Rather Die Fighting by Frank Blaichman

Author:Frank Blaichman
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781628727869
Publisher: Arcade
Published: 2011-03-31T16:00:00+00:00

THE MOST IMPORTANT MISSION of my years as a partisan took place in mid-March, when Leon Marzenta and I were given a special security assignment by the AL command. By this time, our group’s relationship with the AL was solid: they treated us as equals; we had won each other’s respect and were friends. Still, we remained on our guard.

Our assignment was to protect, to the death, the four most important members of the Krajowa Rada Narodowa (KRN), the underground, Communist, pro-Soviet Polish government-in-exile, and to bring them over to the east side of the Bug River. From there, they would be flown to Moscow, to the Soviet high command.

The men were Osobka Morawski, who later became the Polish prime minister (he subsequently wrote about the journey in his memoir but never mentioned the Jewish partisans who protected the group); Major Marian Spychalski of the AL; Dr. Jan Haneman, a member of the KRN and the Polish Socialist Party; and Kazimierz Sidor, a partisan from the Lublin district and a high-ranking AL leader in the Parczew region. His brother, Staszek, and his sister, Stephana, were also partisans there.

Lieutenant Marzenta and I each took five men. We moved from village to village and from one farm to another, always heading toward the river. AL guides worked with us and the AL security on both flanks and the rear, something we had never seen before. We understood then that, as the innermost circle of defense, we were ultimately responsible for these leaders’ lives and that failure to protect them could affect the lives of millions. At the time, it did not occur to me that there was anything strange about the fact that we, a group of six Jews, had been picked to take part in this mission. Perhaps the fact that we had survived against all odds and could be counted on to fight to the death had something to do with their choosing us.

It took little more than a week to reach the Bug River, and during that time my men and I became very friendly with our charges. The future prime minister was our cook and loved to sing with us after lunch. The camaraderie was genuine, and one day Morawski even invited me to come with him to Moscow. I was flattered and thanked him for the invitation but declined. I needed to be with my men. He understood that.

When we reached the last rendezvous point on the west side of the Bug, we moved into a farmhouse and waited for a courier to let us know when to set out for the riverbank. He arrived around midnight. He told us that we had to be at a designated site, where three rowboats would be waiting, by 2:00 a.m. Then he handed us over to another guide.

We made our way to the riverbank and spread out to provide security. Some flooded areas along the riverbank had iced over, and as we slogged along, I sank through the ice and had to be pulled out and helped up onto the shore.

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