Page 15 - Narcyz Witczak - Witaczyński

Narcyz Witczak-Witaczyński was born on 1st Regiment of Mounted Fusiliers in Garwolin, where
October 29th 1898 in Warsaw.
As a boy of just under seventeen, he ran away from home and on August 13th 1915 he joined up as a volunteer with the 2nd Puławski Legion Lancers, later reformed as the 1st Polish Cavalry Regiment with the Russian army. He took part in the cavalry charge at Krechowce, for which he received the Military Virtue medal when Poland regained its independence. He served in General Józef Dowbor-Muśnicki’s 1st Polish Corps and fought against the Bolsheviks. Following the dissolution of the Corps, he went to the Kiev region, and then to Wołogoda. In August 1918, he was arrested and then drafted into the Mazowiecki Cavalry Regiment to fight on the side of the Bolsheviks. He was wounded near Kazan, during an attempt to lead his platoon across to join the other side. Next, the Bolsheviks drafted him into the 1st Latvian Cavalry Regiment, from which he escaped, but was later arrested and imprisoned in Mitawa. When the Ger- mans took Mitawa, he was deported to Germany as a prisoner of war. In July 1919 he escaped to Poland from the prison camp in Frankfurt an der Oder.
He rejoined the 1st Krechowiecki Cavalry Regi- ment on August 22nd 1919. In September 1919 he was transferred to the Head of State’s Ceremonial Guard of Honour, where he served as a sergeant and later, between December 13th 1919 and May 26th 1926 (on December 19th 1922 this troop was renamed the Presi- dent of the Republic’s Ceremonial Guard of Honour), as a squadron leader.
During the Polish-Bolshevik war he took part in the fighting on the Ukrainian front between April and June 1920. After graduating in 1927 from the School for Professional Non-Commissioned Cavalry Officers in Jaworów, he worked in the Ministry of Military Affairs. In the years 1928-1931, he served in Józef Pilsudski’s 1st Light Cavalry Regiment. On September 21st 1931 he was transferred to the
he served as the regiment’s educational officer from
th July 13 1935. He was promoted to the rank of Warrant
Officer on February 1st 1936. From the beginning of his service in the Ceremo-
nial Guard of Honour, he fulfilled the role of official photographer, documenting army life. He was also commissioned to portray Józef Pilsudski and the most important personalities of the Second Republic.
He took part in the September Campaign in 1939, and following the Polish Army’s defeat, he returned to Garwolin, where he took part in organizing the Home Army underground movement as counterintelligence chief for the “Gołąb – Pigeon" district of the ZWZ (Armed Struggle Union) under the pseudonym "Kościesza". He also edited the underground magazine "Apel" (Roll-call). On July 17th 1942 he was arrested by the occupation authorities. He was jailed in the Pawiak prison until December 1942 and then sent to the Majdanek concentration camp, where he died on March 27th 1943.
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