GESTAPO IN RADZYŃ PODLASKI
Gestapo
This place is situated near buildings on Warszawska 5 and 5a street. The beggining of this place is unknown. The fact is that the Secret State Police of German SS officers was located there, but the building was also used as Lublin Police Headquarters. Criminal Police (Kripo) was also included. The history of the building during World War I is not known.
After the war it was used as a residential building and all the documents with the remains of what was happening there were destroyed. While trying to dicover the history behind this place a writing above the door written in old Russian cyrillic appeared it read ,,Арест” (arrest). It meant that this building was used by Russian army as an arrest before 1905.
About this place
Gestapo in Radzyń Podlaski was working from 1939 to 1944. At once in this place there were almost 400 prisoners, but there was a regular rotation between the prisoners, so that there were no conspiracy or rebellions. Aditionally there were snitchs from Poland who were conspiring with the SS officers. People who had knowledge about or were involved in Polish underground organizations were held in custody, because those groups were harmful to the nazi authorities. Most of the arrested people were from various groups such as AK[1], NSZ[2], WiN[3] and other patriotic groups.
Inscription
Gestapo is mostly known for its inscriptions engraved on the walls of the cells for prisoners. The researchers of this place didn’t find any
inscriptions before 1944. It is believed, that Germans leaving this place destroyed every ounce of evidence, so that nothing could indicate their crimes. Most of the inscriptions are surnames of the prisoners who were kept there and the names of the cities they came from. Some slogans which survived were about God: „God is everywhere” , „God have
mercy”. Not only the writings showed in the prisioners’ faith of God but there were also crosses engraved.
Officer Adolf Dykow
One of the officers in Gestapo was Adolf Dykow[4] (1907-1943). He was born on the 10th of October 1907. His father was German but his mother was Ukrainian. He was an SD officer in Radzyń Podlaski and also a German language translator in the local arrest of the German occupation police in Radzyń Podlaski (Gestapo). He was responsible for death of at least hundreds of people in Podlasie, especially in Radzyń. After the beginning of World War II Dykow joined the German security services. His first activity in the German police was sentencing to death 5 of his neighbours, who he grew up with. His general objective was to decide who should be sentenced to the death or imprisoned. His another
objective was to beat and torture the prisoners of Gestapo. He took an active part in persecuting and killing people who were Jewish. The criminal activity of Dykow led to a death sentence for him by AK in 1942.
Notes
- ↑ AK - Armia Krajowa - conspired armed forces of Polish underground during World War II, created as a result of renaming Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Union of Armed Struggle) made in November 1939. It was working on the territory of Republic of Poland, occupated by Germans and ZSRR.
- ↑ NSZ - Narodowe Siły Zbrojne (Union of Armed Struggle) – Polish underground organization of military national camp, created in September 1942 from connecting of National army military organization,Lizard Assocation and several smaller national organizations.
- ↑ WiN- Zrzeszenie Wolność i Niezawisłość (Freedom and Independance Assocation) / Wolność i Niepodległość (Freedom andIndependence) – it was a Polish civil-military underground organization created in September 1945 in Warsaw.
- ↑ Adolf Dykow
- ↑ The Schutzstaffel (SS) - major paramilitary organisation under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II.