Tadeusz Jasiński: Difference between revisions

Defender of Grodno in the Soviet invasion of Poland

Tadeusz Jasiński (1926 – 21 September 1939, in Grodno) was a Polish soldier notable for being one of the youngest defenders of Grodno in September 1939, captured and used by the Soviets as a “human shield“.

Tadeusz’s existence is corroborated by records of the Belarusian archive.^[1] However, there are conflicting accounts concerning his age (from an adult to thirteen years old) and the exact details of his death.^[2]

When the Red Army approached the city, Tadeusz volunteered to defend it. He was tasked with setting a Soviet tank on fire using a Molotov cocktail, but was captured in the attempt. The Soviet tank crews beat him up and, as punishment, tied him outside the tank as a “human shield“. The Poles managed to recapture him and take him away from the battlefield, but he died due to his injuries.^[3][4][5] Sources are contradictory on whether he died that he died in his mother’s arms, or in the arms of one of the soldiers who rescued him (Lipińska’s [pl]).^{[6][page needed]}

The name of Tadeusz Jasiński first became known after the publication of the memoirs of a participant in the events in Grodno, “Jeśli zapomnę o nich…” (“If I forget about them…”) in 1988 in Paris.

In October 2006, the Wrocław City Council named one of the city’s boulevards “Tadek Jasiński Boulevard”.^[7] In 2010, streets in Sochaczew^[8] and Kędzierzyn-Koźle^[9] were named after him, and in 2017 in Białystok.^[10] In 2007, a symbolic grave of Jasiński was erected near the headquarters of the Polish Army.^[11] On 14 September 2009, he was posthumously awarded the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta by the President of Poland, for heroism shown during the defense of Grodno in 1939.^[12]