Underground activity
1914–1918
In August 1915, when Rev.
Karol Leonard Wajszczuk was serving as vicar in Radzyń
Podlaski, the town was under German occupation. Under the
conditions that arose after the Germans took control of
Radzyń, Rev. Karol carried out his duties in the church and
parish with great zeal, outwardly not engaging in political
matters. In reality, however, from 1916 until the regaining
of independence in November 1918, he served as chaplain of
the Polish Military Organization (POW).
On Sunday and feast day
afternoons, in his free time from his duties as vicar, he
travelled by bicycle or horse cart, often dressed in
civilian clothes, to secret POW meetings in the forests
around Płudy, Turów, Kąkolewnica and Żakowola. Couriers
frequently came to him with orders and instructions;
sometimes they waited at the rectory pretending to be
visitors. It was difficult and dangerous work, carried out
under the watchful eye of the Germans, whose attitude toward
the Polish cause and the Polish people was ruthless and
hostile. Particularly hostile was the German attitude toward
the Church, manifested in turning churches into warehouses
(as in Drelów), stables and garages, profanation of altars
and crosses, and the requisitioning of bells.
Rev. Wajszczuk’s
frequent trips toward Kąkolewnica became suspicious to the
Germans. They began to suspect that he was one of the
organisers of the secret independence military organisation
POW in the Radzyń district, which was preparing for an armed
confrontation with the German occupier. In the summer of
1917 the Germans conducted many searches in Radzyń Podlaski
and the surrounding area, looking for weapons depots and POW
documents; they also carried out numerous arrests. Only a
fortunate idea saved Rev. Karol from arrest.
One summer day in 1917,
while preparing a sermon in his room, he noticed through the
window that several gendarmes had surrounded the rectory and
three were heading toward the door; he understood what this
meant. He ran into the kitchen and said to the housekeeper:
“The Germans! I am ill with typhus.” He returned to his room,
took off his cassock and got into bed under the quilt. The
Germans were already knocking at the door. The housekeeper
opened it and, pretending to cry, stammered: “Pastor krank —
typhus.” The effect was immediate. The non-commissioned
officer stopped his colleagues in the yard and cautiously
looked into the room, where the vicar lay in bed with his
chest uncovered. He immediately slammed the door and shouted
while leaving that the place should be marked with a warning
sign, even if written in chalk on the fence: “Typhus.”
That same day Rev.
Karol obtained leave from his parish priest and left for
some time, first to POW members in Kąkolewnica and later to
his parents in Siedlce.
During the winter and
spring of 1918 former soldiers of the Tsarist army returned
to Podlasie to their families; a significant number of them
subsequently joined the underground structures of the POW.
Rev. Karol lived the events of 1918 literally day by day,
frequently travelling to meetings of POW units in the
Turów–Kąkolewnica region, as his presence inspired faith and
hope among their ranks. On 11 November 1918 the long-awaited
freedom came for Poland.
1939–1941
As during the First
World War, so in September 1939 Rev. Karol Wajszczuk did not
remain indifferent to the fate of his homeland. He never
came to terms with the September defeat, considering it a
short-lived episode that would not have a decisive impact on
the final outcome of the war. Today we know that this view
was not isolated, and it had a significant influence on the
formation of the first underground resistance cells in the
Lublin region as early as the autumn of 1939.
On 26 October 1939 the
General Government was proclaimed, and at the beginning of
November the Lublin district was established. Mass crimes
and terror by the German occupiers indicated the necessity
of taking up armed struggle against the enemy. The situation
in the Międzyrzec region was particularly dangerous, as the
Germans also drew Ukrainian nationalists into the fight
against Polish identity.
In conditions of strict
conspiracy, in the autumn of 1939 a secret military
organisation called “Nasze Orły” (“Our Eagles”) was formed,
initially covering the villages of Drelów and Łózki, and
from March 1940 also Żerocin. This organisation drew on the
experience and traditions of the POW from the time of the
First World War. The “Nasze Orły” group was organised by an
emissary using the pseudonym “Szary.” Who this man was
remains unknown. It is known, however, that at the end of
October 1939 a meeting took place at the rectory in Drelów
between “Szary” and Rev. Karol Wajszczuk; they had known
each other from POW activities before 1918. Present at these
conversations were Feliks Szafrański, Józef Krawiecki and
Stefan Kowalczuk from Drelów, invited by the parish priest.
An initiative group was formed, headed by Krawiecki.
After these events a
middle-aged man of slim build arrived in Drelów and
introduced himself to Rev. Karol as Count Eryk Kryszyński,
an officer of the former Independent Operational Group
“Polesie” of General Franciszek Kleeberg, who had avoided
German captivity after the battle of Kock and Wola Gułowska;
he asked to stay at the rectory until he could return to his
home in Strzemieszczyce near Katowice. Rev. Wajszczuk
offered him hospitality, which lasted until May 1940. During
this time Eryk did not hide at all; he rode a bicycle to
Międzyrzec, from where he brought German newspapers. In
conversations with people he provocatively asked what they
thought about the possibility of German rule over all of
Europe. He did not gain people’s trust; they contemptuously
called him “Beznosek.” After several weeks of observation
Rev. Wajszczuk began to doubt the credibility of his
identity. It was widely believed in the parish that
“Beznosek” was a German spy. (The truth emerged only after
the parish priest’s arrest — “Beznosek” was indeed not who
he claimed to be.)
Eryk’s presence at the
rectory complicated Rev. Wajszczuk’s contacts with the
“Nasze Orły” group, which was preparing to take an oath. On
10 December 1939 at 7:00 a.m. Bolesław Hawryluk opened the
chapel in Łózki, where members of “Nasze Orły” gathered in
the presence of “Szary.” Jan Kozłowiec brought the parish
priest from Drelów, who was to celebrate morning service at
8:00. First, however, the solemn oath of the organisation’s
members took place. The oath was received by Rev. Karol
Wajszczuk in the presence of “Szary.”
After the oath and Holy
Mass Jan Kozłowiec drove the parish priest back to Drelów
and parish life continued as usual.
Christmas 1939 passed
in an atmosphere of general gloom and growing terror of the
occupier. In mid-January 1940 Rev. Wajszczuk left to visit
his cousin Rev. Feliks Wajszczuk in Woskrzenice. Michał
Strok, the parish farm manager, deliberately spread
disinformation saying that the priest had gone for a short
rest to Kodeń on the Bug River. In mid-February the parish
priest returned to Drelów, but found a very tense atmosphere
due to Eryk’s increasingly arrogant behaviour at the rectory.
On 17 March 1940 Rev.
Wajszczuk received news of the arrest of his brother Rev.
Feliks and his imprisonment by the Gestapo in Biała
Podlaska. This news caused great distress and led to
increased caution. At the beginning of April Rev. Wajszczuk
went into hiding again, this time in the home of Teodor
Ostapiuk in Drelów. Michał Strok harnessed horses to a
carriage and attempted to secretly take the priest to the
rectory in Kolembród to Rev. Aleksander Prus. However, this
attempt failed because Eryk, having tracked the carriage,
chased it by bicycle and near Żelizna forced the parish
priest and his driver to return to Drelów.
The underground group
“Nasze Orły” — the first cell from which later local
structures of the Union of Armed Struggle (ZWZ) and the Home
Army (AK) emerged — was ideologically and emotionally
closely connected with Rev. Karol Wajszczuk.
The fate of the members
of “Nasze Orły” was tragic. Many were killed in Auschwitz,
others murdered by the Gestapo, and only one survived
imprisonment. Their chaplain Rev. Karol Wajszczuk shared the
fate of these heroes — arrested by the Gestapo, he was later
murdered in the Nazi camp system.
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