Today is the 149th anniversary of the birth of Jan Tomasz Gorzechowski a.k.a. “Jur”, Brigadier General of the Polish Army, who in April 1906, commanding a six-member group of fighters of the Fighting Organisation of the Polish Socialist Party, freed political prisoners from Pawiak Prison.

He was born on 21st December 1874 in Siedlce. From the very beginning, he was brought up in the ethos of the January Uprising, in which his father Henryk took part. After leaving grammar school, he continued his studies at the Warsaw School of Economics, eventually becoming a railway clerk. From his adolescent years, he was involved in underground youth organisations, becoming a member of the OB PPS in 1904.

Two years later, he commanded a group of fighters who, on 24 April 1906, disguised as a squad of tsarist gendarmerie, freed ten prisoners from the Pawiak prison, sentenced to death by summary court martial sentences. The action was commemorated in the feature film “Ten men from Pawiak” (1931), based on his memoirs.

After several months he was arrested, but his sentence of exile was commuted to expulsion from Russia. In 1908, he arrived in Lwów, where he was active in the newly-formed Union of Active Struggle and the Riflemen’s Association. In August 1914, he joined the Polish Legions, and from April 1916 became a member of the Supreme Command of the Polish Military Organisation.

After Poland regained its independence in November 1918, he became Director of the State Police, then became Director of the Security Department of the Ministry of the Interior, and from December 1928 was Commander-in-Chief of the Border Guard. During the September campaign, he was interned in Romania, then from April 1940 he was in the Backup Centre of the Independent Carpathian Rifle Brigade in Palestine, where he trained law enforcement officers.

He never returned to Poland. Jan Gorzechowski died on 21 June 1948 in Brookwood, England. He was decorated many times, including with the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, the Cross of Independence with Swords and as many as four times with the Cross of Valour. Privately, he was the husband of the writer Zofia Nałkowska and the brother of Lieutenant Henryk Gorzelski, creator of the image of Our Lady of Kozielsk, murdered by the NKVD in Katyn.

The Bieszczady Border Guard Unit in Przemyśl bears his name.