On 30 June 1943, in one of the flats in occupied Warsaw, the Germans arrested General Stefan Rowecki a.k.a. “Grot” – the Commander-in-Chief of the Home Army (AK). After the arrest, he rejected the proposal of cooperation with the occupants. He was sent to KL Sachsenhausen. There, on the orders of Heinrich Himmler, he was murdered after the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising on 1 August 1944. Warsaw Uprising.

Stefan Rowecki was born on 25 December 1895 in Piotrków Trybunalski. While attending secondary school in his home town, he was active in the scouting movement. After the outbreak of World War I, he was a soldier of the Polish Legions. When Poland regained independence in 1918, he devoted his life to the army. He fought in the war against Soviet Russia. During the interwar period, he continued his military career, commanding the 55th Infantry Regiment, the Brigade of Border Protection Corps “Podole”. Before the outbreak of WWII, he became the commander of the Warsaw Armoured Brigade, with which he took part in the September Campaign. After the fights, he managed to get to Warsaw occupied by the Germans, where he joined the conspiracy, first in the ranks of the Service to Poland’s Victory (SZP), which later transformed into the Union for Armed Struggle (ZWZ), acting as commander-in-chief of the ZWZ from 30 June 1940. On his initiative, a special section “N” was created, which dealt with psychological and propaganda warfare against the Germans. He was a fervent advocate of merging all conspiratorial organizations operating in German-occupied Poland. As a result, on 14 February 1942, the ZWZ was replaced by the Home Army (AK), with General Stefan Rowecki as its Commander-in-Chief.

His arrest on 30 June 1943 was the result of the actions of German Gestapo agents Ludwik Kalkstein, Blanka Kaczorowska and Eugeniusz Świerczewski. From Warsaw, he was quickly transported to Berlin. There he rejected a proposal to cooperate with Germany against the Soviet Union and the communists. He was imprisoned in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. There he was murdered between 2 and 7 August 1944 on the personal order of SS chief Heinrich Himmler following the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising.