade, as they always promised, and that ended...
Red. – From Berlin Grot was transported to Sachsenhausen and placed in the alleged Zellenbau where peculiarly crucial prisoners and global prisoners specified as Stalin Ivan's son, Churchill's cousin – Peter, bishop of Lublin Goral, the ace of Polish intelligence in Berlin Jerzy Jakubianci “Jerzego Kuncewicz”. In the camp, he interviewed Ukrainians. Were there attempts to escape?
I.R.-M. – Yes, they were, but the father talked about them with Volodymyr Stachiw, this 1 reported to Stefan Bander, and he to the Germans and the ellipse closed. He was interviewing Ukrainians. He wrote individual memories of planet War I and a diary. He stayed there for over a year.
Red. "Banderers of possible aid in escape depended on the result of talks between Bandera and Stećko and Grot, whose subject was the joint fight against Bolshevikism. The Grot agreed to the request to make an independent Ukrainian state, but claimed that Rusini were citizens of the Polish state and would be liable for treason after the war.
I.R.-M. – The father rejected talks about a joint anti-bolshevik crusade and Bander and Ukrainian nationalists wanted to strangle him by faking his suicide. However, any of them were against, and Bandera hesitated. The Germans found out about it and moved their father next to the firm. Prior to that, Grot organized an escape in order to bribe in August 1943 the camp defender Marcin and escape both to Sweden. Later, his father organized an escape based on contacts decoded by the Gestapo and imprisoned in the same prison as Jacobian's intelligence ace, his contacts with the Japanese. Everything came out due to the Ukrainians...
Red. How Grot died...
I.R.-M. – There are six versions of father's death. For me, the most likely thing is death by hitting a hammer in the head with 200 people suspected of participating in the celebrated Hitler assassination. 1 origin says that it was revenge for the Warsaw Uprising, that the father did not want to calm Warsaw. Of course, it is known that Himmler offered to usage Grot in his conversation with Hitler to neutralize the Polish underground. Hitler, however, rejected this by saying that the Grot had the personality of the chief and could have created a large opponent (it is assumed that he was killed between 4 and 7 August 1944 – ed.).
Red. Your father wanted a boy very much. You're his only child. Tell me about your household relationship...
I.R.-M. – Father erstwhile told him that I was adequate for a fewer sons. Like I said, he was an avid hunter, trying to teach me how to swim. He taught me to ride successfully. He'd take me out to the woods and make me come back in time without maps to an appointment. He taught me patience by e.g. tangles of string. He was divorced from my mother, I lived with my stepmother “Aun” Eugene and my father. erstwhile I fell in love with Mielczarski, he only agreed to marry after the war with the fact that he told him to step out of the conspiracy. My father didn't know I was the link, and he officially told me not to go into conspiracy.
Red. What's left of the Grotto present too the legend of the Underworld Leader?
I.R.-M. – Streets in Piotrków, Ciechanów and Tomaszów Lubelski, school in Warsaw, 3 sports teams, ship, bridge in Warsaw, plaques in 3 churches, many book items and articles. I have published a book. “Father”...
Red. How did Grot's daughter receive Stalin's night in Poland?
The president I worked hard and collected articles about my father. 35 years I've been collecting material for my father's book. I'm now working with historians who compose about my father...
Red. – How did you receive “Solidarity” and martial law in Poland? Didn't underground Bujak start being like his father?
I.R.-M. – “Solidarity”? On the 1 hand, I enjoyed it very much, and on the another hand, I was terrified of the detonation and its possible consequences. The martial law – I felt most sorry for these soldiers. I talked to Bujak – he's a young, smart and sympathetic man.
Red. – Do you not feel that the communists want to insert your father into their version of Poland's history?
I.R.-M. – due to the fact that I know, society should be restored even after so many years. That's why these schools, the Boy Scouts and the books. This request is born by itself...
Red. What would you like? How do you like it here?
I.R.-M. – California is very pretty, but I come back to the country as shortly as I get around the AK-Wskie centers in the US. What can I want for? The completion of our AK-wski work to lift the tradition and name of the AK to the surface of public life, as the AK is due for its service, conflict and sacrifice. I wanted to greet your readers and want them all success and not forget their home country.
Red. Thank you for talking about your father.
The conversation was conducted by Jacek K. Matysiak and Zdzisław Krowicki.
Unauthorized intelligence.
P.S. I give an interview in the first version for “News” (California), the content was submitted to Mrs Rowecka-Mielczarska, who took note of the above adding that in order not to harm AK-owski's affairs (January 1987) the interview does not authorize. She died on 11 February 2002, at the age of 80, buried in the Powązkowski Cemetery in Warsaw.
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