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Mieczysław Dziemieszkiewicz „Rój”
Mieczysław Dziemieszkiewicz, alias Rój, was born
to a patriotic family in Zagroby on 25 January
1925. He was the son of Adam and Stefania, née
Świerczewska. In 1939, he finished the primary
school in Różan. During the German occupation,
young as he was, he engaged in the underground
activity undertaken by the National Armed
Forces. In the spring of 1945, he was drafted
into the Polish People’s Army, but he deserted
on hearing that his brother died – Lt. Roman
Dziemieszkiewicz, alias Pogoda, was murdered
by Soviet soldiers in November 1945.
Mieczysław Dziemieszkiewicz enlisted as
a soldier with the 16th District of the National
Military Union (Northern Mazovia), adopting
the pseudonym “Rój”. From 1946, at the time
of mass arrests made by the secret police, he
was in command of a detachment of the Special
Action Unit of the National Military Union in
the administrative district of Ciechanów. Soon,
he was awarded the Cross of Valour for his
bravery.
In 1948, he was promoted to the rank of Senior
Sergeant. He performed dozens of actions against
the officials of the Communist Party, the officers of
the terror apparatus, and secret police confidants.
He was also involved in raiding the communist
secret service prison in Pułtusk (25/26 November
1946) and releasing his sixty five colleagues
detained there. On 6 November 1949, in the town
of Gołotczyzna near Ciechanów, he stopped
a passenger train – his soldiers handed out anticommunist
leaflets, and the commander himself
delivered an anti-Soviet speech. Educating the
society conquered by the Soviet occupant was one
of Mieczysław Dziemieszkiewicz’s ways of combat.
Soldiers admired his deep religiousness – he started
each day with a prayer and partisans of his
detachment wore gorgets featuring the Mother
of God. Meanwhile, the communist propaganda
disseminated the image of “Rój” as a bloodthirsty
warlord, imputing to him crimes he never
committed.
His death was brought about by his fiancée
– the secret service blackmailed her into
indicating the soldier’s whereabouts, threatening
to make her family suffer the consequences if
she wouldn’t. Surrounded in the household of
the Burkacki family in the village of Szyszki,
Sergeant Mieczysław Dziemieszkiewicz died in
a fight against 270-man strong joint operational
group of the Department of Security and
Citizens’ Militia on 13 April 1951. His murderers
dragged his body behind their car. So far, no one
has been able to locate his remains.
Tadeusz Płużański