Draft:Edmund (Mundek) Łukawiecki

Edmund (Mundek) Łukawiecki, (Jewish name Moses Matityahu) (20th December 1921 – 24th June 2004) was the commander of a Jewish Partizan Hit Squad Jewish Partizan Hit Squad during World War II, subordinated to the Armia Krajowa (AK) ("Home Army" Polish resistance movement under the command of the Polish Government exiled in London). Hanna Bern (July 15th 1922 – Nov 12th 1990) was a member of the squad and later Mundek's wife. Edmund (Mundek) used his Leica camera to capture images of the daily life of a partisan and the combat operations he partook in between the years 1942-1944. His images and the Leica Camera were donated to Yad Vashem.

Biography

Edmund (Mundek) was the eldest son of Joseph and Sarah Łukawiecki, belonging to a well-established family in Lwow (Poland) known today as Lviv, Ukraine. The family members were quadrilingual, fluent in Polish, German, Russian, and Ukrainian. The family owned a chain of distilleries, granting them the local nickname "Gozalnikes", meaning those who own distilleries. In the summers of 1937 and 1938, Edmund (Mundek) underwent military training with the Polish's Sixth Corps.

The Łukawiecki family distinguished themselves from Jewish characteristics. They changed their surname to Łukawiecki from Cohen at the end of the 19th century, which originated from their distillery business. Mundek's father, following after his father, served in the Polish Army. Mundek's grandfather, Hersh Wolf, served in the Polish Legions of the Austro-Hungarian Army during WWI, in which he lost his leg and his brother was killed. In accordance with the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact during WWII, Lwow came under Soviet control. Josef Kulpa, who served with the grandfather in the Polish legions, convinced the family to recruit Mundek, the eldest son, to the ZWZ (the former name of AK - The Union of Armed Struggle Związek Walki Zbrojnej). Edmund (Mundek) was assigned dispatch of the underground weekly newspaper "Czyn" (deed in Polish) to ZWZ sympathizers, in the German and USSR areas of Galicia. As he was recruited, he received false identification documents, under the guise as the son of a Polish Sejm member, Andrzej Zuchowski, former Lubaczow Mayor.

The ZWZ ceased operation following the Barbarossa invasion of the USSR (June 22nn 1941) by Nazi Germany and its Axis allies. In its place the AK was formed and on September 6th 1941 Edmund (Mundek) was recruited. Edmund (Mundek) Joined commander Marian Varda's unit. Excluding Varda (and Kulpa), no one in the detachment knew of Edmund (Mundek) Jewish ethnicity. Varda's unit was tasked with thwarting the German army veterans' settlement in the town of Zamość, which the Germans already renamed Himmlerstadt. The German exiled 350,000 Poles (Aktion Zamość). Varda's detachment operated guerrilla warfare, eliminating the German commander of Zamość, destroying farms, haylofts and the residences of the German settlers. In November 1941, Germany halted this effort.

Josef Kulpa helped the family to relocate to the town of Lubaczow -Ostrowiec, the hometown of Mundek's Grandfather who owned an agricultural farm and distillery, falsely hoping for their safety there. Lubaczow – Ostrowiec was ruled by Ukrainian Auxiliary Police, whose cruelty was no less than that of the Germans.

Hannah Bern's family were part of the Jewish religious Hasidic group "Belz". Hannah was taken the Ukrainian Auxiliary police commander, that enslaved her and raped her for three days. On Christmas eve December 24th, 1941, the Ukraine commander, while under the influence of alcohol, tried to assault Hannah again. She killed him with a kitchen knife, subsequently set fire to the police headquarters, and fled to her family's concealed location in the Lubaczow ghetto.

Coincidentally there day later on December 27th, 1941, Edmund (Mundek) arrived at the Bern Family shelter. The fighting in Zamosc ended victoriously. Upon receiving information about the impending liquidation of the Ghetto by the Germans, Edmund (Mundek), dressed in civilian attire, arrived at Lubaczów at the same time that Hannah ran away. Edmund (Mundek) failed to persuade the Ghetto's Rabbis to permit Jews to escape with him to the woods. Adhering to the Rabbis' instructions, the Jewish community refused, including his family and his fiancé Siver Schmidt, who were hiding at the Bern shelter. At the request of Hannah's father, Shimon Bern, Edmund (Mundek) agreed to take Hannah to the woods, receiving gold as an inducement.

The two escaped to Kulpa's farm through the snow, which caused Hannah to experience temporary snow blindness. Kulpa agreed to help as he believed he was following an order from Saint Maria that appeared to him in a dream at night. Kulpa informed Edmund (Mundek) and Hannah that the Lubaczów Jews were being executed by fire squad, their bodies being thrown into the anti-tank trenches dug by the Red Army near Dachnow. On January 6th 1942 Edmund (Mundek) and Hannah witnessed the execution of their families, igniting a pivotal decision to avenge the German Nazis and the Axis allies.

In January 1943, upon Edmund (Mundek) and Hannah's arrival at the AK unit, it was revealed that they were Jews. Their presence was not welcomed and Edmund (Mundek) formed a Jewish independent unit AK subordinated, that consisted of 13 Jews and 2 non-Jews, with Kulpa as their point of contact. In March 1942, it became evident that Hannah was pregnant. Kulpa sent her to his home, where his wife performed a scraping procedure.

The Commander of the Jewish Partizan unit

Lukawiecki partisans moved to the Janowskie woods and operated in Ruda Rozaniecka, in the center of Galicia around the town of Lubaczów. The AK incorporated Lukawiecki Partisan into two types of operations - elimination of collaborators, and raids and executing including on German targets (Wehrmacht and SS personnel), in some case to interrogate them for intelligence purposed and executing, as an AK revenge death squad against Axis collaborators that executed AK death sentences. Edmund (Mundek) trained the partisans, planned the operations, and assigned duties. He was a strict commander and couldn't tolerate disobedience. He set a tactical rule not to conduct operational activity near their camp out of fear of exposure, so all operations occurred 30 km from the bunker. Their flexibility, long range capability and Mundek's field senses quickly convinced the AK to operate the unit as a special operation unit, carrying death penalties against collaborates ang German officers under the cover of German Wehrmacht uniform.

Notable Operations

• The AK utilized the unit's ability to disguise themselves as Germans. They executed ambushes, captured German officers for information, and brought them in for interrogation. The German officers cooperated and were subsequently executed.
• AK ordered the unit to carry out capital punishment against those who collaborated. The Ukrainian commander of the Yavoriv police handed over a Polish family that had provided shelter for Jews. The Ukrainian took possession of the belongings of both the Jews and the Polish family. The AK imposed capital punishment on the entire Ukrainian family, and the unit was ordered to carry out the sentence. Hannah also took part in the execution.
• On 29 December 1942, Edmund (Mundek) personally killed a gendarmerie officer, while disguised as a Wehrmacht soldier, who exposed Poles that were hiding Jews.
• On April 26, 1943, the unit, along with other AK units, destroyed an armed fuel train near the town of Susiec on its way to the Belzec extermination camp. The train exploded, resulting in the death of the guard troops and the train staff. In retaliation, the Germans killed half of Susiec's male population.
• In April 1944, the unit executed 8 German soldiers that claimed to be Hitler Youth (Hitlerjugend) on a search mission in the forest.
• On the 22nd of July 1944, while the unit was executing a mission targeting a bridge spanning the Dniester River, which was an escape route of the German military, they heard the approaching Red Army. The unit departed from the forest, intending to make contact with the army, but were met with hostile gunfire and sought refuge in the forest. As required for the sabotage operation the unit was dressed in German uniforms at the time. Subsequently, they changed into Polish army uniforms and proceeded towards the Red Army.

Throughout the duration of the war, Edmund (Mundek) diligently documented the events with his Leica camera, providing a visual record of the conflict.

After the war

After the war, Edmund (Mundek) was recruited to the Polish UB in Cracow, where he secretly continued his revenge operation against the Nazis and their collaborators, and forced Jews to immigrate to Palestine to join the "Etzel" paramilitary organization. In 1946 his actions were discovered by UB, and the family escaped from Poland and ended up at a Displaced Persons camp in Ansbach. During his time in Cracow, he met with Kulpa for various matters.

• For his actions, Kulpa was awarded the title Righteous Among the Nations.
• Edmund (Mundek) and Hannah Lukawiecki were decorated as Combatants of Israel.

References

Argasiński, Mieczysław. (2010). Konspiracja Powiecie Lubaczowskim [Conspiracy in the Lubaczów district 1939 – 1947]. Civic Association "Ostoja".

Hofmann, Maurie. (1995). Keep Yelling. Spectrum Publications.

Kubrek, Zygmund. (1948–2018). Miejska Biblioteka Publiczna im Wladystawa Bronieewskiego W Lubaczowie w latch 1948-2018. Wydawnictwo Edytorial, pp.151-2.

Lavee, Simon. (2015). Jewish Hit Squad. Gefen Publishing House.

Porat, Dina. (2019). To Me Belongeth Vengeance and Recompence and Abba Kovner's Avengers. Haifa University and Pardes publishing house, pp.60.

Walk, Ruth. (2022). The Partisan with the Leica Camera. Documentary on Israeli news channel Kan 11.