I was a young Polish boy raised in the spirit of Polish patriotism. Today, when I tell people about this in Israel, they have a hard time understanding – recalls Satnislaw Aronson, second lieutenant in the Polish Home Army (AK), in his conversation with Peter Zychowicz.

In Germany and in some Polish circles in Poland, a thesis is being brought forth recently: that Poles along with the Polish army, helped Germans with the killing of the Jews. However you sir are a person of Jewish descent and served in the Polish Home Army for several years.

In my squad I was never confronted with any kind of anti-Semitism. My Commander in Chief from the Warsaw district of the Home Army, Jozef Rybicki, was an unusually liberal and tolerant person. He knew from the beginning that I was Jewish and he never gave me a hard time about this. Neither did friends from my squad – simple soldiers with whom I fought hand in hand against the Germans.

How did you find yourself in the Polish Home Army?

In 1942, I successfully escaped a train transporting people from the Warsaw ghetto to Treblinka. When the train stopped in the middle of a field, I approached a small window in the upper part of our wagon. I was very slim so I pulled myself up and – despite the other passenger’s screams trying to stop me – I squeezed myself outside. When I think back, these people protested because they were scared that when my escape became known, the Germans would punish the entire wagon.

Did you manage to escape?

Yes. The guards never noticed me jumping out. I lay down near the tracks until the train left. I then took refuge in a nearby chapel and after some time I headed back to Warsaw.

Back to the ghetto?

No. I called my sister’s friends on the other side of the wall. They found shelter for me with a German lady who lived near Plac Napoleona and worked for the Polish underground. It was in her apartment that I met Jozef Rybicki. He showed interest in me, started inquiring about me, until an offer came along to step into the organization.

Did you agree right away?

I was a Polish boy! Today, when I say this to people in Israel, they find it difficult to understand. I was raised in the spirit of patriotism. My family was in favor of Pilsudski’s political views. Although in 1935 I was barely 10 years old, I remember perfectly that in our home in Lodz everyone mourned the Marshall’s death. My homeland was Poland and it was an obvious thing for me, this is why I entered the underground without hesitation.

Do you remember your first underground action?

On the outskirts of the Warsaw train station we poured some chemicals into the break mechanism of the German trains. The goal of this maneuver was to stop the trains from moving. Had the Germans caught us in the act, things could have been really bad for us. Somehow the entire operation went fine; there were so many wagons that it was hard to oversee everything. During successive actions we poured the chemicals into German reservoirs. This was more dangerous: we only had a few seconds for the entire action. One of us had to distract the German driver and another had to pour the liquid inside.

What were your subsequent warfare actions?

One day I was told to move into an apartment on Czerniakow which had been prepared for me. I was transferred to the fighting commando where I was known under the name ‘Rysiek’. It was a turning point for me. From this moment my life became even more interesting: social gatherings, women – everything a young man could come across in a big city. Once in a while I received orders to go to a precise location at a specific time with a weapon. In the long run, such a hazardous double existence became stressful and psychologically exhausting.

Which action particularly lingers in your memory?

Clean or dirty?

Let’s start with the clean one.

Near the Plac Teatralny, there was a huge postal garage. My friends and I managed to go inside pretending to be maintenance staff. The guards never suspected anything and let us in. As we pretended to be sweeping, we walked from car to car and set up explosives. After this we threw bombs into huge underground tanks containing gasoline. The time detonators were set for two hours. After leaving the garage we climbed on some roof building with our leader and waited for the explosion to take place: two hours passed but nothing happened. The leader looked at us with disappointment: he thought we had chickened out and not gone inside the garage lot. But suddenly… what a blast, an atomic bomb, a gigantic and spectacular explosion! I think the entire Warsaw fire squad was needed to extinguish the fire.

And the dirty actions?

They were primarily executions: very ruthless and dark tasks. Sometimes these actions took a few weeks to prepare. We hang around near the victim’s house and observed his habits. We drew a map of the surrounding streets and alleys, and the layout of the building. When everything was prepared, we went to the victim’s apartment. I was 18 years old and for this task we were assigned two older lads, so I never pulled the trigger. My participation was limited to safeguarding the action on the stairs or in front of the building. Sometimes I had to move the victim’s family and lock them in another room, so as not to let them watch the execution. We then read the verdict, and one of my friends completed the execution.

Was it during one of those actions that you got wounded for the first time?

No, it was during a shooting under the Zamek Krolewski. The Germans wanted to stop us, but wee didn’t let them and opened fire on them. I got shot in the head but the bullet only cut my skin without touching the skull. Today I still have a scar. I remember the weapons we used at that time: the Polish ‘WISY’, seized SCHMEISSERS. After 1943, we started receiving weapons from England, British THOMPSONS. To this were added grenades, a variety of bombs and explosive material.

The Germans certainly respect all of you.

They were definitely careful and watched their every move. But we never attacked blindly, like the Communist People’s Army, which carried out various illogical attacks on simple soldiers. These actions only cause repression towards the civilian population, and from the military perspective they made no sense. In the meantime, we chose carefully our targets. We eliminated only the most dangerous Germans; we tried to obtain the greatest losses at the lowest cost.

Did the Warsaw Uprising start right after this?

I found myself in a squad in the division ‘North’. Our first task was the take-over of Umschlagplatz as well as the school at Stawki, from which I got shipped to the camp. In 1944 schools were transformed into massive warehouses used for food and uniform distribution. The SSmen who defended the location stood close guard, which made those attacks very difficult but we finally succeeded to take over the school. Apart from enormous war takings, we also found 50 Hungarian Jews whom we immediately set free. When they saw us they were overcome with joy. Several of them joined our side and performed different supportive functions. But there was in fact a problem with communication. As I said before, they were from Hungary and we could not communicate properly with them.

Did you stay in the school?

No. The next day, under the name ‘Radoslaw’, our division marched to Wola, in the region of Zytnia Street – Okopowa, where we set ourselves up in a corner house. The battalion ‘Zoska’ fought next to us. I then fought on the outskirts of the ghetto, where we resisted German attacks. On August 10th, during the Okopowa fighting across from the evangelical cemetery, I got wounded. A mortar bullet struck my leg, its fragments lodging themselves in my lungs. This marked the end of the Uprising for me and I found myself at the hospital in the Old Town’s underground.


Did you have an operation?

Yes. I was lucky that they were capable of saving my leg, but the conditions in the hospital were very mediocre, and some bullet fragment remained in my body below the lungs. In Tel-Aviv every year I go through routine tests; when the doctors see the debris residue on the x-rays, they are frightened. At first they think it is a tumor, but when I tell them that I got wounded during the Warsaw Uprising they are astonished.

After so many years, some of the Uprising veterans critically rate the decision for its onset.

This was already my opinion in 1944! We knew from the beginning that it was senseless. My division leader ‘Stasinek’ Sosabowski, the son of General Stanislaw Sosabowski, had said that the Uprising was evidently nonsense. We knew from the beginning that on the newly occupied territory by the Soviets, they arrested and executed soldiers from the Home Army participating in the ‘Burza’ action. We concluded that even if the Uprising was a success, they would all arrest us and ship us off to Soviet concentration camps. Jozef Rybicki believed that you had to go down even deeper into the underground and calmly wait for the Soviet occupation. The disaster caused by the Uprising surpassed our worst predictions: 63 days of fighting instead of 5 or 6 as planned, complete destruction of Warsaw and 200 000 killed civilians - a horrific mistake.

What did you do after the uprising?

I came back to Lodz under Soviet occupation. For me it was the second time already, because I spent the years 1939-1941 with family in Lwow. Several friends of mine who didn’t know any Bolsheviks had various illusions, but I knew very well what to expect of them. This is why I stepped into an anticommunist underground organization called ‘NIE’. I escaped to the West shortly after where I joined General Anders’ Army.

There you informed General Sosabowski about the loss of his son.

Yes, during the uprising ‘Stasinek’ was severely wounded. He was loosing his sight and in Poland there wasn’t the slightest chance for an operation. I informed his father of the situation, and it was I – according to the General’s plan – who pulled ‘Stasinek’ out of the Soviet occupied country. We went to Munich together where there was an outpost of Polish Intelligence. I was then supposed to go to Poland in a jeep from UNRAA and take him to the West, but the people from the Intelligence raised a veto: they said that I would be unmasked right away and shot like a spy. In the meantime, Sosabowski, through the Ministry of British Defense tried some other methods and succeed to get ‘Stasinek’ out with a British plane.



The Second World War did not mean the end of warfare: you left to Israel and participated in the wars which took place there. Did the experience you gained in the Polish army prove itself useful?

Very useful, maybe not as much in the Home Army because I fought in the city, whereas in Israel I had to deal with classical line fighting. The training I underwent in General Anders’ army was extremely helpful. When you consider both matters, the Warsaw Uprising was a lot harder than the war for the independence of Israel in 1948. The Arabs were by far worse soldiers than the Germans.

Review

Life as and adventure story

Stanislaw Aronson’s biography seems to be appreciated by many people. None of them would be able to say that he had a boring life: Lwow under Soviet occupation – the ghetto in Warsaw – Kedyw (Kierownictwo Dywersji) – the Warsaw Uprising – the ‘NIE’ organization – his brave escape to the West – General Anders’ army, and a few wars undertaken by the nation of Israel with its Arab neighbors. When he crossed back to civilian life, he became a businessman. After the fall of communism in Poland he renewed his contact with his old homeland. In 2007 he was honored with the Commander’s Cross of Poland’s Revival Order. Aronson is first of all a soldier but also a very good storyteller. Written together with the Polish journalist Particia Bukalska, the autobiography ‘Rysiek z Kedywu’ reads itself in a single gasp, like a good adventure story. The history of Stanislaw Aronson is not only a description of successive underground operations, it is also an important foundation for facts regarding Polish-Jewish relations.

This being evident proof, because there are many false stereotypes whom both sides are often guilty of spreading. Anti-Semites will be surprised that a young Jewish boy, not only considered himself to be Polish, but also fought weapon in hand for the independence of its nation. For anti-Polish advocates, it will be hard to believe that in the ranks of the Home Army, Aronson never encountered any frictions or bloody repressions. May ‘Rysiek z Kedywu’ become known as soon as possible in the United States and in Israel.

Patricia Bukalska, Stanislaw Aronson, ‘Rysiek z Kedywu’, Znak Publishing, Krakow 2009.”Rzeczpospolita”