A bit of past won't hurt anyone, though there may be enemies. With respect to February 14th and a memoir of the National Army Soldiers' Day, I wanted to mention an episode from my family's Pomerania.
In the years of planet War II, there was an organization called Gryf Pomorski in the area where I was born and inactive live. In fact, it was an organization that ended its activities tragically. The betrayal and pro-Soviet trend aimed at destroying Kashubian traditions and cultural achievements. But about that later. I want to focus on the introduction, on the first president of this organization, or the lieutenant colonel Fr Józef Wryczy.
This unique figure, passed a long and thorny way in the effort to return Pomerania and, above all, Kashub, to the parent of the recently reborn after 1918 of the Republic. In 1908, after accepting the ordination, he received a parish in Borzyszkowe. This place was later besides 1 of the points of strong opposition against German invaders in the next war. In 1912 he joined the youth movement in Gdańsk. Their motto was “What Kashubians Are Polish”. Primarily providing humanitarian aid, young Wrycza fought Germanization and attempts to destruct the Polish tradition in the local community. In December 1918, Józef Wrycza joins the Wielkopolska Uprising, and a year later he scares the German authorities of Chełmża, who feared the outbreak of the second uprising on their territory. That same year, Wrycza goes to jail as the leader of the coup. Until 1920, i.e. the signing of the Treaty of Versailles – the priest remains in that custody, but as a consequence of the fall of Germany, he is released. He joins the army in Poznań where Pomeranian regiments were created, which were part of an army commanded by General Joseph Haller. This is where his career starts to velocity up. On February 10, 1920, erstwhile the Blue Army stands over the Baltic, Joseph Wrycza is asked to give a peculiar sermon. Quoting the local Kashubian witch, he gains over-local publicity. The sermon quotes Jerome Derdowski, who will most likely specify the devotion and affiliation of Kashubians to the Republic:
‘Feeling from the heart of tóni
Our Apostolic Composition
There is no Kashëb without Polonia,
And without Kashëb Polsczi!”
Priest Wrycza is gaining popularity as well as becoming a model of a local patriot, caring for both the immediate environment and the relation and belonging to Poland.
Unfortunately, peace does not last long. As a consequence of the outbreak of the Polish-Bolshevik War, the Torun regiment of the priest goes to the front. As a consequence of the dynamic course of skirmishes, he participates in battles including Horwal, Tremla and Żabinka. Wrycza's merit is noted and goes to General Władysław Sikorski's staff. By 1924 – after the end of the war, he and his unit in Volyn were together. To the rank of Lt. Col. passes to the reserve at the end of the year. As a veteran and a priest, he received at the request of the Pomeranian Voivodeship, a parish in Many, where he serves until the outbreak of planet War II.
Here begins the appropriate past of the organization TOW Gryf Pomorski. The founding members included Józef Wrycza, including Józef Dambek, Józef Giersszewski and later president Augustyn Westphal.
After the surrender and escape of Rydz-Smigłego by Zaleszczyki, Fr Wrycz goes to conspiracy. As a curious thing, I can mention the situation when, at the end of 1939, he gets a call to the local police station and uncovering out he's about to be arrested, moving distant before anyone knew. Hidden by his friends, he starts organizing the resistance. The first name is Gryf Kaszubski founded by J.Dambek and J.Gierszewski. In 1941, it was renamed the Secret Military Organization “Pomeranian Grif”.
Thanks to the unquestionable authority of Fr Wrycza, he manages to unite respective armed organizations belonging to various formations and the organization begins to carry out increasingly complicated intelligence and diversionary activities. Among another things, cooperation was established with the “Odra” – Leon Hamerski Battalion. In the area of Chojnic and Konarzyn, they collectively carried out diversion attacks.
TOW Gryf Pomorski was an extended organization with both civilian and military verticals. It is worth mentioning that there were specified branches as government and local government administration, social care, propaganda and information, archive and chronicles – from the civilian side, from military: intelligence, communications and sanitation. The presumption was even the creation of autonomy by the organization in due time, which would be part of the fresh Poland after the triumph over the occupier.
Unfortunately, Joseph Dembek’s ambition leads to a split. By his actions, by 1943 the numbers of Gryfa decrease by almost 30 percent. Dembek even gives orders to destruct his alleged opponent. In 1943, the conviction on Józef Gierszewski is executed. Only after the war in Słupsk court did the rehabilitation process, stating that Mr Gierszewski did not commit treason. Rev. Wrycza yet gives power to the organization of Dembek until his death in March 1944. Józef Dembek dies at the hands of Hans Kessner a.k.a. Jan Kaszubowski, a Gestapo officer. In the same year, the number of Gryf Pomorski organizations decreases by half as a consequence of deconspiration. Many activists and guerrilla soldiers go to KL Stuthoff or die in immediate executions. Józef Wrycza, as a priest, looks at and prays for souls, but as an officer of the Polish Army, does not accept what happened due to Dembek's insatiability.
P.P. Józef Giersszewski, was very disliked by Józef Dembek, even for his opting for joining TOW Gryf Pomorski to the national structures of the Home Army. This conflict, as I mentioned, led to a strong split. Dembek, however, led to the inclusion of Gryfa in the structure of the United Organization of Sword and Plow Movement. However, the watched and quarrelled Sword and Plow became, in a sense, the seal of the unfulfilled intentions and ambitions and the defeat of Dembek. The acquisition of documentation by Hans Kessner (1944), can besides be added to the organizational errors of Dembek and the fall of the organization "Odra".
In 1944, Gryf Pomorski conducts an action to disarm German troops stationed in the Pomeranian area and cooperate in the Synthesis action (including the Home Command of the AK), where the warehouses of synthetic gasoline produced by Nazis were located. Diversification actions in German fortifications and diversions of rail transport (including supplies for the Kriegsmarine garrison in Gdynia) were besides an undoubted success.
The same year Augustyn Westphal takes the lead in the organization. In January 1945, the action is intensified. However, in the face of the invading Soviets and the threat of the USSR taking over the territory, Westphal decides on 21 March to dissolve the organization and uncover himself to “new authority”. It should be mentioned here that Fr Józef Wrycz, described by me, did not agree with this order as well as to pay tribute to communist invaders. It is unclear under what circumstances A.Westphal was murdered by NKVD officers. It is known, however, that he was not a supporter of the re-entry into the forest, as were the another Unbreakable Soldiers.
Here 1 can lament, for by his decision, until now Kashubians are credited with collaboration with the communist safety apparatus.
After the end of the war, from June 1945, the NKVD and Communist safety (participation in the extermination and location of the soldiers of the organization besides had as a prisoner of war - Hans Kessler), in revenge and at the same time fear, she deported many activists and soldiers of Gryf Pomorskie to camps in Siberia. The remainder of them were sentenced to many years of imprisonment. any of them emigrated to families in Canada or even South Africa.
But Fr Joseph Wrycza stayed.
After the war, Fr Wrycz returned to the parish in Wielka. Not for long. Wartime reminiscences took hold of his conscience long after he withdrew from the presidency in the Pomeranian Gryfa. People who assisted him in the conspiracy died in German concentration camps or were arrested by a “new” power. In 1948 he asks for a transfer to the parish in Tucholi. Peace, however, cannot be experienced either, as the safety Office's action, with different effects, dulls the remaining patriots in liberated areas. Fr Wrycz besides becomes a public enemy. Despite harassment and persecution, he holds his ministry until his death - December 4, 1961.
Why did I describe in specified item the figure of Fr Józef Wryczy and TOW Gryf Pomorski? The answer is very simple: do not forget local heroes. It is our work to remember and honor their deeds as an inheritance and patriotism. Fr Wrycz, like another figures from Kashubian history, specified as Antoni Abraham, Jan Radtke, Fr.
The Pomeranian griffin, despite its tragic end, was the breath and hope for the local community for a better future in the free country.
I have described a passage of past from my region, besides with another purpose. A guy talking about his origins in “Slavic Kashubian’ He should be punished for confessing to this nation in this shameful way. I fishy there's not even a clue who the people described above were. If he had shown honor and adherence to the traditions of the Kashubians, he most likely wouldn't be in the place where he is. but what to anticipate from individual who thinks they're the boss of those who tried to destruct us.
This communicative shows that, nevertheless, justice and wisdom of the nation will prevail sooner or later.
Thank you for coming to the end.
Greetings.
Kasheba.
Source:
Andrzej Gąsiorowski, Krzysztof Steyer: Secret military organization Gryf Pomorski. Gdańsk: Wydawnictwo Oskar, 2010
Institute of National Memory ]]>Brochure Priest Joseph Wrycza ]]>
Krzysztof Komorowski: Pomeranian conspiracy 1939–1947, Gdańsk 1993.
Leon Lubecki, Bestiality and Cruelty a patriotism and powerlessness of the Pomeranian opposition in 1939–1945, “Acta Cassubiana”, 1, Gdańsk: Kashubian Institute, 1999
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