"Dučin arrived with a backpack, the next day he wanted to go to Bielice, the last village in the mountains, with a full backpack of materials. Then he said he met a border guard on the way, but when the guard saw his mountain guide badge, he didn't care. But I told him that it might not work out that way, that he might meet someone else who would check it out, and then what? I told him I would organize a group to carry it across the border, and you would just carry the materials from Wroclaw. He gave conditions which were not easy - that it had to be a guide, a person who was not imprisoned, who was not under surveillance, etc. But I found two such people, Jan Mroczkowski and Zdzich Dumański. They used to transmit it once every three weeks in four places designated by Dučin, which had women's names. On the Prague - Wroclaw line it was only necessary to determine when the exchange would take place, and the exchanges always took place on Saturdays and always at twelve o'clock. The date was changed, it was coded in such a way that if, for example, one said 'Anita is coming on August 31', one knew that the meeting would be three days earlier."
"An important action was the transfer of Devátý across the border, because he was the head of the Zlín group and the State Security officers were still bothering him a lot. The signal came that it was to be at Kowadło, which was the highest ridge, the most difficult place, at the end of the road, where the border guards would appear. I chose a car and courier friends who knew the place well, so they went. I knew it was a pretty risky operation, because once the car was discovered, one was compromised. Everything went according to plan, Standa was on time, the Czechs were sometimes late, but he was super punctual. They went downstairs, Standa wanted to go to the church where the priest was, the chaplain from the Polish-Czechoslovak Solidarity, but the drivers said no, that someone had already appeared and was following them, that they had to go now. They drove fifteen kilometers, the border guards tried to stop them with a stop sign, but the driver drove around the patrol and drove away. The second action was on the edge of Lądek, where they unfolded the stopping strip, but it was short, so they went around the strip and took Devátý to the forest park in Lądek, where his friends took him over. He stayed in Lądek for two weeks and then they took him to Wrocław, where he helped a lot during the festival."
Warcislaw Martynowski was born on 16 May 1945 in Przeworsk. He grew up in the spa town of Lądek Zdrój near the Polish-Czech border and in Kraków. From 1967 to 1973 he studied economic geography at the Faculty of Natural Sciences of the University of Wrocław. In 1968 he joined the student protests against the government of Władysław Gomułka and the protests against the invasion of Czechoslovakia. In 1969, he was arrested in Krakow while trying to organise a commemoration of the anniversary of the suppression of the student protests on 5 March 1968, but was released due to lack of evidence. From 1973 to 1975 he worked as an assistant planner at the district office in Kłodzko and from 1975 to 1983 as a planner at the regional office in Wałbrzych. During martial law he sent letters to communist officials with Solidarity leaflets and stamps and was arrested in October 1982 for this. The military court gave him a two-year suspended sentence, but even so, at liberty he became involved in the activities of the underground Wroclaw „Fighting Solidarity“. He helped build its structures in Kłodzko, where he lived in Lądek Zdrój. In September 1987 he formed a group of couriers who picked up materials from the Czech dissent at the border in the Rychlebské hory. In September 1989, he helped smuggle dissident Stanislav Devátý into Poland, where he hid from imprisonment until December 1989. In March 1990, he helped organize a meeting of Polish-Czechoslovak solidarity activists in Bielice. From 1993 he worked as a town planning designer in Bystrzyca Kłodzka, and in 1996-1999 he ran his own town planning office. In 1994-1998 he was a member of the Board of Directors of the Lądek Zdrój Town Council, 2002-2006 a councillor of Lądek Zdrój. Since 1991 he has been a member of the Polish-Czech-Slovak Solidarity Association and the Polish-Czech-Slovak Solidarity Foundation. In October 2023 he lived in Lądek Zdrój.
The Church of St.Vincent and St.Valentine in Bielice (Kościół Świętych Wincentego i Walentego), which since 1995 has a memorial plaque commemorating the activities of the Polish-Czechoslovak Solidarity. Stefan Witczak "Kruszynka" (1948-2006), a priest and chaplain who helped the Czech-Polish Solidarity
The Church of St.Vincent and St.Valentine in Bielice (Kościół Świętych Wincentego i Walentego), which since 1995 has a memorial plaque commemorating the activities of the Polish-Czechoslovak Solidarity. Stefan Witczak "Kruszynka" (1948-2006), a priest and chaplain who helped the Czech-Polish Solidarity
zdroj: Jacek Halicki, CC BY-SA 3.0 pl, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=35126354
Stáhnout obrázek
A memorial sign on Borůvková hora, which commemorates the secret meeting of Polish and Czech dissidents on 15 August 1987
A memorial sign on Borůvková hora, which commemorates the secret meeting of Polish and Czech dissidents on 15 August 1987
A memorial plaque on the Borůvková hora on the Polish-Czech border commemorating the priest Stefan Witczak, who worked in the church in Bielice and helped in the secret activities of the Polish-Czechoslovak Solidarity in the 1980s
A memorial plaque on the Borůvková hora on the Polish-Czech border commemorating the priest Stefan Witczak, who worked in the church in Bielice and helped in the secret activities of the Polish-Czechoslovak Solidarity in the 1980s
Warcislaw Martynowski (writing) with Czech courier Miroslav Odložil at a meeting of Polish and Czech dissidents on Borůvková hora after thirty years on August 19, 2017 (in the background Ewa Klosová, who handled the request for Stanislaw Devátý's transfer in Wrocław to Jaroslaw Brod of the Polish-Czechoslovak Solidarity)
Warcislaw Martynowski (writing) with Czech courier Miroslav Odložil at a meeting of Polish and Czech dissidents on Borůvková hora after thirty years on August 19, 2017 (in the background Ewa Klosová, who handled the request for Stanislaw Devátý's transfer in Wrocław to Jaroslaw Brod of the Polish-Czechoslovak Solidarity)
Warcisław Martynowski at a meeting of Polish and Czech members of the Polish-Czechoslovak Solidarity on Borůvková hora after thirty years on August 19, 2017 (in the middle, hugging Czech couriers Miroslav Odložil and Vladimír Trlida)
Warcisław Martynowski at a meeting of Polish and Czech members of the Polish-Czechoslovak Solidarity on Borůvková hora after thirty years on August 19, 2017 (in the middle, hugging Czech couriers Miroslav Odložil and Vladimír Trlida)
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