for the last 30 or so years this image of young POlish resistance fighters in Warsaw has had me wanting to know who these boy soldiers were and what happened to them when the uprising was quashed, from left to right; Tadeusz Rajszczak, 15 years old, pseudonym "Maszynka", Kazimierz Gabara, 17 years old, pseudonym "Łuk" and Mieczysław Lach, 15 years old, pseudonym "Pestka" all 3 were Soldiers from the "Radosław Regiment" after several hours marching through sewers from Krasiński Square to Warecka Street in the Śródmieście district, early morning on September 2, 1944. ( Tadeusz "Maszynka" Rajszczak from the Miotła Battalion)
all 3 survived the war
Rajszczak avoided capture by the Germans at the end of the uprising and left Warsaw with the rest of the civilian population when it was expelled en masse in October 1944. He is almost certainly the son of Weronika and Feliks Rajszczak (they also had a daughter - Mirosława) and according to the website of the Warsaw Uprising Museum, he died in Warsaw in 1996. The Rajszczak family were recognised as Righteous Among The Nations in 1978 for risking their lives to save Jews in occupied Warsaw during the war. There are two photographs on an Israeli website called “Ghetto Fighters House Archives”, which date from 1986 and 1992 and show “Tadeusz Rajszczak, Righteous Among the Nations from Poland” on visits to Israel….
Mieczysław Lach was interned as a POW by the Germans in Stalag X-B Sandbostel after the Warsaw Uprising and Kazimierz Gabara was also briefly interned in Stalag X-B Sandbostel, but was then taken to Hamburg for use as a forced labourer. He returned to Poland in 1946.
all 3 survived the war
Rajszczak avoided capture by the Germans at the end of the uprising and left Warsaw with the rest of the civilian population when it was expelled en masse in October 1944. He is almost certainly the son of Weronika and Feliks Rajszczak (they also had a daughter - Mirosława) and according to the website of the Warsaw Uprising Museum, he died in Warsaw in 1996. The Rajszczak family were recognised as Righteous Among The Nations in 1978 for risking their lives to save Jews in occupied Warsaw during the war. There are two photographs on an Israeli website called “Ghetto Fighters House Archives”, which date from 1986 and 1992 and show “Tadeusz Rajszczak, Righteous Among the Nations from Poland” on visits to Israel….
Mieczysław Lach was interned as a POW by the Germans in Stalag X-B Sandbostel after the Warsaw Uprising and Kazimierz Gabara was also briefly interned in Stalag X-B Sandbostel, but was then taken to Hamburg for use as a forced labourer. He returned to Poland in 1946.
