As I previously mentioned, the whole PPS Militia, under the command of Dr. Łokietek and Tasiemka, joined the FRAC. I must pause now to tell at greater length the history of this FRAC Militia, not because we had to deal with them often, but because, from their history, it becomes clear how great the dangers are that threaten the morality of such an organized battle group, and how low, morally, they were, in fact, to sink.
Dr. Łokietek, the commander-in-chief of the FRAC Militia, was a Jewish convert to Christianity. He had been a chemist, with a position as chemist at the public free clinic. But after he and his militia went over to the FRAC, he devoted himself more and more to FRAC fights. He began to drink more and more, until he became a deranged alcoholic. One time, before dawn, he entered, drunk, into the Warsaw revue theatre, Kwi Pro Kwo (Quid Pro Quo), and demanded that the servers, who were at that moment cleaning the theatre, perform for him. The servers explained that the performers were long gone and there was no one present to perform. He shouted that he didn’t want to hear any such excuses. They must perform for him immediately! When he saw no one was obeying him, he pulled out his revolver and started shooting.
Łokietek tied himself ever more closely to the underworld, sinking ever deeper into their morass, until he simply became one of them, a partner in criminal acts of terror and extortion.
The other leading commander of the FRAC’s fighting group was Tasiemka. He was an old fighter for the PPS, as far back as Czarist times. He was raw but cunning.
Because of his old battle exploits and triumphs, the PPS had made him a councilman in the Warsaw City Council; he remained a councilman for the FRAC as well. His path to the underworld was far easier than Dr. Łokietek’s. While Dr. Łokietek, in his deepest decadence, never himself directly engaged in any criminal act, remaining a quiet partner to theft, Tasiemka organized his own gang, known as “Tasiemka’s Band,” participating often in terrorizing merchants and shopkeepers in the marketplace, enforcing protection money, and extorting money in other ways.
A third man in charge of the FRAC Militia was a certain Szeczka. He was deported to America for his gangsterism. When he returned to Warsaw from America he was quickly able to insert himself back into the FRAC fighting militia, and with their help, was able to transfer his gangsterism to the streets of Warsaw. The FRAC made him the secretary of a small union of Polish bakery workers, as well as secretary of the Jewish Porters Union the FRACs had taken over and separated from our Transport Workers Union. Later he became a police agent, and since his former comrades in the FRAC Militia were now very much afraid of him because he knew too much, they killed him.
This criminal behavior was strengthened from another direction. In Poland, even before the Pilsudski coup, there was an organization consisting mainly of former members of Piłsudski’s Legions, called Strzelec (Marksman). When Piłsudski came to power, this organization was now in great favor. It became a semiofficial military organization. Its members wore a sort of military uniform and paraded around the streets, generally acting as if they owned the place. In the FRAC Militia there were also quite a number of former Legion soldiers. Tasiemka, for example, once belonged to Pilsudki’s personal guard. There was also a close relationship between the FRAC Militia and the Strzelec. The FRAC militiamen, dressed as Strzelec, paraded in their uniforms whenever they felt like it. This made it easier for them to terrorize the street, especially since the police looked the other way when they carried out their acts of terror, even helping them quietly, since the FRAC was an important supporter of the Pilsudski regime. The Strzelec-FRAC mafia extorted money from merchants and shopkeepers, terrorized workers, and got into other criminal activities. Whoever stood up to them or refused to quickly give in, paid for it dearly.
Having such power, the FRACs now turned on the Jewish labor movement; mainly, the Bund. They started taking over whole Bund unions or splitting off sections of them. Because of this there were often sharp conflicts between the FRAC and us. But more about that later.
The end of the FRAC was rather tragic. After a while, they began having internal strife. Moraczewski left them and created his own organization, a would-be syndicalist one, “Z. Z. Z.” (Związek Związkow Zawodowych, i.e., union of unions). The broad working masses grew sick of the terror, the criminality, and the immorality of the FRAC and their fighting units. The workers started turning from them en masse and returning to the old PPS. The FRAC was left a small group, actually little more than a well-organized terrorist band. This was certainly not the goal of Jaworoski, who was himself an upright and honest man, though a strong opportunist and a fanatic follower of Piłsudski.
But I have gotten ahead of myself. Let me get back to telling things in their chronological order.