Posted on 12/19/2004 9:14:23 AM PST by lizol
Two Sides of the Same Coin 15 December 2004
Zygmunt Błażejewicz and Tadeusz Cynkin—soldiers on opposite sides of the front line in World War II—are part of Poland’s complicated past.
Both men were linked to cities belonging to Poland at the time, in its eastern borderland: Błażejewicz to Vilnius and Cynkin to Lviv. Both took part in the fighting of 1939, two of many defenders against German and Soviet aggression when, after Sept. 17, 1939, both Vilnius and Lviv were invaded by the Red Army.
■ War paths Błażejewicz avoided arrest and fought from 1943 in a unit led by Lt. “Toniek,” part of the Vilnius division of the Home Army (AK). The AK was Poland’s largest military organization in Nazi-occupied territories. Cynkin, after fighting in the defense of Lviv against the Red Army, remained in the city. A few weeks after the capture of Lviv by the Soviets he was arrested after being denounced by an NKVD agent. Lviv detention houses, interrogations and serious investigation followed. In March 1940 he was sentenced to six months in prison, which he served in a number of cities in the Soviet Union.
Błażejewicz spent WWII fighting as a partisan in the region of Vilnius. These areas, seized by the Soviets in 1939, were later captured by Germans and Lithuanian authorities collaborating with the Nazis.
For Polish partisans fighting for the liberation of their homeland, these changes meant an expanded battlefront. Błażejewicz and many others had no doubt that the enemies of an independent and democratic Poland included not only the Nazis and Lithuanian units that collaborated with them, but also the Soviet army. The Polish population of and around Vilnius, which at that time constituted an overwhelming majority, were convinced that both the Germans and the Soviets stood in the way of Polish independence.
This line of thinking—refusal to live in a Poland under either German or Soviet rule—gave birth to AK activity in the region of Vilnius—with German and later Soviet soldiers as well as Soviet agents active in those territories. Błażejewicz, a lieutenant of the AK Fifth Vilnius Brigade, played a considerable role in this campaign.
Memories of battles, acts of sabotage and attacks are accompanied by many emotions. Błażejewicz has a deep conviction that he served a good cause, and pride in the path he chose—struggling against the invaders.
For Cynkin, the war brings back memories of a Soviet prison sentence and, after the outbreak of the German-Soviet war, forced labor in stroibats—building battalions used by the Soviet authorities as slave labor. Forced to work for the Soviet cause and living like a pauper in humiliating conditions far from Poland, Cynkin became all too well acquainted with life in the communist “paradise.” He soon realized that his choice was either escape or die.
■ Moment of choice In 1941, the news spread among Polish exiles and prisoners of Soviet labor camps that a Polish army was being assembled in the Soviet Union. The army’s commander was Gen. Władysław Anders, appointed by the Polish government-in-exile in London. Many Poles forced to relocate to Soviet territory were now able to flee the Soviet Union. A great migration of Poles began, heading towards rallying points scattered around the vast stretches of Siberia and Soviet Central Asia. Cynkin was one of many who took advantage of the amnesty announced by the Soviets.
Travel was difficult and Cynkin arrived too late to enroll in the Polish army that subsequently left the Soviet Union through Central Asia and Iran. Left behind, in 1943 he was able to join another formation—under the auspices of the communist Polish authorities established in the Soviet Union by Stalin. These units would later fight alongside the Red Army against the Germans and capture Berlin in 1945.
Cynkin already realized that postwar Poland would be a communist Poland with different borders, dependent on the Kremlin, and to a large extent not sovereign. Together with the Tadeusz Kościuszko First Division, Cynkin participated in the capture of the Berlin University of Technology.
For Błażejewicz, a significant turning point in the war in Vilnius was 1944 and completion of the Burza (Storm) campaign. Under this code name, the AK carried out a massive combat operation in an attempt to liberate large Polish cities from German occupation. Campaigns were launched in Vilnius, Lviv and in Warsaw, the site of the Warsaw Uprising.
The operation in Vilnius ended in success, after the AK liberated the city as fighting on the eastern front approached. AK members did not realize at the time that the fate of Vilnius, like other eastern territories of the Second Republic of Poland, had already been sealed. According to an agreement concluded between the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union, these territories would be incorporated into the Soviet Union. The Soviets entered Vilnius with the conviction that it was already their city. The NKVD introduced Soviet order by arresting AK officers and soldiers.
Błażejewicz avoided arrest, as did a number of his fellow AK officers. For those young people, the situation was tragically clear. Another occupation—this time Soviet—was to be enforced by the Soviet army and Polish military units subordinate to the communist Polish government taking orders from the Kremlin.
Błażejewicz—aware of the danger in Vilnius and aware of the oath he had taken to defend his native soil—escaped with his soldiers across the Curzon line, where they continued fighting for Polish independence, within its already truncated borders. His formation, the AK Fifth Vilnius Brigade, carried out a series of combat missions in the Białystok region near Bielsk Podlaski and in the Podlasie region near Siedlce. Attacks weree conducted against Red Army and Polish People’s Army (LWP) formations. Agents and informers acting for the NKVD and the communist Polish Security Office were liquidated.
For Błażejewicz, the end of the war in May 1945 did not mean an end to the fighting. After all, Poland was not free and had lost huge swaths of territory in the east, the land of his birth. Błażejewicz and the other partisans were aware of the hopelessness of their fight and the inevitability of settlements concluded by allied leaders who had abandoned Poland to Soviet rule. Nonetheless, armed struggle against communist tyranny was the only honorable choice.
■ Confrontation At the same time, Cynkin had already reached Berlin with the Tadeusz Kościuszko First Division. Already a captain, Cynkin was valued by his superiors for his experience on the front as an effective commander. Together with his unit, Cynkin was redeployed to Poland, opening another stage in his military career. Soviet authorities in Poland pressed Polish commanders to eliminate the armed independence-oriented underground. The LWP together with units of the Soviet NKVD launched a liquidation of the “gangs,” as Polish independence underground units were described in official communist terminology. In Poland, the civil war lasted several years and was for several decades missing from official history textbooks.
The unit commanded by Cynkin was redeployed to Podlasie near Siedlce with explicit orders: to find and eliminate partisan groups fighting against the people’s authorities. At that time, Lieutenant Błażejewicz and his unit were already active in Podlasie.
At the beginning of August 1945, units of the AK Fifth Vilnius Brigade were deployed to Podlasie villages where they obtained food and shelter from local peasants. Soon news reached Błażejewicz’s partisans that military trucks filled with Polish soldiers were approaching the village where they were stationed. It was clear that it was one of the formations with the task of eradicating AK partisan units. The AK soldiers set an ambush. A few dozen LWP soldiers surrendered to Błażejewicz’s partisans, many perished. The convoy’s commander was Cpt. Cynkin. It was during this episode that the two Poles met—on opposite sides of the postwar front.
Cynkin was ordered to free the soldiers taken captive and liquidate Błażejewicz’s unit. He was also assured of support from Soviet units, to be redeployed immediately to the region where the ambush had taken place. One of Cynkin’s men, now an AK prisoner, emerged from the forest where the partisans had taken cover, holding aloft a white flag. According to Cynkin’s report, Błażejewicz asked to talk to him, to which Cynkin agreed.
The commanders entered the field, shifting their holster to their backs to demonstrate their intention to negotiate. Błażejewicz agreed to free the prisoners, while Cynkin promised to delay the offensive against the partisans. This exchange was one of the many wartime memories that both men carry.
■ Years later Błażejewicz stayed only for a short time in Poland, facing the growing threat of capture after the Soviets put a price on his head. The NKVD was also zeroing in on his unit. Fleeing detention, he was evacuated in 1945 to the West. Today he lives in the United States.
Cynkin remained in Poland longer and was rapidly promoted in the LWP. He reached the rank of colonel, commanded a regiment, a division and corps. However, Soviet military intelligence had already marked him with an official note urging caution in contacts with him. Had his conversation with Błażejewicz helped the partisans survive? It is likely. Despite promotion, Cynkin was an unknown factor for the communist authorities. He was sentenced to three years in prison after a show trial, which signified the end of his military career. In 1972 Cynkin was given the opportunity to leave Poland permanently. Today he lives in Sweden.
August 2004. The same field in Podlasie. Błażejewicz and Cynkin met again, this time without weapons and under more positive circumstances. They shook hands in silence, honoring the memory of their colleagues killed during the war. Later in Siedlce, they lit candles on the graves of soldiers at the local cemetery.
Both agreed that their second meeting was a moving experience. Was it also an act of reconciliation between former enemies? Has it obliterated the divisions that were built during the postwar period? These are difficult questions about upholding one’s principles, oaths and obligations. The history of Poland contains many similar dilemmas, the story of Błażejewicz and Cynkin represents not only the personal experiences of two Poles but the dilemmas and conflicts that affected thousands of Poles in the aftermath of WWII.
Lots of cussing going on!
No country suffered more from WWII than Poland, but out of that suffering came wisdom and great writers like Herling-Grudzinski and Herbert.
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