Mieczyslaw and his family were not Jewish. When Germany invaded Poland, Mieczyslaw was working for an organization formed for self-defense against German bombings. Later, he worked for the Polish underground group ZWZ (Zwiazek Walki Zbrojnej; Union for Armed Struggle), which became the AK (Armia Krajowa; Home Army). In 1943, he was conscripted for forced labor at a BMW plant in Warsaw. He escaped, and participated in the Warsaw Polish uprising in August 1944. After the uprising, he left Warsaw and went into hiding.
In meantime we get from the alliance, I think was a little bit later, the men of the organization change, I think was maybe in 1940 or '41. We start get a, a, arms and material from the sky, you know, from the alliance and then, uh, because I was mechanic, I was very, you know, very good working my hands, that I start learn from this book which they sent from the, England, usually, they drop off, you know, about the mining. That means I know how make the mines to blow up the, uh, bridges, how blow the trains, and then I was expert for this. This was the, uh, orga...the, the action they called, uh, "tasma," "tasma" this mean the ribbo...ribbon, you know, that's the same time was blow the train in many places. Usually the, uh, train with the supply to the east front or the Urlaubszuege. Urlaubszug, there was a train which bring the German from the east front for vacation, vacation train. They called Urlaubszuege, they would blow up this, this Urlaubszug, yes.
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