Grocholski Henryk (1896-1939)

Born on March 17, 1896, in the estate of Strzyżawka, Vinnytsia County in Podolia. He completed schools in Vinnytsia and St. Petersburg and then studied in Freiburg, Switzerland.

In 1917, he actively participated in the works of the Polish Executive Committee in Russia. After the Russian revolution in 1918, he established contact with the Polish Military Organization in Kyiv /P.O.W. east K.N.3./. After this contact ceased, he spontaneously organized, in the Vinnytsia County area, units that fought under his leadership against the Bolsheviks. In Strzyżawka, he gathered and hid weapons, which he supplied to the P.O.W. in Vinnytsia. Arrested and imprisoned seven times by the Bolsheviks on charges of organizing Armed Action in Vinnytsia. Sentenced to death three times. Besides this activity, together with his brother Tadeusz, he organized illegal education /Macierz Szkolna/, in the Vinnytsia County area. In 1918, he actively participated and financed the creation of the 7th Uhlan Regiment in the III Corps (later the 12th Podolian Uhlan Regiment) in Podolia. In 1919, still risking his life, he organized and financed Polish military formations. He hid secret envoys from Poland in his home. In the country, he joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. During the plebiscite in Opole, he worked assigned to the disposal of Consul General Daniel Kęszycki. On behalf of the Supreme Command of the Polish Army, in May 1920, he was sent on a mission to Kyiv. With the permission of the regiment commander Col. Tokarzewski, he supported the activities of the 12th Podolian Uhlan Regiment. He settled in Greater Poland in Rogowo near Krobia, Gostyń County, and after that in Zimnowoda, Gostyń County. He is one of the first founders of the P.W. and W.F. and the Riflemen’s Association, of which he is president for several years.

Executed by the Germans in the market square in Gostyń on October 21, 1939.

Service card
issued by Count Tadeusz
to his brother Henryk Grocholski

Plenipotentiary
of the Red Cross
At the VI Army
On June 23, 1920
…………. 98

The bearer of this card, Henryk Grocholski, an official at the Plenipotentiary of the Red Cross at the 6th Army, is delegated from Płoskirow to Warsaw to transport in eight wagons refugees from Podolia numbering 90 – their belongings and those belonging to the Red Cross.

Civil and military authorities are to provide him with assistance and protection during the journey – as well as to the persons entrusted to him.

Plenipotentiary of the Red Cross
At the VI Army
Grocholski

October 21, 1939, in Gostyń

A tragic day

The morning of October 21, 1939. Dark clouds cover the sky. From the early morning hours, there is movement in the Gostyń Market. Polish railway workers, under the escort of German soldiers, are setting up a kind of wooden wall in front of the Sacred Heart monument. Almost no one realizes the horror of the situation.

9 a.m. Janitor Mieczysław Kawski walks the streets of the city. He rings a black bell and reads the German authorities’ order: “Today, Saturday, October 21, 1939, at 9:30 a.m., all adult men will report to the Market (north side). Anyone who fails to comply with the order will be immediately arrested and severely punished.”

Market at 9:30 a.m. About two thousand men and women are in the square. Along the sidewalks are columns of Wehrmacht soldiers. At the outlets of Św. Ducha and Wolności, Młyńska and Nowa streets – heavy machine guns with barrels pointed at the crowd. From the steps of the town hall, where 40 citizens of Gostyń County were imprisoned, towards the wooden wall made of telephone poles or railway sleepers, Germans stand, forming a cordon. The entrance to the town hall is surrounded by police and Gestapo. A truck slowly approaches from behind the monument. At a few meters from the municipal building, 30 members of the Sonderkommando stand calmly. They wait. Residents watch in horror. Some cannot believe that civilians will be shot. People crowd on the northern part of the square; they stand on the steps of shop stairs. Candles are visible in the windows of houses located in the Market. In one of them, a young woman with an infant in her arms. She cries. Hidden on the steps of the Mrożek house, Fr. Andrzejewski prays loudly. On one side of the Market, a gray crowd watches in horror; on the other, red postal buses that brought the execution platoon and SS officers’ cars. The town hall clock strikes 10 o’clock. The clock’s chimes or the beating of thousands of hearts in the Gostyń Market waiting for what is to happen?

The town hall doors open. Under escort, who aim their rifles at the crowd, the first ten come out: Count Henryk Grocholski, Senator Stanisław Karłowski, school director Szczepan Kaczmarek, mill assistant Kazimierz Stryczyński, head of the Gostyń Endecja called “der Polenkonig” by the Germans – Mieczysław Hejnowicz, Stefan Skiba, Stefan Pawlak, police official Leon Kwaśny, Szczepan Paluszczak, insurgent Wawrzyn Szwarc. The Gestapo line them up against the wooden palisade with their backs to the execution platoon. A flash of a saber. The command “Feuer!” is given. The Todeskommando executes the order. Not all die from the rifle shot. Someone wounded tries to hide under a dead body. An SS man sits astride him and shoots him in the head with a Browning. The crowd stands speechless with horror. Eighteen-year-old daughter of Mieczysław Hejnowicz – Zofia, crying and shouting: “Murderers”, rushes towards her father’s body. Soldiers brutally push her away. The SS men select men from the crowd, ordering them to carry the bodies to the previously prepared, standing at the corner of the Market and Św. Ducha street, open trucks of the Labor Service. Reluctant or slow-moving SS men put a gun to their temples. Blood of the murdered flows over the hands of the men carrying the bodies. The truck drives to the cemetery. There the bodies of the killed will be thrown on the cemetery stairs, then into the dug pit, where those still showing signs of life were finished off.

A quarter of an hour after the first execution, the place at the death wall is taken by: Chamberlain Edward Potworowski, Baron Antoni Graeve, president of “Sokół” Kazimierz Peisert, high school director Leon Kapcia, young Polish philologist president of the Catholic Action – Roman Weiss, brother of Mieczysław – Józef Hejnowicz, postal assistant Antoni Gościniak, Maksymilian Piątkowski, Jan Jasiak and Józef Łagodziński. In the window, a woman with an infant in her arms. Łagodziński waves goodbye to her. It’s his wife. At the moment of execution, the nerves of one of the convicts fail – Baron Graeve, before the shot, turns to the shooters and falls to the ground. After finishing off the wounded, the Gestapo grab the struggling baron and lead him to the town hall. There in the hall, they torture, kick him in the head, neck… Holding him by the legs, they drag him back to the execution site in the third group of convicts. The speechless crowd watches as the baron’s head bounces off the pavement. A shot to the heart takes his life. In the third group, under the wall of wooden logs, die: Mayor Hipolit Niestrawski, Stanisław Zydorczyk, Franciszek Hejduk, Kazimierz Wierachowski, Wojciech Pawlak, Franciszek Wawszczak, Józef Rosik, Tomasz Skowron, Franciszek Staszak, and Jan Rosiński. The gray sky over Gostyń seems even darker. The last group is to be led out – they are still waiting for the verdict. Unexpectedly, a nervous polizeimeister Georg Bracke bursts into the station room, not allowing the Gestapo to execute another ten. “Thirty have been shot. Isn’t that enough, you cursed band?” – he shouts.

People disperse to their homes. Men are grimly silent, women cry. Most have lost someone from their family or friends. Everyone is shocked by the crime committed publicly in a cruel, animalistic way. Even the Wehrmacht soldiers do not look the passing Gostyń residents in the eyes. Slowly the Market empties. Only bloodstains remain and… Jesus Christ from the monument looking at the heroism of the executed and the crimes of the executioners.

Text received courtesy of Mr. Grzegorz Skorupski

www.skorupski.net