Aleksander Tarnawski was born on 8 January 1921. He was the son of teachers, Jan Tarnawski and Maria (nee Bereś). He had an older brother who lived in Rabka. In 1938, he graduated from middle school in Chorzow and started his studies at the Department of Chemistry of the University of Lwow.

 

Aleksander was 18 years old when the Germans, Soviets and Slovaks invaded Poland. He was a student at the Faculty of Chemistry at the University of Lwow, so in 1939 he was not mobilized. The Soviets arrested him in Drohobych, but released him shortly after. He fled to Hungary on 26 October 1939 and from there reached France, where he joined the Polish Army that had been formed in the country, being assigned to the 1st Infantry Regiment of the 1st Grenadier Division, where he was trained for special diversionary tasks. After the fall of France he was evacuated to England, being assigned to the 16th Armoured Brigade and later to the 1st Polish Armored Division. After training in diversion and armored weapons, he was sworn in on 23 September 1943 at the Chief of Staff Branch VI.

 

In the summer of 1943, he volunteered to join the Home Army (AK). He was trained as a commando in order to be parachuted into Poland to assist the AK in sabotage actions. The commando unit consisted of 316 operators. Together with them he was sent to Brindisi (Italy). From there he flew to Poland. He was dropped over his native country on the night of 16-17 April 1944, near Baniocha (24 kilometers south of Warsaw), as part of Operation Weller 12.

 

In May 1944 he was assigned to the Nowogródek District of the AK, which he infiltrated into the Todt Organization, an entity of the German armed forces that brought together foreigners employed in forced labor to build all kinds of infrastructure. In Nowogródek he was in charge of sabotage and explosives production and was later assigned to the 77th AK Infantry Regiment, a unit in which he did not fight in the taking of Vilnius during Operation "Ostra Brama", for which he managed to avoid capture in the treacherous raid organized by the Soviets against Polish resistance fighters.He led a special assault company in the VII Battalion 77 - the infantry regiment of the AK. He was eventually assigned to the Szczuczyn AK Circuit (the diversion-guerilla center).

 

After the end of the war, he lived in Gliwice, completed his studies at the Institute of Stainless Metals and the Institute of the Textures and Paint Industry at the Silesian Polytechnic, with which he associated his professional life as a chemical engineer.

 

In 1950 he married Henryka Bartosiewicz, with whom he had no children. After the death of his first wife, he married for the second time in 1987 with Doctor of Chemistry, Elżbieta Kamińska, with whom he had a daughter, Dr. of Economics, Katarzyna Tarnawska.

 

On September 7, 2014, at the age of 93, he made his last parachute jump with the operators of the GROM, the most famous of the Polish special forces, which has inherited the nickname of those "Cichociemni" (Silent Unseen) of World War II. Aleksander was the last survivor of that elite AK group.

 

Distinctions:

• Officer's Cross of the Order of the Rebirth of Poland

• Cross of Valour – four times

• Silver Cross of Merit

• Honorary Badge for Merit to the Silesian Voivodeship

• “Pro Patria” Medal

 

Aleksander Tarnawski passed away in Slocinie on 3 March 2022 at the age of 101 years. He was buried in the cemetery in Bielsko-Biała. His death closed one of the most heroic chapters in Poland's struggle for its Freedom during World War II.

 

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Copyright: Tarnawski family

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