Alfred Osmycki's Diary

“In April 1943, shortly before the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, I bumped into engineer Michal Merlinski, my colleague from the Warsaw Post & Telegraph Directorate (WDPiT). For several years, Michal worked with me in the Construction Department, in the urban telephone network department, which I headed until 1938 […]. Engineer Merlinski, a graduate of the University of Technology, was a Jewish-born Pole and a very good friend of mine. His exceptional intelligence and his flair for many languages made him an outstandingly valuable person.

Before the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the Jewish Combat Organisation (ZOB), engineer Merlinski jumped over the ghetto wall. Afterwards, be remained in hiding in the city, struggling with extremely tough conditions. He would spend nights in a coal shed somewhere in a backyard. He had his hands and feet frostbitten and looked extremely malnourished.  He had no money on him. He was counting on his debtors from Krucza Street but was unable to get in contact with them […]. His wife remained in the Warsaw Ghetto.

I was so shocked with Michal’s looks and story that I decided to harbour him in our flat. […] And so […] around 15 April 1943, I got involved in the resistance movement in Poland, and I told my wife about it. […] I sent her and our three children to my mother-in-law to the countryside in Zielonka. I stayed in the flat with Michal, visiting my wife and children at the weekends […].

The 19 April saw the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising […] Our flat was located at 6 Franciszkanska Street, which directly faced the ghetto wall. From our balcony on the third floor you could see battles and atrocities perpetrated by auxiliary German units, such as fights, setting fire to and demolishing the ghetto, continuous plane and canon bombarding, blowing up houses […]. In the end, all ghetto streets were covered in flames. From our balcony we could see corpses lying on the streets and hanging from balconies […].

I asked my cousin Robert Wodzynski, a member of a clandestine organisation, to issue fake ID documents with a fake surname of Malinski for Michal. […] After a few days, he received his Kennkarte, Ausweis and a baptism certificate from the Vilna Parish. He was also officially registered in our flat no. 7.

Merlinski stayed with us about six months. For all this time, he hardly left the flat, except when he visited his acquaintances on Krucza Street. Once, he was recognised by “hooligans from the sports”, as he called them, whom he had known long before. They demanded cash from him, threatening to report him to the police […]. He gave them his watch and his jacket and came home in his shirt only […]

After six months of hiding, we were starting to be afraid that Michal may be denounced any time. Besides, my wife and my children were to come back from the countryside soon. After that incident in October it was clear that Michal had to change his hideout. One day, the female janitor approached me in the gate, and asked, “Mr Osmycki, who are you keeping in you flat, is it a Jewish person perhaps? This police sergeant who lives opposite you in the backyard asked me to ask you who that person was. I replied, “Mrs Stasiak, rest assured, this is my wife’s brother, who came to us from the countryside because he had been feeling unwell. Today he is leaving. Please, tell the sergeant that there is nothing to worry about>>. […] I spoke to Michal about it. Without thinking twice, he immediately did his suitcases and left. With tears in his eyes, he was thanking me for everything I had done for him. He told me not to worry about him because his friends were to help him.

Several days afterwards, I changed the official address of Michal, which was no longer 6 Franciszkanska Street. I was really worried that they may come across Michal’s documents. That sergeant who lived opposite might  have been up to something, too […]

After the end of the war, I discovered that Michal was in hiding at engineer Szparkowski’s, at Stefan Klosinski’s and in the houses of other work colleagues or colleagues from the Warsaw University of Technology.

From October 1943 onwards, I did not hear from Michal at all. It was only in June or July 1944 that our mutual friend Stefan Klosinski contacted me and said that Michal had been captured (he did not mention the circumstances) and was being held at the blue police station in Mokotów. My colleagues wanted to bail him out […]. Stefan said that he would do his best to have Michal released. Unfortunately, the next day he told me that Malinski was handed over to the German police and no one heard from him anymore”.

Alfred Osmycki also supported another ten-odd Jewish workers. He writes in his dairy as follows:

“In 1940 […] I was hired as a worker at the post office in Lowicz […], where I worked supervised by the German […] Mr Werner, the head of the telecommunications installations & construction department […]. One day, a young Jewish man came to me, making a reference to our mutual Jewish friend Igla, who had a clothing shop on Zdunska Street in Lowicz. He asked me to help a group of Jews from the [Lowicz] ghetto find employment in construction and repairs of telecommunication lines. This way, they would be able to supply the ghetto with food thanks to some contacts. So I told Werner that in order to speed up the removal of  torn and broken telecommunication cables in various parts in the region, we should employ a group of approx. 20 Jews from the Lowicz Ghetto because our team was too small to make it […]>>

After several days, a group of ten workers came from the ghetto.  After that, that number increased to twenty people. I, together with the technician Gladzikowski and fitter Blaszczyk, were assigned to this group to manage their tasks. We, on the other hand, were supervised by a German-appointed Wehrmacht non-commissioned officer. After some time, our team had no German supervisors, so we could rest in a road pit and have long talks most of the time. […] Boys from the ghetto always came back to the ghetto with bread, potatoes and, on rare occasions, with some delicacies.. They often smuggled fire wood, too. […] That group of 20 Jews were working with us […] for a few months. Towards the end of the year, stopped to  let people outside of the ghetto. Afterwards, the ghetto was liquidated and Jews were shipped God knows where”.

Fragments of Alfred Osmycki’s diary were donated by his son Jerzy Osmycki.

English translation: Wanda Józwikowska