23 November 1995
Mr. Witold Szymański
26 Dunellen Road
Parsippany, New Jersey,
07054 USA
I, the undersigned, Hanna Pietras-Karasińska, resident of Warsaw, Jasnodworska Street 6, flat 29, widow of the late Bohdan Krasiński, holder of ID no. WL 8165425, state as follows:
Bohdan Krasiński, my husband, b. 25 April 1926 in Warsaw, died on 15 June 1991 in Warsaw.
From the oral statements made by my husband I know that during the German occupation he worked sorting mail in the German post office in Ostrowiec Kielecki [currenly Ostrowiec Świętkorzyski]. Together with Bohdan Krasiński, working in the same capacity were two Szymański brothers, Gwidon and Bogdan. My husband and the Szymański brothers were very good friends and exchanged correspondence after the war. Working at the post office in Ostrowiec, my husband and the Szymański brothers regularly destroyed anonymous packages addressed to the German authorities, the Gestapo, and the Wehrmacht’s field post office, burning bags with this mail in the central heating oven in the basement of the post office taken by the Germans. These letters (which were destroyed or, if possible, passed on to the underground’s leadership in Ostrowiec) contained anonymous denunciations (both against Poles and Jews). Had they been delivered to the Germans, they would have resulted in arrests, deaths, or repressions of the persons named.
What my husband told me suggests that, together with the Szymański brothers, he had undertaken a task that carried great personal risk and one of exceptional significance to saving Polish citizens potentially threatened by the German terror. This was a unique operation in the territory of Poland during World War Two.
From my husband’s statements I also know that, during the war, both himself and the Szymański brothers were members of the Union of Youth Struggle [ZWM], and then of the Home Army. Hanna Pietras-Karasińska 2 In summer 1944, during Operation “Burza” [storm], my husband joined the ranks of the partisans and was part of the armed resistance against the Germans. His nom-de-guerre was “Wróbel” [sparrow]. He served with the Home Army’s 2nd Legion Infantry Regiment, in the 2nd Division of the Home Army in the Kielce region, the “Jodła” unit. In Ostrowiec, both my husband and the Szymański brothers were in the intelligence unit of the Home Army under the command of Lt. Zenon Krzekotowski, the Opatów area head.
After the war, my husband moved to Łódź, took up a post at the Social Insurance Institution, and at the same time studied at the Łódź University of Life Sciences. In October 1949, after graduating, he moved to Warsaw to work at the Ministry of Agriculture, where he was employed until June 1988. Between 1953 and 1963, he studied extramurally at the University of Łódź, at the Faculty of the Economy of Domestic Sales.
I have drawn up the present statement at the request of Witold Szymański, currently residing in the United States, for him and his brother Gwidon.
To confirm the veracity of the contents of this statement, I am hereby appending my handwritten signature in the presence of a notary. I am hereby sending two certified copies of the present statement to Mr. Witold Szymański, to be used at the discretion of his family.
Hanna Pietras-Karasińska
Jasnodworska Street 6, flat 29
01-745 Warsaw