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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by a London CSV volunteer on behalf of Maksymilian Jarosz and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

Before this gruesome discovery she was to face another tragedy. On the 8th of August 1943, two days after Czesiek was murdered, my other brother Stasiek came out of hiding to organize provision for his colleagues in the resistance. He went to a safe local shop in the village. While inside the shop he saw through the window Gestapo’s cars approaching. Concerned about the shopkeepers safety he ran toward the outbuildings, unfortunately he was spotted and shot at by the SS-man. Desperate to get away he ran towards the open field. He was killed with a single shot through his heart.

The Gestapo ordered to burry him in the same spot. Stripped of his clothes, without the coffin, no funeral, he was buried there.

When my Mother learnt about it she has asked my late brother’s friends from local resistance to recover his body. After two weeks of preparation, under the cover of darkness we exhumed his body and gave him a proper military burial in one of the neighbouring villages.

Stasiek was 26 years old when he was murdered. In life he was tall, very handsome
and very popular amongst the girls. Yet, I could never wipe out from my memory the picture of his naked lifeless body covered with soil and the black mask in place of previously perfectly shaped face.

I learnt about Stasiek’s death from my friend. He asked me to go swimming with him
and gently broke the news. I went completely numb and slid into depression. My good relatives in a village took care of me for a while.

When the Polish and Russian Army was formed I joined them out of desperation. I met my only surviving brother Alexander on the banks of the river Wisla near Warsaw during the last days of Warsaw’s uprising.

The Russians orders were to wait and do nothing. Instead of helping they purposely let the Germans kill Polish freedom fighters. They were in command now and we were helpless. My brother and I realized then that in a new Poland we will be again enemy number one. We had no other option but to hide in the forest with other members of the Polish National Army.

The amnesty came in 1947.

At last we could go back home. It wasn’t a happy reunion this time. Wherever we went we saw tragedy and despair. Soon after, our beloved Mother died of a broken heart.

A few years ago, on the recommendation of our surviving Jewish friends my late parents, my late brother Aleksander, my sister Marianna and I, Maksymilian Jarosz have been awarded the honors of ‘Righteous Among Nations’ by Yad Vashem in Jerusalem

When the war started I was a teenager, when it was over I was a broken man. I build my life from the scratch again but my brothers’ senseless deaths still haunts me to this day. There are no winners in any war, because behind each death there is a tragedy and pain which never seems to go away.

Two years ago my wife and I have been celebrating our 50th wedding anniversary.
When the photographer asked our four grandsons to line up behind us for the photo, my heart jumped with joy. At that moment I felt like my brothers were there with me.

Chapter four: www.bbc.co.uk/dna/ww2/a5827188

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