Justices serving under Maj. Adam Gajewski needed only thirty minutes of recess on August 3rd 1946, to decide to sentence the minor nurse to be shot, in accordance to the motion of the prosecutor of the Regional Military Prosecution, Wacław Krzyżanowski. She was accused of being a member of the organisation, which “set out to violently remove the state authorities and forcefully change the current democratic system in Poland, while she partook as a nurse in gang raids” and that as a member of a military unit “she took part in several assassinations of officers of the Security Office, Citizens’ Militia, Railroad Guard, soldiers of the Red Army and representatives of the political class.” The public defender Jan Chmielowski asked the president of the State National Council Bolesław Bierut for a pardon…
Under a changed name
“Inka” was a nurse in the 5th Vilnus Home Army Brigade, led by Zygmunt Szendzielarz codename “Łupaszka”. Although, she had sworn an oath already in 1944 and had helped the Home Army structures in her hometown region, she didn’t end up in “Łupaszka’s” brigade until 1945. In fact, it happened mainly by accident. At the time, Siedzikówna was working at the Narewka forestry. In June 1945, officers of the NKVD and the Communist District Public Security Office arrested all of the forestry workers, accusing them of cooperation with the Polish underground state. Near the village of Hajnówka, Szendzielarz’s partisans, led by Stanisław Wołonciej, rescued the prisoners from the convoy. Siedzikówna, taking on the codename “Inka”, decided to stay in the woods with them.
She was accused of being a member of the organisation, which “set out to violently remove the state authorities and forcefully change the current democratic system in Poland…
On July 13th 1946, on the orders of the deputy commander of her squadron Olgierd Christa “Leszek”, “Inka” went to Malbork, Olsztyn and Gdańsk, where she was to get bandages and medicine, but first and foremost to find out what had happened to their commander Zdzisław Badocha “Żelazny”, who hadn’t returned to the unit after his convalescence in a farmhouse near Malbork. Before leaving for her task, she changed from her nurse outfit to civilian clothes: “In a dress borrowed from a landlady she looked more girly than usual. On a daily basis, she dressed up like all the other <<sisters>>, in pants and long boots, never in a skirt” – recalled Christa.
In her travels, she was accompanied by Henryk Kazimierczak codename “Czajka”. In Malbork, at the Rodziewiczówny 9 Street, was one of “Łupaszka’s” conspiracy hideouts, ran by Helena Tarasiewicz. It was there, where Danka found out what had happened to the wounded “Żelazny”, who was getting back to full health in an estate ran by Ottomar Zielke, in a nearby Czernin. However, before she got to the pointed address, she met the son of the owner of the apartment, Zbigniew Tarasiewicz, who told her that Badocha was shot by the Communists. To confirm that information, Inka travelled to Olsztyn, to the next contact point, and on July 19th to Gdańsk, where “Czajka” pointed her to sisters Jadwiga and Halina Mikołajewskie. Their house, at Wróblewska 7 Street in the Wrzeszcz district of Gdańsk, was also an underground outpost. Danuta Siedzikówna got there in the evening and planned to start her journey back to her unit in the morning.
Danuta Siedzikówna with her friend from school, Podlasie district of Poland, 1930s
Danuta Siedzikówna “Inka”, Narewka village, April 1945
Danuta Siedzikówna in front of the school in the Narewka village, 1944
Danuta Siedzikówna “Inka” with a friend, Podlasie district of Poland, winter of 1945
Unfortunately, Mikołajewscy’s house was under constant observation of the officers of the District Public Security Office, who got the list of contact points from the liaison officer of the 5th Vilnus Home Army Brigade, persuaded to cooperate, named Regina Mordas. In the morning of July 20th, the Communist officers entered the house. Siedzikówna had false documents on the name of Ina Zalewska, yet the Communists were still certain she was a member of “Łupaszka’s” unit, so hated by them. What’s interesting, the Security Office hadn’t arrested the Mikołajewskie sisters until some time later, which gave them the time to destroy some of the conspiracy documents. Soon after, they were released from detention. The prosecutor of the Regional Military Prosecution in Gdańsk, Capt. Adolf Brunicki, while making the decision to arrest “Inka” called for the temporary detention until August 31st 1946. It’s worth adding, that due to the information received from Regina Mordas, less than 2 weeks prior, on July 8th 1946, Feliks Selmanowicz codename “Zagończyk” had been arrested as well. It was actually to protect “Regina” (that was the codename taken by Mordas) as an important source of information, that the Communists decided to push forward the dates of “Inka’s” and “Zagończyk’s” executions.
Read the full article by Marzena Kruk at : https://przystanekhistoria.pl/pa2/tematy/english-content/43411,The-cursed-nurse.html