Three wartime characters

THREE WARTIME CHARACTERS

It's August the 1st, the 69th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising and a war time story is in place today.

Yesterday, when we were biking west, I heard about three people to do with the WWII times in Skarzysko. I thought I'd tell you about them.

1.

As we were climbing the bridge above the Warsaw-Krakow through road, my companion showed me an old detached house below, on the left. There used to live one of the local heroes with his family. His pseudonym was Jastrząb (Hawk). They later moved to another house, a bit further, past the Skarzysko-Koluszki railroad crossing and then to the left, in a little road parallel to the rail track. At the moment I can't remember more about this man. Obviously, he was in the Resistance forces.

2.

The second person I learnt about was a young German woman of the name Eugenia. Her family came from Germany to live here as her father was one of many Germans who brought their knowledge and skills to the Ammunition Plant opened in Skarzysko after Poland regained independence when WWI ended. They lived in the present Grota-Roweckiego Street. It was the second house on the right when entering the street from Ponurego Street.

When the Germans entered Poland in 1939, Eugenia, who worked at the plant (then renamed to HASAG), immediately joined the Deutsche Volksliste (German People's List) and began collaborating with the Nazi occupants. She gave the Nazis the names of many Polish people who were trying to resist the regime. I was told that she contributed to the mass execution in the forest at Brzask by pointing out the people who were involved in the resistance movement. They were immediately arrested, brutally interrogated, often tortured and then sent to death.When I heard that Eugenia worked at HASAG, I immediately thought of an old woman I talked to in May. She was telling me of her wartime work at this factory and of a fierce young Volksdeutsche woman who took obvious delight in persecuting the Poles. Was it Eugenia?

3.

The third person was a local man who, like Eugenia, collaborated with the Nazi Germans. I don't want to reveal his surname because I've come across it here, in contemporary Skarzysko. He received  the death sentence from the Polish underground court (organised by the Resistance) for sending many Polish patriots to their own deaths. The Poles strictly followed the procedures when performing the sentence. Two of them came to his house (now it's just bushes where it stood, in Ponurego Street, on the right going towards the forest). While one was reading out the sentence, the other took out a gun and was aiming at him. The sentence was read, but the the gun got stuck so the fellow seized the opportunity and ran away vanishing into the nearby forest....

....

I didn't take pictures of any of these locations because the light wasn't right. The sunny last day of July ended with dark clouds which generously shed water on us when still in the forest away from home.