Escape of an SS-Man

One day as usual I went to Bławat at his coat check, as he had a multitude of contacts and information. This time, almost in a whisper, he recounted of a boisterous incident which apparently happened a few days ago off at the imposing and dreadful UB building in the area.

Very close to the coffee shop, not further than twenty meters, there was a trough of a stream like a ditch that circled at the outskirts the center of town for a distance of about two kilometers. In a certain portion above this ditch, on the opposite end from the coffee shop stood three huge building complexes, patterned after the Berlin Spandau and built in brick. Housed there were the militia, the UB and the courts. 

Each complex had its own jail and detention. In these years there were thousands of people imprisoned. Not counting the large amount of so-called common criminals, like thieves, robbers, confidence men, looters, killers and murderers, the jails were filled up first of all by constantly uncovered criminals of war, mainly Germans and Ukrainians, and also numerous anti-communist Poles belonging to the most miscellaneous anti-communist organizations. Imprisoned even were a few of my numerous colleagues, as for example the brothers Klimczewski, or my colleague from some class, one Tacik, with sentences of several years they all ended up there too. 

Luckily, I, like any wary citizen of this country, knew that any moment, be it for your look, you could be arrested by some functionary from one of these buildings, did not dabble with them, but I did locate my entire patriotic feeling in love of America, officially seen as the greatest nemesis. Very often in that place fell the penalty of death. 

For offenses of a political nature, executions were mainly done in the bleak underground facilities of the UB. As the locals told it, repeated in gossip and whispers, there was something like a type of blind hallway there, at the end of which stood from floor to ceiling a very fat, wooden post. Two meters in front of it hung an unfurled and open black curtain. The condemned was tied to the post, the prosecutor read the verdict, and the curtain was closed. The firing squads were made up of two or three exceptionally drunk UB-men, who from a distance of ten steps at their officer’s command fired machine guns at the black fabric, behind which the bound prisoner stood. 

Bławat related that there had been going on there the execution of some war criminal, an SS-man, who for sure had honestly earned himself this penalty of death. Already in the underground facility the criminal knew what was going down, and having in a certain sense nothing to lose and being a superbly trained and practiced killer, in a second dispatched himself of the three UB-men escorting him, killing with an appropriated gun everyone there, together with the prosecutor who was present, in sum seven people. 

He acted very quickly and very expertly. In a cap and uniform jacket taken from the largest of the killed, with two pistols, a large stock of ammunition as well as a machine gun on his back, he discretely moved through the floor where in the offices operated UB investigative officers. Because most often the interrogations were accompanied by torture, and often to the point of loss of consciousness, the walls of each of the offices were very carefully sound-proofed. 

Knowing excellently the layout of the building, the German, having on his head a navy blue rimmed UB hat and on his back the uniform, did not especially call attention to himself, and easily entered each successive office, closing the door behind him. His right hand hidden behind him, he held a cocked pistol, while placing the forefinger of his left hand on his lips, signaling to stay quiet, he took three steps forward and with lightning speed fired a shot that deposited the bullet exactly between the shocked eyes of the functionary. 

If some interrogation suspect found himself in the room at the time, he told him to lay face down on the floor and stay there. Alone he left the office, resolutely closing the door behind him and carefully directing himself to the next one. 

Alas, when he had gone already through twelve offices, he hit the unlucky thirteenth. For many hours the interrogation of some poor wretch had been taking place. The official even had two assistants. They were just getting to the second hand of the suspect, because in the first all his fingernails were already torn off. And more, with the help of a massive post-German oak bureau, whose drawers were oak too, in many places they had thoroughly broken his fingers. 

Eliminating three UB-men together did not present the rapidly firing and accurate German much of a problem. However, afterwards, when the SS-man opened the doors to the next office, the tortured culprit, instead of politely lying on the ground face down as told, probably having found himself in a state of total confusion, ran immediately from the room and before he was brought down by a bullet, began like a Flagellant to let out with all his voice a horrible, inarticulate noise. Unfortunately the screams and the shot demasked the German. 

A long battle ensued in the building. In the end, he was fatally wounded when the UB-men, losing a few more of their own, used three defensive hand grenades of the type F-1, in the occasion demolishing almost the entire floor. A total fucking mess.