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A female voice. I asked about the guy, I think his name was Tadeusz Zakrzewski. Dead. Sent to Auschwitz and killed. I suppose he was an AK mole, that's why he said I wasn't a Jew.
Then it turned out my room had been locked and sealed. Naturally I went to my AK contact and told him about it, he says, no problem, you'll get another apartment, but then they reconsidered, said the uprising would break out shortly, so it wouldn't make sense. If you can go anywhere, go out of Warsaw and wait, the partisans will be going to help Warsaw, you'll join them. And that's what I did; I went to Milanowek.
And indeed, the partisans eventually came, a unit led by Captain Lanca, and I joined them with Janek Kott who had fled Warsaw where the uprising was already under way. He was in the AL [19] but he joined an AK unit. We never reached Warsaw. Then Janek Kott went down with some infectious disease. I think it was typhoid fever. And our captain said, 'He returns to Civvy Street.' He told me to take him out. I took him to Milanowek. We moved ahead, part of our unit eventually disbanded, part happened upon some Russians in German service near Zgierz and were wasted.
Then the uprising collapsed and the Germans took people to camps. Riding the commuter train from Podkowa [residential area 5 km west of Milanowek] to my parents in Milanowek, I boarded a car full of POWs guarded by soldiers and, when I entered the platform, I saw in the middle father Jan Gustkowicz, my schoolmate. We spoke some, and in Grudow [station between Podkowa and Milanowek], when the train started, I managed to push him out of the train and jump out myself. Despite the guard's shouts, the train didn't stop. We stayed with Dziunia [Oberlederowa, aunt of the interviewee's sister's husband] in Grudow, one stop before Milanowek. Gustkowicz later found himself a parish priest at the Gdansk harbor, but in the meantime he spent some time in Wieliczka.
Then it turned out my room had been locked and sealed. Naturally I went to my AK contact and told him about it, he says, no problem, you'll get another apartment, but then they reconsidered, said the uprising would break out shortly, so it wouldn't make sense. If you can go anywhere, go out of Warsaw and wait, the partisans will be going to help Warsaw, you'll join them. And that's what I did; I went to Milanowek.
And indeed, the partisans eventually came, a unit led by Captain Lanca, and I joined them with Janek Kott who had fled Warsaw where the uprising was already under way. He was in the AL [19] but he joined an AK unit. We never reached Warsaw. Then Janek Kott went down with some infectious disease. I think it was typhoid fever. And our captain said, 'He returns to Civvy Street.' He told me to take him out. I took him to Milanowek. We moved ahead, part of our unit eventually disbanded, part happened upon some Russians in German service near Zgierz and were wasted.
Then the uprising collapsed and the Germans took people to camps. Riding the commuter train from Podkowa [residential area 5 km west of Milanowek] to my parents in Milanowek, I boarded a car full of POWs guarded by soldiers and, when I entered the platform, I saw in the middle father Jan Gustkowicz, my schoolmate. We spoke some, and in Grudow [station between Podkowa and Milanowek], when the train started, I managed to push him out of the train and jump out myself. Despite the guard's shouts, the train didn't stop. We stayed with Dziunia [Oberlederowa, aunt of the interviewee's sister's husband] in Grudow, one stop before Milanowek. Gustkowicz later found himself a parish priest at the Gdansk harbor, but in the meantime he spent some time in Wieliczka.
Period
Interview
Alfred Borowicz