The phenomenon of escapes from communist Poland accompanied the regime almost from its inception. In this context, the years 1945\u20131949 constituted a particular period in Western Pomerania. It was a time of mass migrations within the newly demarcated state borders and the construction of the structures of the new authorities. The specific chaos accompanying these processes, combined with inadequate security along the border line, favored attempts to leave the country illegally. The scale of the phenomenon was so large at that time that in 1948, special filtration prisons were established along the western and maritime borders for those detained under these circumstances. In October of that year, 206 would-be escapees were brought to the Szczecin facility; by June of the following year, there were already 260.<\/p>\n\n
At that time, a particularly popular escape route was the “green border” section near Szczecin, which lacked natural barriers. One of the Security Office (UB) reports noted: “Border criminals, upon arriving in Szczecin, orient themselves [on how to reach the border] using road signs, maps, and a relief map of the city of Szczecin displayed at the Main Railway Station; they then head towards Gumie\u0144ce as well as Ku S\u0142o\u0144cu Street.” People without contacts, and even more so without the funds to pay smugglers, risked crossing the border on their own. In April 1950, fifteen-year-old Zdzis\u0142aw Przybylski made his first attempt to cross over to the West via the Szczecin route. Years later, in his memoirs, he described himself as a “professional escapee.” It turned out that by 1957 he had attempted to escape from Poland at least six times, each time unsuccessfully. Felicja Bryn, a young Jewish Holocaust survivor, attempted in December 1956 to make her way to an uncle living in the USA. She reached Szczecin by train, where she found family acquaintances. Eager to get rid of their troublesome guest as quickly as possible, they pointed her in a general direction: “It’s best to walk past the village of Buk.” The girl was detained. However, hundreds of others managed to cross the border and move further on. At that time, escapees headed primarily to the western sectors of Berlin, where refugee and DP [displaced persons] camps run by the International Refugee Organization (IRO) operated. Until September 1948, Poles also ended up in camps belonging to units of the Polish Armed Forces in the West stationed in the allied sectors of Germany.<\/p>\n\n
The issue of illegally leaving the country looked different from the perspective of the activities of organized smuggling groups. Interestingly, they also had their specializations: some led people across the “green border,” others transported escapees by cutters across the Szczecin Lagoon, and still others used the decks of barges that sailed via inland canals to West Berlin. By the end of the 1940s, there were at least a dozen, if not several dozen, individuals and groups engaged in this activity in Szczecin and the surrounding area. Very often, human smuggling was combined with smuggling deficit goods across both sides of the border. The Szczecin branch of the State Repatriation Office (PUR) was even implicated in the operation, with its employees issuing forged documents that enabled escapees to leave with the transport of displaced Germans, including via the railway station in Gumie\u0144ces. The smuggler Antoni Machli\u0144ski, in order to transfer escapees, made contact with the employees of PUR staging post no. 3, and when the facility was closed, he transported his “clients” by cutter across the waters of the Lagoon.<\/p>\n\n
Some smuggling rings operated on a very large scale, moving as many as several dozen people at a time. However, this required precise organization\u2014the smugglers themselves had to be well-acquainted with the border area, build a network of connections, and frequently bribe Polish, German, and Soviet soldiers or militiamen. Smuggling the relatives of Polish Armed Forces (PSZ) soldiers who remained in exile to Germany was a particularly lucrative business. The route of one such channel ran as follows: escapees (most often women and children) reported to contact points located in Szczecin. From these locations, an autochthon named Walenty Kokorzy\u0144ski would pick up a given group and lead them along Ku S\u0142o\u0144cu Street alongside the Central Cemetery, and then via a country road to the village of Do\u0142uje, where the border was crossed. On the German side, the route led to L\u00f6cknitz, from where the group traveled by narrow-gauge railway to Pasewalk and further by train to Berlin. In the German metropolis, the contact point was an apartment at 59 Goethestrasse, where Kokorzy\u0144ski delivered the escapees and received his payment. From January 1947 to April 1948, he guided over 20 people in this manner. Ma\u0142gorzata St\u00fcrmer, a Polish woman living part-time in Berlin and Szczecin, smuggled her groups via the route from G\u0142\u0119bokie through Dobra and Stolec. Unfortunately, for some, this occupation ended tragically. Smugglers detained at the border were often charged with political crimes, such as espionage. Walenty Kokorzy\u0144ski, Edmund Sieg, Antoni Machli\u0144ski, and Jan D\u0142ugajczyk, who guided escapees, were sentenced to death on these charges by the District Military Court in Szczecin\u2014all the sentences were carried out.<\/p>\n\n
The Stalinist period was a time of almost complete closure of the country. A very restrictive passport policy (in 1950, only 50 passport booklets were issued nationwide) was accompanied by intensive activities related to the technical expansion of border security. Observation towers and barbed wire entanglements were erected, forests were cleared, strips of land were harrowed, and flare pistols were installed. In 1949, the Border Protection Troops (WOP) were subordinated to the Ministry of Public Security, which was associated with the intensification of the operational security of the borderland, which became an area of special treatment. These actions significantly reduced escape opportunities and, consequently, the number of attempts themselves. Their consequences, treated as a kind of preventive measure, were also very severe during this period. On the night of May 26\u201327, four young active-duty soldiers deserted from the 52nd WOP outpost in Namy\u015blin. They crossed the Oder River by boat and took a train to Berlin. There, a Pole they met by chance offered to lead them to the western sectors of the city, but instead they ended up in the Embassy of the Polish People’s Republic in East Berlin. Before the escapees realized the situation, the building was surrounded by East German services. During a scuffle, one of them was severely shot. In a subsequent show trial organized at the WOP unit, Jan Cichocki and Stanis\u0142aw Pilch, accused of desertion, were found to be the ringleaders and sentenced to death as an example. Ultimately, Bierut exercised his right of clemency, commuting their sentences to long-term prison terms.<\/p>\n\n
However, twenty-year-old Czes\u0142aw Kowalski was not granted such “clemency.” Along with a group of friends, he attempted to escape to West Berlin by hijacking a PLL “LOT” aircraft. The young people were driven to such desperation by the failure of their earlier attempts to get out of the country. Armed with weapons, the hijackers boarded a plane operating a flight from the Szczecin-D\u0105bie airport to Pozna\u0144 on November 21, 1951. Immediately after takeoff, they tried to break into the cockpit to force the pilots to redirect the plane to a Berlin airport. However, the pilots remained locked inside and did not open the door, even when the hijackers began shooting. They also managed to turn back to the D\u0105bie airport. Here, the would-be escapees fled in panic. A shootout broke out, resulting in injuries to both militiamen and the hijackers. Ultimately, everyone involved in the case was detained. In March 1952, Czes\u0142aw Kowalski was sentenced to death for attempting to hijack an aircraft with a weapon in hand.<\/p>\n\n
Western Pomerania is also a broad coastline and, consequently, the versatile escape opportunities provided by the Baltic Sea. As early as 1945, “stowaways” hid on ships, especially those flying Western flags. They often acted on their own or were placed in special hiding spots by organized smuggling groups. If they were not detected in Polish territorial waters, they usually reached Western ports safely. Seafarers themselves, especially from the merchant fleet, also took advantage of the opportunity to escape. As departmental documents described it, they “dropped off” from their units individually or as entire crews. During the Stalinist period, when Poland experienced its greatest isolation, seafarers were one of the few professional groups regularly crossing borders, which also made them the largest category of escapees. This phenomenon intensified again after the introduction of martial law in December 1981. Polish Baltic Shipping in Ko\u0142obrzeg suffered particularly severe losses. In the first few days of martial law alone, 34 of its employees remained in the ports of London, Ystad, and Helsinki, and in the following months this number grew by another 66 seafarers. In view of the militarization of workplaces, they were treated as deserters. By 1989, the enterprise lost another 144 employees in this way.<\/p>\n\n
Fishermen also constituted a “high-risk” professional group. For example, from January 1948 to March 1949, 22 cutters with 90 people on board escaped to Sweden. For this reason, fishing crews were also subjected to strict observation and selection. Security measures were also introduced. To improve the visibility of the cutters, it was ordered that their hulls be painted lemon-yellow, and sailing out into the open sea on one’s own was forbidden. Nevertheless, fishermen continued to escape. In September 1950, the cutter \u015aWI-67 left Polish waters; its captain, J\u00f3zef Dyszak, together with three fishermen, successfully reached Sweden. On June 26, 1951, the crew and passengers of the vessel \u015aWI-38 took the same direction. In January 1958, fisherman Czes\u0142aw Siwik hijacked the cutter KO\u0141-47 and sailed with his companions to Bornholm. In turn, in August 1960, 12 people\u2014including the families of crew members\u2014escaped aboard the cutter W\u0141A-19 from Ko\u0142obrzeg. Throughout the entire period of the Polish People’s Republic, significantly more similar cases were recorded.<\/p>\n\n
The phenomenon of escapes also affected deep-sea fishing enterprises. One of the unusual attempts took place on May 3, 1955, aboard the lugger-trawler “Cietrzew,” owned by the Deep-Sea Fishing and Fisheries Services Enterprise “Odra” from \u015awinouj\u015bcie. Its vessels were operating at that time in the distant waters of the North Sea. Three fishermen: Tomasz D\u017awiota (19 years old), Piotr Wi\u015bniewski (24 years old), and Albert Ruszenik (27 years old), taking advantage of the moment the trawler moored to a mother ship and almost the entire crew moved to the other deck, cut the lines connecting the vessels and hijacked the ship. Their goal was the Scottish or English coast. Meanwhile, the mother ship pursued the escapees, calling on nearby Polish units for help. The desperate hijackers even broadcast an SOS signal, but due to a lack of knowledge of the English language, they failed to present their situation. Besides, communications were taken over by a Polish captain, who suggested that he was able to assist the vessel on his own. After several hours of grueling efforts, the escapees had to surrender. They were detained, and after being transported to Szczecin, they ended up in the security police detention center on Ma\u0142opolska Street. A public trial was organized for them in \u015awinouj\u015bcie in front of “Odra” employees\u2014the times were already different, however, and they spent several years in prison.<\/p>\n\n
The goal of individual attempts to cross the Baltic was most often Bornholm, which is separated from the Polish coast by a straight-line distance of just 40 nautical miles. This created\u2014at least theoretically\u2014a chance to safely navigate this stretch, often using improvised floating craft. In March 1982, Henryk Pi\u0105tek and his companion attempted to reach the Danish island by motorboat. They set off from a beach near Grzybowo. However, their boat broke down and was detected by a Border Protection Troops (WOP) radar. In August of that year, Tomasz Wery\u0144ski chose the same destination\u2014he, in turn, attempted to get there by kayak. He set out from a beach in Ko\u0142obrzeg, but was intercepted by border guards after less than a kilometer.<\/p>\n\n
In August 1961, fearing the depopulation of the country, the GDR authorities closed the border with West Berlin and began building fortifications around the city. The notorious reputation of the Berlin Wall significantly reduced the attractiveness of the northern route via the Oder River and the “green border,” yet there was still no shortage of daring individuals. At that time, merely forcing the Oder River was already a considerable difficulty, not to mention safely infiltrating beyond the neighbor’s border zone. In October 1967 alone, five cases of crossing the river were recorded in the sector secured by the 12th Pomeranian WOP Brigade, and only one person managed to escape the Polish and East German border guards.<\/p>\n\n
The history of the escape of Franciszek Piesik, who was not yet twenty-five years old at the time, is still full of unknowns. Raised in the Oder River village of Widuchowa, he was well acquainted with the border security system. Thanks to this knowledge, without arousing suspicion, on the night of October 12, 1967, he managed to cross the river by boat in the locality of Bielinek. When residents notified the services of his disappearance early in the morning, Piesik had already left the border area and was heading toward Berlin. The success of this stage of the escape was perhaps decided by the choice of an unconventional route. The Pole skirted the city from the north and a few days later appeared near the Hennigsdorf water border checkpoint. Polish and German barges sailing along the Oder-Havel Canal to Western Europe underwent border clearance there. In the vicinity was Lake Nieder Neuendorf, through the middle of which ran the border with West Berlin. On the evening of October 17, Piesik attempted to swim across the body of water. However, he was spotted by East German border guards. A pursuit was launched; some accounts spoke of the use of weapons, while others contradicted them\u2014in any case, the escapee could not be stopped at that time. It was not until October 28 that the body of the young Pole was fished out of the lake’s waters on the West Berlin side. To this day, it remains a mystery how Piesik devised such an unconventional plan\u2014German researchers have recorded only one other such case besides his. For a long time, Franciszek Piesik was considered the only foreign victim of the “Berlin Wall.” It was only a few years ago that another Pole, Czes\u0142aw Kukuczka, who was shot in East Berlin in 1974, was added to this tragic list, which currently numbers 140 names.<\/p>\n\n
Franciszek Piesik lacked only the indispensable stroke of good fortune for a happy ending in such circumstances. His case, like many others, also shows that over years, the chances of a successful escape increasingly depended on the originality of the plan itself. The security services learned from their own mistakes, and another attempt at imitation was usually doomed to failure. What surprised everyone was the brilliantly simple\u2014though not necessarily safe\u2014way in which two brothers, Adam and Krzysztof Zieli\u0144ski, escaped to Sweden in October 1985. The boys, originating from a village in the Podkarpackie region (the older one was 16 and the younger 13), reached \u015awinouj\u015bcie via Warsaw and Szczecin.<\/p>\n\n
There, taking advantage of the driver’s inattention, they hid under the chassis of a semi-trailer. They had to show considerable determination to endure the waiting period at the terminal, the border clearance itself\u2014during which the absence of a service dog on that particular day proved crucial\u2014the loading onto the ferry, and the crossing of the Baltic Sea. They only left their hiding place in Sweden, where they asked for asylum. The children’s successful escape caused a sensation in Scandinavia and enormous dismay in the Polish People’s Republic. The fact that as early as during the investigation (from January to July 1986) five minors attempting to get out of the country using the exact same method were detained shows how quickly the authorities drew conclusions.<\/p>\n\n
It should be borne in mind that the above outlines only a small fragment of the complex and broad issue that escapes and emigration from communist Poland through Western Pomerania constituted. Thanks to its unique location, the region “offered” an exceptionally wide range of possibilities. It was precisely this availability of various escape routes that made Western Pomerania the most diverse transit point on the emigration map of the Polish People’s Republic.<\/p>\n