Partisan’s Monument (Smolna Street, on the corner of Aleje Jerozolimskie Street and Nowy Świat Street)
The statue shows a wounded partisan supported by a woman who holds an olive branch in her outstretched arm. Although it was created in the style of real socialism, it refers to the motif of religious art – Michelangelo’s Pieta. The initial destiny of the sculpture by Wacław Kowalik was different. In 1958 the sculpture took part in the competition for the Monument of the Heroes of Warsaw. Finally, it became the main element of the Monument of the Partisan, which was funded by the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party (Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza). The monument is located directly in front of the Party House. The pedestal was built of granite from the demolition of the great Hindenburg Mausoleum, built on Hitler’s order to commemorate the victory of the Germans in East Prussia. There is the inscription on the pedestal of the monument: “Partisans Fighters for People’s Poland”, so it is also called the Monument of Fighters for People’s Poland and the Monument of the Partisan of the People’s Guard. The ceremonial unveiling took place on May 13th 1962, on the 20th anniversary of the so-called march out of the first squad of the People’s Guard under the command of Franciszek Zubrzycki pseudonym “Little Frank” (Mały Franek).
Franciszek Zubrzycki was born in 1915 in Radom. Before the war, during his studies at Warsaw University of Technology he joined the Socialist Youth Organization “Życie”. It was under the influence of the Communist Party of Poland, which was a tool of Josef Stalin’s policy towards Poland. Then he became a member of the Communist Youth Union of Poland – youth organization of the Communist Party of Poland. For his activities against the Republic of Poland he was twice imprisoned. He was released to freedom in September 1939. After his stay on forced labours in East Prussia, he got to the German concentration camp in Działdowo. After a successful escape from the camp, he joined the Stalinist underground organization called Liberation Combat Union (Związek Walki Wyzwoleńczej), formed after the German’s attack on the USSR. This organization, glorifying Stalin and the Red Army – as fighting for the freedom of “all the nations conquered by Hitler” – called – according to popular Soviet slogans – for immediate armed struggle. Like other members of Liberation Combat Union, in January 1942, Zubrzycki formally became a member of the Polish Workers’ Party, created in response to Stalin’s instruction, by Marceli Nowotko’s special group, which had been flown to Poland by air from Moscow. In May 1942, under the pseudonym “Little Frank”, he was appointed as a commander of a group of young Communists who carried out “combat actions”. They were supposed to be broadcast by communist propaganda as the first actions of the Communist armed structure created at the Polish Workers’ Party – People’s Guard (Gwardia Ludowa). Although the Zubrzycki’s group within a few days in the forests of Piotrków did not perform any significant action against the Germans and returned to Warsaw, it was publicized in the Communist underground press as “exit to field” of the first “partisan squad” of the People’s Guard. To reinforce the propaganda effect, it was announced that the Zubrzycki’s group was a partisan squad of “Stefan Czarniecki’s name”.
In August 1942, Zubrzycki was arrested by the Germans at the railway station in Tomaszow Mazowiecki and died while trying to escape. During the Polish People’s Republic period, Zubrzycki’s legend was built as the “leader of the first partisan squad”, while ignoring the real nature of the Stalinist conspiracy and the real dimension of action of his group. This monument is one of the elements of this false story.