Action at the Arsenal

On 26 March 1943, at about half past five in the afternoon, at the junction of Długa, Bielańska and Nalewki streets in Warsaw, next to the building of the old Arsenal (PL), a group of young scouts attacked a prison van carrying arrested people from Gestapo headquarters on Szucha Avenue to Pawiak. After a few minutes of fighting in the street in the centre of the occupied city they freed 21 prisoners, among them Jan Bytnar (PL) “Rudy”, who had been beaten in interrogation and for whom the whole action had been prepared. They paid a high price: two participants were mortally wounded, a third fell into German hands and died under interrogation, and “Rudy” himself died four days later. The Action at the Arsenal, described during the war in “Kamienie na szaniec” (“Stones for the Rampart”) by Aleksander Kamiński (PL), became one of the best-known episodes of the Polish conspiracy.

Scouts in the conspiracy

The conspiratorial scouting movement, known as the Grey Ranks (PL), had operated from the first months of the occupation. Its oldest branch, made up of boys over 18, was the Assault Groups (PL). From November 1942 they were formally subordinate to the Directorate of Diversion of the Home Army – Kedyw – and in Warsaw they formed the special unit “Jerzy”, divided into four district companies, about 300 people in all. The “Centrum” company was commanded by Tadeusz Zawadzki “Zośka”, the “Południe” company by Jan Bytnar “Rudy”, and the “Praga” company by Henryk Ostrowski “Heniek”.

Many of them had behind them years of so-called minor sabotage (PL) in the “Wawer” organisation: painting the Fighting Poland anchor on walls, tearing down German flags, gassing cinemas for Germans. Bytnar, born in 1921 in Kolbuszowa, took part in several dozen such actions; among other things he tore a huge Nazi flag from the Zachęta building. In the Assault Groups they now moved on to “major diversion”: blowing up tracks and bridges, attacking transports and freeing prisoners. The programme of the Assault Groups was summed up in the slogan “Today, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow”: today – current struggle, tomorrow – military training for the future uprising, the day after tomorrow – study in secret classes and at secret universities, so as to build a free Poland after the war.

The arrests

The avalanche began on the night of 18–19 March 1943, when the Gestapo arrested Henryk Ostrowski in Grochów. In his flat they found explosives, weapons and notes which, as the literature accepts, contained Bytnar’s address. In the early hours of 23 March, on the night of 22–23, the Germans seized “Rudy” and his father Stanisław in their flat at 159 Niepodległości Avenue. At Gestapo headquarters on Szucha Avenue Bytnar was beaten unconscious; despite the torture he betrayed no one. Pawiak prisoners were taken to Szucha for interrogation in the morning and back in the afternoon, along the same route through the centre of the city. It was this daily run of the prison van that the scouts targeted – it was the only moment when “Rudy” was outside the walls of the prison and the Gestapo building.

“Zośka”, “Rudy”’s closest friend, began preparing a rescue at once. The head of the Grey Ranks, Florian Marciniak “Nowak”, however entrusted command of the action to Stanisław Broniewski “Orsza” – it is assumed because he judged “Zośka” too personally involved. An attack on the prison van required the consent of the commander of Kedyw’s reserve units, Maj. Jan Wojciech Kiwerski “Lipiński”. The first attempt, set for 23 March, did not take place: Kiwerski was not in Warsaw, and “Rudy” was not transported that day. The scouts, who had already taken up their positions, heard that the prisoner was not in the vehicle.

“Strike!”

On 26 March a liaison girl confirmed that Bytnar was among the prisoners taken to Szucha that morning. Kiwerski, who had returned to the city late, heard the report at Three Crosses Square and gave his consent barely a few dozen minutes before the action with a single word: “Strike!” The action was codenamed “Mexico II”. The place was chosen where the prison van returning from Szucha had to slow down on a bend before the entrance to the ghetto area. The plan envisaged hurling incendiary bottles at the cab, firing at the vehicle with Sten guns and – as a last resort – using grenades. A car was prepared for the wounded, and a dressing station on Ursynowska Street in Mokotów.

Twenty-eight scouts took part in the action (some studies give 29). The “Atak” group was commanded by “Zośka”; it comprised the “Bottles” section of Jan Rodowicz (PL) “Anoda”, “Sten I” of Sławomir Bittner “Maciek”, “Sten II” of Jerzy Gawin “Słoń” and “Grenades” of Maciej Aleksy Dawidowski (PL) “Alek”. The “Ubezpieczenie” (cover) group of Władysław Cieplak “Giewont” manned the signalling and the cover on the side of the ghetto and the Old Town.

In the afternoon a pre-arranged password was passed by telephone from inside the building on Szucha that the “goods” were being sent. At about 5.30 p.m. the prison van arrived from the direction of Teatralny Square. At “Orsza”’s whistle, bottles flew at the cab; the vehicle turned into Długa instead of Nalewki, caught fire and stopped. From the back of the vehicle the escorts returned fire, and from nearby buildings so did Germans and “Navy-blue” policemen. The assault group with “Zośka” reached the prison van and led the prisoners out. “Alek” threw a grenade towards the Arbeitsamt building in the Palace Under the Four Winds, opening a route of retreat, and was himself gravely wounded in the stomach. Tadeusz Krzyżewicz “Buzdygan” was also gravely wounded. Hubert Lenk, covering the action, was overpowered in a gateway by a Volksdeutscher, the owner of a nearby restaurant, and handed over to the Germans. With a second grenade “Alek” still halted the pursuit at Krasiński Square. At about 5.45 p.m. “Orsza”’s whistle ended the action, and the participants withdrew towards the Old Town. The wounded Bytnar, who could not walk unaided, was driven away in a car.

The toll

Twenty-one prisoners were freed, including “Rudy” and Henryk Ostrowski; in his first report Marciniak gave the number as 25, later corrected. According to consistent studies four people were killed on the German side and nine wounded – among them the driver of the prison van and two Polish “Navy-blue” policemen. One of the freed prisoners, Maria Szyfers (also spelled Schiffers), was wounded; one of the women being transported was killed.

The scouts’ losses proved painful. Hubert Lenk “Hubert” died tortured in interrogation; the date of his death is uncertain. “Alek” died on 30 March in the Infant Jesus Hospital, “Buzdygan” on 2 April. Jan Bytnar, hidden in conspirators’ flats, also died on 30 March, at about half past four in the afternoon, in a hospital in Wola – the effects of the interrogation could no longer be reversed. He was buried on 2 April at the Powązki Military Cemetery under the false name Jan Domański. His father Stanisław, deported on 13 May 1943 to Auschwitz, died in 1945 during the evacuation of the camp. Henryk Ostrowski, freed together with “Rudy”, survived the war and died in 1995.

The Germans responded with terror. On 27 March in the courtyard of Pawiak they shot 140 Poles and Jews.

After the action

For the action “Alek” received posthumously – as the first Grey Ranks scout – the Virtuti Militari cross, awarded on 3 May 1943 by the Home Army commander-in-chief Gen. Stefan Rowecki “Grot”; “Zośka” received the Cross of Valour. In May 1943 the Assault Groups shot two Gestapo men who had interrogated Bytnar and Ostrowski – “Zośka” and “Maciek” themselves killed one of them – and in July 1943 the “Osjan” unit shot the Volksdeutscher who had seized “Hubert”.

At the end of April 1943 “Zośka” wrote down an account of his friends and of the action. On its basis Kamiński wrote “Kamienie na szaniec”, published clandestinely as early as 1943 – a rare case of an underground action becoming a literary narrative almost while it was still hot. Tadeusz Zawadzki himself did not live to see the end of the war: he was killed on the night of 20–21 August 1943 during an attack on a German border post at Sieczychy near Wyszków. His name was taken by the Zośka Battalion (PL), in which the Assault Groups went into battle in the Warsaw Uprising.

The Action at the Arsenal showed that the underground was ready to attack the Gestapo in broad daylight, in the very middle of the city, to free its own people. It also showed how much each such victory cost – and how quickly the Germans shifted that cost onto random victims of execution at Pawiak.

The memory of the action survived in the People’s Republic too. In 1958 the first plaque was placed on the wall of the Arsenal, and the events of 26 March were told in the films “Strzały pod Arsenałem” (1969) and “Akcja pod Arsenałem” (1977). Since 2006 the nearest station of the Warsaw metro has been named Ratusz Arsenał. Of the 28 participants, eleven survived the war.