The final year of General “Grot” Rowecki’s life

It is known that the general kept a personal notebook and diary, which have sadly been lost. The only records of his time in the camp are the letters to his family mentioned above, the reports written by Volodymyr Stakhiv, a member of the group of Bandera supporters, and the interrogations by senior Gestapo officials. In 1948, Harro Thomsen testified that he regularly visited the general in the “Zellenbau” every four to six weeks. In 1973, he withdrew this testimony, although according to Żenczykowski, he did so “in an unconvincing manner”.[9] In the summer of 1943, the general received a surprise visit from Heinrich Müller, the head of the Gestapo (see above). Rowecki recounted this meeting to Stakhiv and admitted that the subject of this and other meetings was the current political situation, a possible relaxation in German-Polish relations, and the risk of Poland becoming “flooded with Bolshevists”.[10]

I don’t want to die in a foreign land.
I want a soldier’s grave with green sward and a field stone.

General Rowecki was murdered in Sachsenhausen, probably at some time during the morning of 2 August 1944. He was court-martialled and then shot. His body was incinerated in the camp crematorium.

The order to execute the general came directly from Reichsführer SS Himmler, probably after he was informed of the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising.[11]

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