The Secret Printers Who Kept the Warsaw Uprising Alive

drukarnia_powstancza_1944_ak_forum-0428496388.jpg, large, The Home Army’s underground printer, 1944, Warsaw, photo: Marek Skorupski / Forum

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Who were the ‘dromedary girls’? Where were the secret printers located? How did the Gestapo support the underground printing operations?

The press and publishing efforts of the insurgent Warsaw were immense. Staff at all editorial offices and printers, journalists, photographers, typesetters and press operators, as well as staff at the mimeograph workshops and distributors, carried out their duties under extremely gruelling conditions. They did not abandon their posts even in the most critical situations – they dug out machines and printing plates buried under the rubble, retrieved equipment from burning houses and moved it from place to place, stood by their radio receivers, continuously keeping watch and making notes during the heaviest bombardments, and tirelessly sought out paper and ink,

reported Władysław Bartoszewski in Volume III of the publication Ludność Cywilna w Powstaniu Warszawskim (The Civilian Population in the Warsaw Uprising). Established in 1940 under the auspices of the Home Army (AK), Tajne Wojskowe Zakłady Wydawnicze (Secret Military Publishing Works) (TWZW) was the largest underground printing operation in occupied Europe. During the war, several million copies of periodicals, around a million pamphlets, and the same number of leaflets were printed in Warsaw.

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Andrzej Zaborowski, a pressman, at the opening of the printer at the Warsaw Uprising Museum, modelled on the underground printers of the occupation period, 2005, photo: Szymon Pulcyn / PAP

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During the uprising alone, more than 130 newspaper titles were published. Throughout the 63 days of fighting, the newspapers were a vital source of information for residents of the capital’s left bank, although, at the request of the uprising authorities, radio sets – previously hidden from the occupying forces – were displayed in some shop windows. Printing works operators were killed with weapons in their hands; female distributors scattered tens of thousands of copies of the Biuletyn Informacyjny (Information Bulletin) onto the streets under a hail of bullets; and driving a rickshaw laden with bundles of underground newspapers was just as dangerous as transporting a consignment of clandestine ‘Błyskawica’ submachine guns.

Who dared to set up secret printing works in the capital?

TWZW was founded by Jerzy Rutkowski, alias ‘Michał Kmita’. Born in Kyiv, he was a lawyer, manager, National Democracy activist, and second lieutenant in the Home Army. Rutkowski also had relevant experience: before the war, he served as technical editor of the Catholic magazine Mały Dziennik and, for several months, as editor-in-chief of the magazine Młoda Polska. His colleagues remembered him as a tall, powerfully built man who wore thick-lensed glasses and, above all, as a matter-of-fact conversationalist. He persuaded Stefan Rowecki ‘Grot’, the head of the Home Army’s Information and Propaganda Bureau, to entrust him with establishing a clandestine printing operation. The first printer began operations in autumn 1940. At its peak, the TWZW comprised 12 such facilities and employed 50 full-time staff. As the underground movement was preparing to defend the capital, ‘Michał Kmita’ was arrested.

How did the Gestapo help ‘Kmita’ escape from prison?

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Jerzy Rutkowski, leader of the Young Poland Association, during a press conference at the Association’s premises, 1937, photo: National Digital Archives (NAC)

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In fact, they did not help; they organised the escape. The tortured soldier made a desperate gamble and boldly told the Germans that, by arresting him, they had prevented him from assassinating the Home Army leadership, whose conduct – as he told them – aroused suspicions within its ranks. The Gestapo were so intrigued by the idea of a split within the Home Army that they decided to release ‘Kmita’. However, to avoid falling out of favour with their superiors, they staged his escape. They invited the prisoner to a café, and he left the premises via a back exit on the pretext of using the toilet. After a while, a German officer raised the alarm, fired shots haphazardly and threatened the café staff with arrest. The fugitive could not be recaptured.

Were the Secret Military Publishing Works really secret?

Yes, but only until the outbreak of the uprising. Once fighting began, the word ‘secret’ was removed from the name. The individual premises were renamed from ‘workshops’ (designated by the symbols W-1, W-2, etc.) to ‘outposts’ (also numbered). All the printers near Napoleon Square (now Powstańców Warszawy Square) were to be taken over by the insurgents. The Main Post Office building was of key importance; the Germans abandoned it in a panic on 2 August.

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Clearing rubble from Napoleon Square (Powstańców Warszawskich Square) in Warsaw, 1945, photo by Stefan Rassalski / National Digital Archives (NAC)

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Previously, underground printers were occasionally compromised, for example, when typesetters working in sweltering rooms opened a window for a moment (although more often than not there were no windows at all), and the occupiers’ noses detected the smell of ink. Usually, however, the ‘masks’ carried out their task impeccably.

What were the ‘masks’?

What or who? A ‘mask’ was the code name for places or people intended to effectively conceal the printing facilities. The one at 4 Dynasy Street operated under the guise of a commercial laundry. The laundry indeed operated in the building, and Czesława Burakowska, known as ‘Cesia’, who worked there 24 hours a day, hid secret parcels amongst the piles of laundry. At 15 Solna Street, a circular saw was installed next to the shed to drown out the noise of the printing presses in the basement. Meanwhile, at 30 Solca Street, in the cellar beneath the fruit shop, training leaflets for Polish soldiers were printed, and, just before the uprising, the second edition of Aleksander Kamiński’s Kamienie na Szaniec (Stones for the Rampart) was also printed there (the first edition, published a year earlier in July 1943, had also been printed in one of the TWZW workshops).

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Aleksander Kamiński, author of ‘Stones for the Rampart’, 1957, photo: Adam Mottl / PAP

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The human ‘masks’ were usually women. Anna Rytlowa, alias ‘Elżbieta’, ran a shop selling toys and textiles, and in the backroom leaflets were printed in several foreign languages, including Italian, Ukrainian, Czech, Hungarian – and German for the Austrians. She was betrayed by the builder of the tenement block. The typesetter and the printer were murdered, and the landlady was killed during a mass execution under an assumed name (she gave an assumed name at the time of her arrest, thereby protecting her family). German-language material intended for subversive propaganda was also printed at the villa at 35 Morsztyńska Street. The owner, Cecylia Taper-Korzeniowska, made her property available to the staff of the W-1 printer. When they left the house, which had been under German surveillance and sealed off (rooms with printing equipment were not found), she persuaded the Gestapo to return the villa to her. She then took up residence there with her family. The printing plant, which had been reopened, operated until March 1944.

Who were the ‘dromedary girls’?

‘Dromedary girls’ (orig. ‘dromaderki’) played an equally important role in clandestine printers’ operations. On the streets of occupied Warsaw, women aroused less suspicion than men, so it was they who took on the burden – quite literally – of distributing the underground press. Between six and seven o’clock in the morning, the ‘dromedary girls’ would load parcels – sometimes weighing several dozen kilograms – first onto their shoulders, and in subsequent years onto bicycle rickshaws and cars. The printed matter, packed into smaller parcels, would then be handed over to the women distributors.

How were the printing works taken from the occupiers?

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Boduena Street in Warsaw, 1948, photo: Socialist Press Agency / National Digital Archives (NAC)

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The branches of the Military Publishing Works (WZW) were mainly located in the city centre, with the most important ones near Napoleon Square. The insurgents seized the buildings housing the printing machinery, and the pressmen moved into the abandoned premises. How did this happen? In the memoirs of Michał Wojewódzki, head of the underground workshops, branches and outposts, we read that one of the linotype operators, Józef Świacki ‘Adam’:

As early as the first attack on the Main Post Office, he sets off for the Polish Printing Works [...], having previously reconnoitred the layout of the printing works and the approach route; he passes through the line of fire and, via the courtyard and a window, makes his way inside. Having established that there are no Germans on the premises, he sends a report and immediately gets down to starting up the linotype.

The WZW operations centre was set up in the building on the corner of Napoleon Square and Sienkiewicz Street, which had previously been occupied by the Kohnert company, which had been evacuated to Germany. The Polska Printing Works was located at 12 Szpitalna Street. It was connected to the premises next door at 15 Warecka Street. Other branches were situated on the following streets: Chmielna, Czackiego, Moniuszki, Nowy Świat, Widok and Marszałkowska.

Was the Biuletyn Informacyjny printed at a German printing works?

The first issue of the weekly magazine, initiated and edited by the educator Aleksander Kamiński ‘Hubert’, who later wrote Stones for the Rampart (a reliable source of information, as his colleagues remembered him), was typeset in the flat of the writer Zofia Kossak and printed on a mimeograph machine, with a run of 90 copies dated 5 November 1939.

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Home Army Biuletyn Informacyjny, Pasta Zdobyta, Warsaw Uprising, August 1944, photo: FoKa / Forum

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Following the establishment of the TWZW, the publication of the Biuletyn was entrusted, among others, to W-4 (on the corner of Wawelska Street and Niepodległości Avenue), located in the disused Experimental Glider Works. At that time, the print run was nearly 50,000 copies. When the uprising broke out, the most important newspaper of the Polish underground became a daily, and its printing was taken over by above-ground printing works seized by the insurgents.

However, before the ‘W’ Hour, a special issue of the Biuletyn was published with a print run of 100,000 copies, most of which were printed at the B. Wierzbicki and Co. Printing Works. On the night of 31 July to 1 August, this printing works was still under German control. The workers were taking a risk, as were the distributors. A press operator at workshop W-3, which was printing 20,000 copies of the special edition of the newspaper, recalled that August morning as follows:

We loaded the rickshaw with the press and the weapons we had in the workshop. We took turns pushing the cart slowly towards Napoleon Square. [...] The overloaded rickshaw refused to move. Our ‘guards’ walked alongside us on the pavements. At the junction of Nowy Świat and Chmielna, a German airman was directing traffic. The two of us tried to push the rickshaw, but we couldn’t move it. Only with the help of our colleagues were we able to slowly make our way past the German [...].

What were the colours of the Warsaw Uprising?

A one-page Special Supplement No. 2 to the Biuletyn Informacyjny was published on the evening of 2 August on green paper. The letters ‘AK’ were printed on the soldiers’ white-and-red armbands. Insurgent identity cards, listing the holder’s first name, surname, call sign, unit code name, rank and position, were pink. ‘Back then, we still saw almost everything through rose-coloured glasses. After all, you could move about quite freely on the streets around Napoleon Square,’ argued Wojewódzki. He also remembered the insurgent postage stamps, which made ‘a great impression with their colour scheme’. They were printed in five colours corresponding to the five military districts: vermilion, dark maroon, olive, grey-blue and maroon-black. The use of different colours was intended, on the one hand, to improve the efficiency of the postal service and, on the other, to make it easier to detect espionage.

What were the pressmen doing in Adria?

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The insurgents’ canteen in Adria, 10 Moniuszki Street, Warsaw Uprising, 1944, photo: Eugeniusz Lokajski, The Warsaw Uprising in Pictures, Special Edition of the Warsaw Illustrated Weekly Stolica, p. 41, photo: Wikipedia

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They certainly did not frequent the famous dance parties – unless it was before the war. During the occupation, the venue was reserved exclusively for Germans. During the Warsaw Uprising, the upper floors of the building were occupied (from 25 August to 4 September) by the Polish radio station ‘Błyskawica’. Adria was converted into a canteen for the insurgents. The Yacht Club café, which was housed in the same building as the WZW headquarters, served as many as a thousand lunches a day. The Quartermaster’s Department – apart from supplying the printing works with paper and printing materials, usually obtained on the black market – also arranged tailoring and shoemaking services for the staff. Electricity was supplied to the premises via a cable from the Warsaw Power Station (even before the insurgents recaptured it from Hitler’s forces).

‘Why is the plaster falling down?’

Volunteers were sought to work at the printing works. In early August, two deaf typesetters appeared at the premises on Warecka Street. They proved to be the best workers – they paid no heed to the explosions or the approaching aeroplanes and did not stop working, unlike their colleagues in the trade. Wojewódzki recalled:

One day, finally, a shell struck right next to Wyszyński’s printers. The whole building shook, and plaster rained down from the ceiling onto the typesetters’ shelves. Then, to the pressmen’s astonishment, one of the deaf-mute workers, writing on a sheet of paper, asked indignantly: ‘What on earth is going on? Why is the plaster falling down?’ Despite the dangerous situation, the typesetters burst out laughing, and we, too, had a chuckle when we were told this story.

The presses finally fell silent on the night of 3–4 October, after the last issue of the Biuletyn Informacyjny had gone to print.

Translated from Polish by Agnieszka Mistur

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