Tape 1 Side 2
Where the guard had said that there was a very good buck right near the house – so, I went, and after about an hour found him and the poor thing – I did shoot him, and I left him there and I never saw him again because, when I came home for supper at about eight, Władek gave me a piece of paper on which it was said that I was mobilised and was to report to Lemberg at some recruiting office and would then go on to Stanisławów for censorship.
So, I couldn’t do anything else except have supper, change into an old uniform, take Władek along in the car and go to Lemberg, where I arrived about half past nine. I went to this recruiting office where they gave me some papers and so on, and told me that I was to report in Stanisławów in the next 48 hours.
I spent the night at the Hotel George in Lwów, and saw, by the way, Kuryłowicz there. This was the last time I saw him before 1946 when I met him in Paris and he told me that he had been called down, but that he wouldn’t join the army because he was indispensable in Upper Silesia with the industry where he was working.
But having consulted with him, we both agreed that I should go and see Witold Morawski, the colonel who was General Fabrycy – the commanding general’s – chief of staff next morning, and get myself out of this censorship problem because, I mean, that would be absolutely ridiculous to go down to Stanisławów and sit there and read letters.
So, after a good night’s sleep, I went to see Morawski the next morning and, of course, he said, “Yes, you should volunteer for the army. That’s the only way you can do it, and you are still a Second Lieutenant”, (although I was already 39, which made me one of the oldest, I suppose, ”… and go back to Siedliska.” About the second or third day Morawski was going to Kraków, and he suggested that I come with him to see the Archbishop and also Elizabeth who was there.
So we went. Of course, the news from the fronts was worse and worse. The Germans were moving down into Poland very fast, so we already heard a lot of cannon-booming around us when we got to Kraków – not in Kraków proper, however.
I went to see the Archbishop; had a long talk with him. He told me then and there that he wouldn’t move, and would stay no matter what happened.
Then I went to see Elizabeth and having talked to the Archbishop, we were both of the opinion that Elizabeth would do well if she went to Siedliska to join Mamma and you and your mother – so I went to see Elizabeth and I told her to pack up and so on because we would take her back with us, which she did.
We picked her up and during the night we travelled back to Rzeszów and Morawski was kind enough to tell the driver to push her on to Jarosław from where she would probably find a train to take her to Rawa-Ruska.
This all went quite smoothly and, I think, Elizabeth appeared. I know she did, but I don’t remember whether she appeared that same day or the next day. In any case, she took also with her a case of silver which was, of course, not very wise because that silver was destroyed in the fire in Siedliska and burnt up with the house like everything else.
In any case, the Germans were pushing on and on, faster and faster, so our headquarters were moved back towards Lemberg. In the end we were in Lemberg around the 13th.
However, in the meantime, Morawski called me and said to me I should go back to Siedliska. “Pack your mother and everybody else who wants to go, and pack you off to Romania as quickly as possible.”
So, I made arrangements with Alec Poklewski in Lwów that he would meet you. I went to Siedliska and got there about seven in the evening, I think. Well, everybody was packed up and the rest of that story you can read, and you know, from your mother’s book, Polish Profile.
I myself joined my headquarters again in Lwów and found that the headquarters was being disbanded. Most of the officers had gone; the commanding general was gone; and the only person who was really still there was Witold Morawski, the Chief of Staff who immediately told me that General Sosnkowski was taking over the whole of the southern front and that he suggested that we both go and report to him. So, this is what happened and Morawski told me to come to Headquarters about eight o’clock in the evening and do whatever I wanted in the meantime – and so, of course, I went to sleep.
I slept that afternoon and then, at eight, I went down to Headquarters where I found a message that they wouldn’t see me before quite late in the evening, so I went next-door where the Aszkenazis lived and saw them. They gave me some supper and also some sandwich to take along with me and I persuaded them to take off immediately – to go as fast as they can to Romania because, if the Germans caught them (and the Germans were really at the doors of Lemberg by then), it would be a real catastrophe for them. I think they left that very night.
I, however, went back to Headquarters and was called in to Sosnkowski around midnight and he told me that he would be taking off to Przemyszl in a plane, but there wasn’t any room for me because he was taking Morawski with him and that I should go and pick up his secret papers with me, bury them in a safe spot which I would remember, and then go on to Tarnopol to join Carton de Wiart’s British Military Mission.
By then, Josewczyk, who had taken you down to the Romanian border had come back with the car (that green Hudson), so I had him at my disposal and I took these papers; stopped on the way at the friend’s place. I don’t remember the name of it. My friend was Pininski – but where the place was … It was somewhere near Tarnopol. I buried these papers there in the garden under a tree and made a sign and I don’t know whatnot and so on, and then went on to Tarnopol where I reported to Carton de Wiart and found there Stefan Dabrowski, the father of Niki and Biki, who was on that staff as a liaison officer. I also met Andrei Tarnowski in the street of Tarnopol and I spent the night there – the first night.
The next morning [Carton] said to me, “I think the best thing you can do is to go back to Lemberg and see what’s going on there and come back and tell me.” So, off I went again, but not before about five in the afternoon because I didn’t want to drive during the day. There was a lot of shooting from aeroplanes going on.
I went to Lemberg, got in to the town, and found nobody there, in fact, except one colonel, Colonel Szymański, who briefed me on the situation and told me whatever was going on, and told me, “But you’d better get out of here as quickly as possible because, in fact, the Germans are already surrounding the city.”
So, having all this information, I got back into the car and went back to Tarnopol. I reported and Carton again said, “We have no news; we don’t know what’s going on. Go back again.”
So I went back again, and this time, I barely got in and, having seen nobody – in fact, I barely got out again – and, as I was driving at night, I stopped off in Pormorzany. Pormorzany was the place of George Potocki and I knew that Eugène, Erica, and his mother and so on, were all there – so I stopped there, but it was in the middle of the night or, rather, I think it was about three in the morning, or four – so, of course, they were all asleep.
I couldn’t find a piece of paper except in the toilet – so, I wrote on that piece of toilet paper telling them what the situation is and asking them to quit as soon as possible, to leave for Romania and left them a chit for petrol also.
Of course, as you know, they didn’t follow my advice and the Russians came, picked up Eugène, and he spent two years, I think, at the Lubyanka in Moscow – in the prison there – until Anders’ action got him out of there, and he got out through Persia and so on, and did the war with Anders.
In any case, I moved on, and when I came to Tarnopol, I didn’t find Carton. He had gone already and he had gone down to the Romanian border to a place called Kosiv. I found that out, not from any official, but from a little Jewish shopkeeper who, when I asked whether he had seen anybody, he said, “Oh, yes, yes. The British Mission has gone to Kosów.” As usual, the little Jew knew more than he should have known.
Anyway, so I drove on, and on the way (this was a Sunday morning, the 17th of September), in one of those little towns, I found out that the Russians had moved in – so I put my foot on the acceleration even more to get out of the way of the Russian tanks which were just moving in and where my highway was. Actually, if I hadn’t made speed, I would have gone right into their tanks.
And I arrived in Kosów about half past eleven in the morning; reported to Carton whom I found there in a villa, and he immediately said to me, “Listen, you must find out where Marshal Śmigły-Rydz is because he is here, but I can’t find him.” He said, “I’ve sent down my officers, but nobody knows, of course. He’s in one of those secret places and so you have to find him.”
So I started nosing around and I found him in a villa and went to see him right away and asked him when Carton could come and talk to him. He told me at six in the afternoon – so I went back; I slept a little, and then took Carton to that villa at six.
Carton came out after half an hour’s talk with Śmigły and told me, “You have to stay here and the marshal will call you to tell you what time, and whether he’s going to leave Poland, or what time he was going to go into Romania.”
So I sat on a terrace there and half-dozed until about half past eight in the evening when the marshal called me and told me to ”… go back to your general and tell him that I am leaving Poland within the hour for Romania.”
So, of course, I went back; made arrangements with Carton where we were going to meet in Romania in the city of Cherniowce which was the closest city to the border at the hotel there and I told Josewczyk to get ready; packed up whatever I had; and moved on.
The roads were terribly crowded and the passage into Romania takes one over a very narrow bridge – so, of course, it wasn’t easy to get through there, but before I got to the bridge I came to the conclusion it would be idiotic to go into Romania in a Polish uniform because I might get picked up by the Romanian gendarmerie, police, or soldiers – so I found a peasant who was willing to sell me his Sunday suit. I bought that suit from him.
The British Chief of Staff gave me a tie, so I just changed into this; put my uniform in the back of the car; and, with Josewczyk, we made our way to Czerniowce.
We got there about eight in the morning; had some breakfast and then looked for Carton and found him in a very fancy hotel among all sorts of very important people – Polish, Colonel Beck, the foreign minister, and I don’t know whatnot – ambassadors etcetera, etcetera.
So, after a short talk with Carton, we both came to the conclusion there was no sense in our staying in Czerniowce, and we better get along to Bucharest as quickly as possible to the British Legation there because we had nothing to do with all these government palavers that were going on – so we made an arrangement to leave immediately after lunch.
I said to him I didn’t want him to go in his car with his chauffeur, he’d better come with me because, although I don’t know the roads, maybe my reactions are quicker than one of these chauffeurs.
We left Cherniowce and, as I was scared to drive down the highway to Bucharest, I said to Carton we must take side roads because we’ll get picked up on the way, especially as I’d heard in Cherniowce that the Germans were already very strong in Romania, and very interested in catching him.
So we took all sorts of small roads south towards Bucharest and practically in every little town we came to, there were soldiers or gendarmerie – Romanian – who were trying to stop us – of course, no question of stopping. Some of them would jump on the sideboard of the cars (cars then still had these sorts of planks on their sides) – they’d jump up on those and try and stop me. Of course, the only thing to do was then to hit their fingers as hard as you could so that they would let loose. They’d jump off the car and then put down one’s foot on the acceleration and move on and so, this happened to us about four times, and we got through.
Then we came to a big forest and as it was late and dark, I thought we’d better have a sleep, so we stopped somewhere off the road in the bushes and in the car we slept. I mean, ‘slept’ is a big word for something which was most uncomfortable and, really, I think one wasn’t really asleep.
In any case, by about five in the morning when it got to be day, we moved on. By then I was still driving and I was so sleepy, I told Carton it was up to him to keep me awake, and he could only do that by giving me the story of his life and, as he had a most interesting life, he did tell me some, and he’d poke me in the ribs, and somehow or another we got to Bucharest about half past one to the British Legation there.
I shall never forget: I was so furious with Carton because, of course, I was hungry. We hadn’t eaten anything since Cherniowce except that sandwich I think I still had from Lwów from the Aszkenazis, and the chauffeur was hungry; everybody was dead tired, and the British minister, Leslie Hoare, asked me whether I was hungry; whether I’d like to eat something and just as I was going to say, “Yes, please,” Adrian barged in and said, “Oh, no. He is not hungry. Don’t bother about that. I’ve got lots to talk to you about.”
So, at least they gave me some coffee and then I took my leave and went to the Athénée Palace, the biggest hotel in Bucharest where I luckily found Alec Poklewski sitting there, as usual, in his Buddha-like way. So we had a short talk; I took a room; and went straight to bed. I had a bath and then slept, I think, twenty hours.
The next day we started doing things. I had no passport. I had to have a passport; I had to have petrol for the car; I had to have some money – Romanian – and so on. So I started preparing all this.
I went to the embassy etcetera and spent, I think, about five days in Bucharest trying to fix all this.
At that same hotel was staying Hélène Tarnowska with her two daughters, so I saw her, of course, and we would always have our meals together with Poklewski. The food was perfectly excellent and I won’t forget that one luncheon where we ordered some caviar and nothing else – so we had this big box of caviar in front of us when, all at once, Madame Tabęska appeared with a very heavy bag on her arm. So we invited her to come and eat this caviar and the moment she sat down, the waiter came round and told us that the Prime Minister of Romania had just been shot on the corner of such-and-such a street.
So, of course, this wasn’t too good news because we had had it by then. We didn’t want to get involved in some revolution in Bucharest. However, Alec, of course had very good contacts there.
I found out that there would be no revolution; that the people who shot the Prime Minister were found and caught and hung right away on the spot where they shot the Prime Minister. They hung there for three days, apparently, and that everything was in perfectly good order.
So, after I had fixed all the different problems, I took my leave from Alec and from everybody else, and I took off for Mesurberen where I found you after about an eight hour drive through Romania, through Sinaia and the mountains there and so on, and there you were.
Now, what happened after that you’ll get, of course, out of your mother’s book, Polish Profile, where she describes the whole thing.
I just wanted to add that Alec took a train from Bucharest to Belgrade where he saw Prince Paul of Yugoslavia and so on and then left for England. He very soon then became the president of the Polish Red Cross and was that during the whole war. They, as you know, were great friends with the Duchess of Kent and lived on her place in Coppins. She lived in a big mansion there and they had a small cottage in which Zoia, his wife (his widow now), is still living with the same cook she had.
Whilst I was waiting there [for Śmigły-Rydz to tell me what time he was going to leave Poland], the members of his staff were having supper and, in fact, behaving rather queerly because there was the wife of, what was, or had been, I think the prime minister’s (Sławoj Słatkowski) who was singing French little songs and the members of the staff were discussing how they would continue the war out of Romania which, of course, was perfectly ridiculous.
They invited me in for a bite which I accepted unhappily because it was a most unpleasant situation where these people who were supposed to be serious members of the general staff of the Polish army, were behaving like children.
The same situation prevailed in that hotel in Cherniowce where Beck, the foreign minister, all at once called in all the ambassadors for a conference. Now, as you know, an official governmental conference can only take place in their own country – that is to say, it could have taken place in Poland, but not in Romania, and so the other ambassadors just refused to come and so it was also one of those very unrealistic situations.
With me was that green Hudson and, of course, the chauffeur was Josewczyk – poor chap, I don’t know really what happened to him after we got to Budapest from Mesurberen with your mother because, of course, we couldn’t take along either the car nor Josewczyk – so, we left the car in some garage hoping that it could be sold which, of course, it never was or probably it was just picked up by somebody, and Josewczyk returned to Poland, as far as I know.
The same thing happened to Natalia. I don’t know whether you remember that Natalia came with you to Mesurberen and was there all that winter with you and then she remained behind. I believe she married some Hungarian railroad official.
We had come as far as Lemberg that night when you were going to Bucharest. I had to send him back because, after all, he had his daughter and wife in Siedliska and I couldn’t take the responsibility for his future. The parting with him was really very, very sad.
As you know, he spent the war in Siedliska first, and then crossed over somehow to Kraków and I saw him in ‘45 when I was there and, of course, I saw him twice, or three times, again whenever I went to Kraków. In the end, I think, some four or five years ago, he died of tuberculosis – poor chap. He was then a shoe salesman doing the route between Kraków and Katowice. I don’t know how he was making money that way, but he told me that that was the way he could make a living and keep his wife.
I saw his wife the last time I was in Kraków which was in 1968. She was still living in the same place and the daughter, I think, had gone and married – so, actually, they weren’t too badly off.
I left you in Mesurberen and we went on to Budapest where I believe we spent two days, or three, during which I had a suit made and a coat because, after all, I still was in that suit I bought from the peasant. I couldn’t put on a uniform, so I had nothing to dress myself into.
A word about that good Magdi. She was such a sweet angel and she took such enormous pains to do everything possible for both of you and for Natalia. She died, of course, as you know – oh, I suppose about ten years ago, now – in real poverty.
In Budapest we saw, of course, the Windisch-Graetz family – Putzi and the rest of them, also Magdi who is still there, and who spent, actually, the whole war in Budapest until the Russians came in and then went to Czechoslovakia to her brother’s place.
In Paris – again, it was the funniest thing in the world. In that same sleeper we found Madame Tabęska and, again, with that heavy bag on her arm. She was so scared on the borders so, in fact, I think we took that very heavy bag which, of course, was nothing but gold, and gave it back to her after we’d crossed the border into France.
When we got to Paris, we were invited by Madame Alése and they had a very magnificent big house in which she gave us the top floor which was two rooms and a bathroom where we stayed for about a month or six weeks, and then moved out of there because it was too cold. In fact, the heating was not working or rather very scant and I remember the bathroom – whenever you poured a bath, it was so full of steam that you couldn’t see from one end of the bathroom to the next.
In any case, from there, after your granny sent some money and your mother got an advance on Polish Profile, I believe, and so I was earning something. We moved into the Hôtel Gallia, Rue something or other, right near Rue François-1er. In any case, we had a room there with a bath and were really extremely comfortable and stayed there till the very end of our stay in Paris before we left for the USA.
Then, when we got there (to Paris, I mean), I went to the Polish embassy to see what I could do – if I could do anything – and, in about three weeks, Sosnkowski and his chief of staff appeared. They had been in Poland until the very end and then also in civilian clothes walked over the Carpathians and got out into Hungary and came to Paris. Sosnkowski was immediately a member of the Polish government in exile which was already functioning then under Sikorski in Paris, and he got an office in Hôtel Régina, Place des Pyramides.
So, when he saw me, he said immediately, “Well, you’d better come and join me,” which I did, of course, and I went there every day being his translator and receptionist and, I don’t know – secretary – whatever you like. In any case, I sat there in an office next to his, with Major Javicz.
Javicz was a very amusing fellow – a Ukrainian – who had been born in a village in Volhynia and had driven cows during his boyhood – but he showed some interest and aptitude for learning and so the Orthodox priest there picked him up; taught him to read and write; and then sent him to a seminary. Of course, Javicz was not made to be a priest or anything of that kind and, in any case, I think he spent about two years in that seminary when the Polish-Bolshevik war broke out. So then he joined; worked himself up from the ranks; and how he became Sosnkowski’s ADC I don’t know. In any case, he was one of the most useful persons a general could have because he was smart, he was wily – he found his way around, he knew everybody, he got everything settled for the general.
I had a glass with Javicz in there. Our window gave on to the rather beautiful statue of Joan of Arc – a golden one on the Place des Pyramides, and there were lots of jokes, of course, going around about her.
Anyway, it was interesting, of course, because I did a lot of things which … After all, I mean, this government in exile was only starting its life then and, naturally, there were a great many stupid things going on because the Poles are romantic and heroic, but not very realistic and politically not very well-prepared for that kind of a thing.
In any case, one thing happened there which was really most unpleasant because a man appeared one day who had been Chilean or Peruvian consul in Warsaw. He came to see me because I had used him when I was still in Silesia as an agent to buy some chemicals from Russia for our chemical factory and this chap, whose name was Nikiczynski, came in and told me that he had a lot of passports (Chilean or Peruvian – I don’t know which they were) and said that he was perfectly willing to get these passports to people who would like to leave Poland. Now, Sosnkowski’s wife and five boys, Sikorski’s wife and daughter and a great many others, were still in Warsaw or, anyway, in Poland.
I knew nothing about this fellow, so I went in to see Sosnkowski and told him about this and told him immediately also that I had known this chap as a commercial agent in Warsaw, but could not guarantee anything else at all. I mean, I didn’t know what he was for, or what he was against – whether he was an agent of the Nazis or an agent of the communists – I hadn’t the slightest idea. However, I felt obligated to tell Sosnkowski about him.
Sosnkowski called him in; they had a talk with each other; and whilst they were talking, I prepared a little note for Sosnkowski in which I repeated that I took no responsibility for Nikiczynski whatsoever and passed it up to Sosnkowski, who put it on his desk in front of him.
However, after about half an hour’s talking there, Nikiczynski and Sosnkowski went to see Sikorski and Professor Kot, who was then so-called Minister of the Interior for the government in exile. They had long talks this way and that way. I didn’t, of course, know what was going on, but the next thing I heard was that they had agreed to give Nikiczynski money and to give him the names and addresses of their wives plus a lot of other names and addresses in Warsaw, and Nikiczynski came back triumphantly that he was leaving and going back to Warsaw.
About a month later, he actually did bring out these women on these passports and then reappeared himself, of course, again in the Hôtel Régina.
Then he disappeared and about – oh, two years later – I heard that the British had caught him on the way through Romania to Constantinople and had killed him on the way there because he had been a Nazi agent – and not only had he been a Nazi agent, but he sold down the river a great many people also in Poland who were then put into concentration camps and, in fact, I think some were executed.