One event in the twenties, although it had little to do with our movement, made such a deep impression on me that I could not forget it for a long time after.
On a certain evening in 1924, as I sat in the Central Committee offices, I suddenly received an alarming telephone call. Police had descended on the offices of the Garment Workers Union on 17 Graniczna Street and were conducting a search.
When I arrived there I introduced myself to the police as a representative of the Central Committee. I identified myself and declared that I wanted to be present during the search. I demanded this because the police could plant illegal literature, as they so often did, and use this as an excuse to shut down the union offices. The policemen told me to wait—they would ask their superior officer seated in the main office supervising the search. They did not let me enter. After a few moments, they showed me into the anteroom to the main office. I saw that they had already set apart a group of union members for arrest. They indicated I should go into the main office where the commanding police officials were seated.
When I entered the main office, I was absolutely dumbstruck. There I saw Cechnowski —the same Cechnowski who had led the Communist movement in Praga around 1920, about which I have already told in the first few chapters. In a brief moment a whole span of time passed before my eyes: 1914, the year he was the representative of the SDKPiL and we were active together in the interparty labor committee; his leadership of the Communist Dzielnica (district) in Praga; his activities among the workers in the provisions department; his work when he and I organized and led the First of May demonstration in Praga in 1920—and now suddenly I see him leading a police search of a union office!
My head was spinning. Is this really Cechnowski, the leader of the Praga Communists? Apparently I grew quite pale, because this Cechnowski ordered a glass of water to be brought. He handed it to me. I drank and slowly regained my senses. Then he whispered: “Bernard, calm yourself, I will explain everything. But I can’t do it here.” He asked me to come into his office. Then he added quickly, “I am not the only one.” This meant, apparently, that he was not the only Communist to leave and join the police. He gave me his phone number and asked me to call him today, or at the latest, tomorrow, and he would explain everything. He ordered a halt to the search and arrested a couple of people, ordering the release of the ones he had previously set aside for arrest.
I did not telephone him, and I never saw him again.
That was the first time that a former Communist activist revealed himself before my very own eyes as a police agent. In later years the Communist movement teemed with provocateurs and police-agents, and one got used to such things. But at that time, in 1924, it was a new phenomenon.
Some time later his name was linked to sensational news: He was shot dead in Lemberg1 by a Communist youth, Naftoli Botwin. In Lemberg an illegal Communist conference had been uncovered by the police in the cellars of the cloister of the Holy Yuri. This illegal conference was discovered by the police, probably with the help of a spy, and all those in attendance were arrested. Commissar Cechnowski was a witness during the trial of the accused. In revenge, Botwin assassinated him. All this happened in the summer of 1925. Botwin was convicted, given the death penalty, and executed by firing squad.
1.Polish, Lwów; now in the Ukraine, Lviv.—MR