Powiatowy Szlak Polski Walczącej

In the vicinity of the site, there was a mansion of General Kazimierz Malachowski.

At the end of the 18th century, the estate in Wierzbica was rented by Wojciech Wojczyk. His three daughters married officers of the Napoleonic wars. Józefa was married to first lieutenant Antoni Czerminski of the 2nd Serock Veterans and War Invalid Company. The second daughter was married to Captain Engineer Florian Marczewski and was mother of the famous engineers and independence activists from the period of January Uprising: Bronislaw Marczewski and Witold Marczewski (born in Wierzbica, in 1832). The third daughter – Benigna Wojczyk – married the famous Colonel Kazimierz Malachowski (1765-1845), who was stationed in the fortress of Serock. Their wedding took place in the autumn of 1810, in the mansion in Wierzbica.

Kazimierz Malachowski gained renown thanks to the battles fought during the Polish Kościuszko Uprising, such as the Battle of Raclawice. He fought on Saint-Domingue in 1803, as well as in the Battle of Raszyn in 1809. Already as a married man, he took part in the Russian campaign of 1812, during which he was promoted to the rank of brigadier general. In 1820, the Małachowski family settled permanently in Wierzbica, they bought in 1828. In 1831, Gen. K. Malachowski, as commanderin- chief of the November Uprising, was forced to escape to France with his wife.

The estate in Wierzbica was confiscated by the government. The property was put up for auction in 1836. It changed owners several times. In 1848, the estate was bought for 180 000 Polish zloty by Edmund Oktawian Skarżyński (1813-1893), rich and mighty owner of the estate in Popowo. He greatly expanded the brickworks, which supplied bricks not only to the nearby area but also to Warsaw. His son Stanislaw sold Wierzbica to the Dłużewski family, owners of the neighbouring estate of Pobyłkowo. The family owned the estate until the land reform introduced in 1945.

At the edge of the property, at the crossroads, stands the votive chapel dating back to 1863 with reminds us about the January Uprising and proves the patriotic attitude of the inhabitants of Wierzbica.

The cemetery was established in the 1st half of the 19th century and destroyed by the Germans in 1940 with the majority of headstones used to build a stairway by the Narew river.

After self-governance was regained, the best preserved matzevah (tombstones) were transported to the area of the “Narew” Resort and placed in the vicinity of the old Jewish cemetery. The oldest preserved piece of headstone dates back to 1824.

Among those buried in the cemetery were Moshe Rozenberg and Fromm Orestein, Jews involved in assisting the January Uprising, supplying the insurgents divisions with weapons, as well as Dvora Rozenberg and Lev Rips who delivered supplies to the hospital for insurgents in Zatory. The cemetery is also the resting place of the long-time rabbi of Serock, a famous scholar Joseph Lewinstein (1840-1924), greatly respected by all Serock inhabitants.

On the 7th of September 1939, in one collective grave the bodies of 52 people who died on 6th September in a German bombing attack while hiding in the cellars of the house of Yakow Rosenberg on the corner of 3 Maja and T. Kościuszki streets were laid to rest.

One of the most interesting monuments in Serock are the remnants of the ancient Napoleonic Fortress, including a well-preserved natural bastion at Pułtuska Street (next to the football field). It dates back to 1811, to the second phase of expansion of the Serock fortress, and is visible on the fortification restructuring plans by Colonel Jan Mallet.

The creation of the fortress in Serock was associated with the Napoleonic concept of construction of a triangle of fortresses: Warsaw-Modlin Serock. They would allow a shield for the concentration of Napoleon’s army and defend the Narew River crossings. On January 8, 1807, Napoleon gave the order to start the construction works in Serock and other strongholds of the triangle defence. Groundwork and defensive fortifications between Napoleońska and Zdrojowa streets date back to this period. The government of the Duchy of Warsaw paid for the construction works of the fortress in Serock, from September 1807 to January 1809, the sum of 523 000 Polish zlotys, i.e. more than the construction work of the Modlin fortress. Such extensive fortifications served in 1807 the Colonel Stanislaw Potocki, the commander of the 2nd Infantry Regiment, as a base for skirmishes with the Russians in Nowa Wieś and Zatory, and in 1809, General Józef Niemojewski as a base for skirmishes against the Austrians. By March 1811, thanks to the efforts of Marshal Louis Davout, the fortress in Serock was expanded in its northern part. Thanks to the memoirs of General Caulaincourt and first lieutenant Stanislaw Dunin-Wąsowicz, we know that the Emperor Napoleon I stopped in Serock on December 10, 1812, during the retreat from Moscow, and viewed the defensive fortifications of the fortress.

The oldest architectural monument in the Legionowo County. The church was built in the style of late Gothic in the years 1524– 1530 by the master mason Maciej Gadzała from Serock. In the period of the Duchy of Warsaw and the Kingdom of Poland it served as the church for the Polish troops stationed in the vicinity.

During the interwar period, one of the walls of the presbytery displayed a mural presenting the death of Ignacy Skorupka, the young army chaplain who died in the Polish ranks during the Bolshevik advance on Warsaw in 1920. In 1945 pastor Franciszek Kuligowski ordered to cover the mural with paint, fearing that it would give rise to a profanation of the church by the Communists. Today, it is replaced by a painting of a contemporary artist referring to the same theme. The low reliefs presenting the Stations of the Cross were carved in 1937 by a well-known sculptress Zofia Trzcińska-Kamińska (1890- 1977) who went down in history for her display of patriotism. Disguised as a man, under an assumed name of Zygmunt Tarło, she served with the cavalry regiment of the Brigade II of the Polish Legions.

Adjacent to the church, is the tomb of Fr Franciszek Kuligowski (1870-1963), the long-time pastor of the parish, archdeacon of Pułtusk, the chaplain of the gymnasium in Płock and a lecturer at the Higher Theological Seminary in the years 1904–1905, during times of the struggle for the right to study in the Polish language at schools. He was removed from his position by the Russian authorities for disseminating patriotic ideas. In 1940, he was a prisoner of a German concentration camp in Działdowo, from which – after he was released - he was relocated to the General Government for the Occupied Polish Territories. After the war, he became known for his protests against the Communist regime.

Nearby, stands a kiosk of the Polish Catholic Action, funded by its Chairwoman − Princess Maria Radziwiłłowa. In May and June 1989, an information point of the “Solidarity” Citizens’ Committee was operating next to the kiosk.

Building of the city hall in the main market square of Serock in the years 1994–97 was an important part of revitalisation of the old town’s urban layout. The function of the central square was restored, not only as the market place but also the site of public celebrations.

On 11 November 1998, on the southern wall of the City Hall facing the church, a memorial plaque was unveiled in honour of the inhabitants of Serock fallen and murdered during the first World War, the Polish- Bolshevik war, on all the frontlines of the 2nd World War and those murdered or perished in German and Soviet camps. The site hosts celebrations related to Independence Day and anniversary commemorations of the beginning of the 2nd World War.

The main square bore witness to many historical events such as military parades and other patriotic manifestations but also tragic moments such as round-ups of Poles to be deported to Germany for forced labour and a round-up of around 2500 Jews at dawn of 5 December 1939 before being deported to ghettos and concentration camps.

On this street, known also as Listopadowa street, called Synagogue street by the local Jews, stood the Great Synagogue, built at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. In 1939, the Germans destroyed parts of its interior and used the building to detain hostages and prisoners.

In May 1940, they created a transit camp and a penal camp. It functioned until May 1944 and had two detention halls for men and one for women. Over the years, several hundred prisoners were detained in the camp. They were forced to work in the nearby farms in Jadwisin and Pobyłkowo and to clean the city.

The site of one of the most tragic events which took place in the town of Serock during World War II. Before the war at the junction of two then existing streets, the 3rd of May street and the T. Kościuszko street, in the place of today’s commercial centre “Wodnik”, stood a large tenement house which belonged to Yakov (Jankiel) Rosenberg, a member of one of the most renowned Jewish families in Serock.

On Wednesday, the 6th of September 1939, when German planes were bombing the centre, almost one hundred Jews from Serock and fugitives from Nasielsk took shelter in the house. Unfortunately, one of the heavy bombs was dropped on this building. According to different sources, between 50-72 persons lost their lives in the building. Among those who died were: the owner of the house with his family, Moshe Przykorski with wife and children and Shmuel Kanarek, well known citizens of Serock.

The house was built in 1931 for a medical doctor in Serock, Dr. Konrad Bock, a reserve officer and a participant of the war of 1920. Despite his German ancestry, he refused to cooperate with the Nazis. He was imprisoned at Pawiak and executed by firing squad in a public execution on the 31 of December 1943. His son, Lubomir Wojciech, died defending British skies as a soldier of the Polish Air Force in England. The second son, Ryszard, a lawyer and a graduate of the Officer Cadet School in Zegrze, a reserve first lieutenant, prisoner of the concentration camp in Starobielsk, was murdered by the Russians in 1940 in Kharkov. In 2010, in order to commemorate him, a memorial oak was planted at the site.

After the 2nd World War, the house hosted a Health Centre, run in the years 1953–55 by General Stefan Hubicki (1877-1955), a well-known supporter of Józef Piłsudski, an activist of the Polish Military Organisation and for a certain time a personal physician of Piłsudski, in the years 1930–34 the Minister of Labour and Social Policy and later in 1935-1939 the Commissioner of the State Insurance Institution in Warsaw. His second wife was Hanna Regina née Boguszewska, a courier of the Polish Military Organisation and a participant in the action of the secret transfer of Marshal Rydz-Śmigły from Romania to Warsaw during the 2nd World War.

The Serock cemetery was established in 1806. During the Kingdom of Poland, the veterans of the Napoleonic wars, serving in the 2nd Invalid Company stationed in Serock, were buried here. Our attention is drawn to one of the greatest tombstones, where is laid to rest the colonel and engineer who rendered great service to our country on the battlefield in his time and was awarded with many medals – Adam Bogusławski (1785-1872).

In the cemetery the remains of the Polish soldiers from the 155th Infantry Regiment, who died on August 17, 1920, in the area of Serock, including private Marian Podczaski, private Walenty Rogacki and private Sylwester Rożewski, are laid to rest.

Here lie the ashes of the Polish soldiers fallen in September 1939, the riflemen Aftyka and Ignacy Kaźmieruk and five sappers, who died during the mine clearance operation in Serock in 1945.

In the cemetery were also laid to rest the remains of victims of executions carried out by the Nazis on February 28, 1941, when the German firing squad killed 21 people in the nearby gorge, next to Rybaki Street. In 1957, the bodies of the victims were exhumed.

In the cemetery, there is a family tomb of the owners of the Zegrze estate – Radziwiłł. In the family tomb lie the ashes of the Home Army officer and first lieutenant Constantin Radziwill alias Korab, who after fighting in the Warsaw Uprising was captured and executed by the Nazi firing squad in September 1944. His remains were discovered only in May 1969 on the territory of the Zegrze garrison.

The tombstone of the Skalski family, owners of the Wincentowo estate, bears an inscription relating to Major Tadeusz Skalski, killed on September 3, 1939. There are also the tombs of the members of the Polish Underground Movement, i.e. soldiers of the Polish Home Army and the Polish anti-communist military resistance organization, including: Michał Budzyński, Wacław Deptuła, Stefan Grabowski, Władysław Kaznowski and Edmund Siemiński, as well as the Polish Youth Resistance Movement Artur Maciejewski.

In the years 1947-1949, next to the cemetery, there was a graveyard of the Soviet soldiers who fell during the Battle of Serock and in the surrounding area. After the ashes of the soldiers were transferred to Kleszewo, the area was integrated into the parish cemetery.

On February 28, 1941, in the gorge on the Narew river, the Nazis executed 21 people from the underground organization „Gotów” (’Ready’), mainly from the area of the Serock, Smogorzewo and Zegrze parishes. The organization was formed as a result of a set-up operation of the Gestapo agent nicknamed Mirota. Mirota, pretending to be a monk at a church in Wola Kiełpińska, gathered a group of patriotic youth.

In November 1940, during one of the meetings, the Gestapo and the Nazi police arrested a majority of the members of the organization. The detainees were interrogated and tortured in the prison in Pultusk, then executed by firing squad in one of Serock gorges. Their bodies were buried at a depth of about four meters. As a warning to others, the Germans appointed heads of the surrounding rural communes and forced them to watch the execution.

The exhumation of the bodies and the ceremony of transferring the ashes to a nearby parish cemetery took place only in 1957. However, for many years, it was the execution site in the gorge, and not the cemetery, which was worshiped by local people who would meet here to celebrate the patriotic ceremonies.

For several years, access to the execution site has been hampered by the fence set up on privately owned land.


Photos: Table tombstone in a cemetery in Serock

One of the most valuable monuments of Jadwisin is the palace of Jadwiga and Maciej Radziwill, whose construction was completed in 1898. The building, beautifully situated on a high bank, was designed by François Arveuf, in the style of the French Renaissance.

Above the main entrance to the palace, there is the monogram of its first owners, while from the river side; the ancestral coats of arms were placed on avant-corps: „Ślepowron” coat of arms of the Krasiński family and „Trąby” coat of arms of the Radziwiłł family. The last owner of the palace in Jadwisin before World War II were: Constantin Nicholas Radziwill and his wife Maria née Żółtowska.

Constantin, as second lieutenant of the military reserve, took part in a defensive war of 1939 and fought as an observer in the 13th Air Squadron. After the Nazi invasion, the Radziwill were ordered to leave the palace. They settled in the forester’s lodge near Arciechów, located in the forests stretching across the Narew river. First lieutenant K. Radziwill alias Korab joined the underground movement as an officer-quartermaster of the 3rd Battalion from Nieporęt. After insurgent fighting in the 1st Region he was arrested in August 1944 by the Nazis. He was probably executed by firing squad on September 14, 1944, in Zegrze. His remains were randomly discovered in May 1969, during the excavation works conducted on the territory of the barracks of the Military Communication Institute in Zegrze. The body was identified on the basis of a devotional scapular with the relics of the Saint John Bosco, which Constantin had received from the primate of Poland, August Hlond. Constantin Radziwill was laid to rest in the family grave in the parish cemetery in Serock.

The previous owner of the Zegrze estate and of the palace in Jadwisin was, Artur Radziwill (1901-1939), Constantin’s older brother, first lieutenant and commander of the 2nd Company, 1st battalion, 2nd Infantry Regiment of the „Modlin” Army, who died on September 13, 1939, under Oltarzew. He posthumously awarded the Silver Cross of the War Order of Virtuti Militari.

Prince Constantin Nicholas Radziwiłł, the last owner of Zegrze, fought as second lieutenant of the military reserve force in the 1939 Campaign, serving as an observer in the 13th Observation Squadron. After returning home, he was arrested and imprisoned in Pultusk. Released in March 1940, he joined the underground activities as a quartermaster of 3rd battalion of 1st Region „Marianowo-Brzozów” (Legionowo), 7th Home Army District „Obroża” („Collar”). On August 19, 1944, he was captured by the Germans, and on September 14 probably murdered.

His body was found in May 1969, during the excavation works conducted on the territory of the barracks of the Military Communication Institute in Zegrze. The body was identified on the basis of a devotional scapular with the relics of the Saint John Bosco, which Constantin had received from the primate of Poland, August Hlond. The ashes of Lieutenant K. Radziwill alias Korab were laid to rest in the parish cemetery in Serock. There is a secondary school in Zegrze bearing his name. Some streets in Serock and Zegrze Południowe were named after Lieutenant K. Radziwill.

(Admission to the barracks of the Information and Communications Technology Training Centre by appointment, agreed with the officers of the Educational Section – Phone: 22 688 36 10 or 22 688 36 12).

Plaque commemorating the soldiers of signal corps who were killed in the East
Among the victims of the Katyn massacre, carried out in 1940 by the NKVD (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs of the USSR), there were more than a hundred signal corps officers. Among them, there were also officers from the Information and Communications Technology Training Centre in Zegrze: Major and medical doctor Kazimierz Pilch, captain Czesław Wardziński, captain Ryszard Michalski, captain Bronislaw Rybiński, first lieutenant Stanislaw Szpot and second lieutenant Tadeusz Pierczyński. In Katyn and Kharkov, other eight reserve officers from the Centre for Emergency Communications in Zegrze, mobilized after the outbreak of the war, were also killed.

The plaque commemorating the murdered signal corps soldiers was unveiled on 15 August, 1992 at the Military Communication Institute in Zegrze, during the meeting of Polish Army signal corps veterans from around the world.

Plaque commemorating women telegraphers ‘juzistki’ (name after the Hughes telegraph) of military communications units
In the years 1927-1936, ten-month telegraph courses were carried out in the Information and Communications Technology Training Centre in Zegrze for the female staff. Women learnt primarily how to use the Hughes’s telegraph („Juza”) and ended up in post offices. In the event of war, they would be mobilized. Women telegraphers were instrumental in the history of military communications, fighting on many fronts of World War II.

The plaque commemorating their participation in the armed actions was officially unveiled on 26 May 1992 at the Military Communication Institute in Zegrze during the meeting of women telegraphers, the socalled ‘juzistki’. One street in Zegrze bears their name.

(Admission to the barracks of the Information and Communications Technology Training Centre by appointment, agreed with the officers of the Educational Section – Phone: 22 688 36 10, 22 688 36 12).

The parish cemetery in Wola Kiełpińska was delimited in 1893. Some families transferred the ashes of their loved ones from the cemetery in Zegrze, seized by the Russian for the construction of the fortress, to the new one. That is why we can find graves older than the cemetery itself, dating back to the second half of the 19th century. Among them, we can find some architecturally interesting monuments of the administrators of the Zegrze estate, like the grave of Antoni Xsiężopolski, in the shape of a broken column, who died on September 11, 1866, and the tombstones of the Urbanowski family. In 1929, Zygmunt Adam Szaniawski, Junosza coat of arms (1852-1929), father of the famous writer Jerzy Szaniawski (1888-1970), owner of the nearby Zegrzynek, was also buried in Wola Kiełpińska.

Among those buried in the cemetery, we should mention a January Uprising participant Feliks Janicki from Stanislawów (1837-1923), carpenter who rendered great service to the construction of the church and a Home Army soldier Leszek Wnęka – a recipient of the Poland’s highest military decoration, the War Order of Virtuti Militari.

In the cemetery of Wola Kiełpińska, resides mass grave of the Polish Army soldiers who died in September 1939, and the tomb of two soldiers of the 5th Engineer-Sapper Brigade who died while defusing a mine in June 1945.

The grave of Colonel Aleksander Kita, killed by the Security Service in 1952, bears an appropriate inscription indicating this fact.

The church in Wola Kiełpińska is one of the most interesting examples of 19th century sacral architecture in the Legionowo County. The decision was taken after the Russian government bought the Radziwill property to build a fortress. The land for the construction of the temple, together with the land for the construction of the presbytery and the cemetery, was donated to the parish by the Radziwiłł family in autumn 1893. A single-nave church was built in the years 1894-1899, according to the design by Konstanty Wojciechowski (1841-1910).

Inside the church, epitaphs of the Krasinski family draw our attention. They were transferred from the church in Zegrze, including two Rococo epitaphs from the 18th century. The first one dedicated to Antoni Krasinski – the castellan of Zakroczym and founder of the church in Zegrze, who died in 1762. The second epitaph commemorates the second wife of Kazimierz – Eustachia née Potocka who died in 1764. The representatives of this family took part in both national uprisings and the Napoleonic Wars. The subsequent epitaphs of the Krasinski family date back to the 19th century, and include oboźny (senior official involved in setting up military camps) Kazimierz Krasinski – Knight of the Order of the White Eagle, the Speaker of the Sejm in 1782 who died in 1802, and his son – the castellan and the Senator Józef Wawrzyniec (1783-1945), who took part in the Napoleonic wars and in the November Uprising and was the commander of the 1st Warsaw Regiment for National Defence, and his grandson – Stanislaw (1811-1849), officer in the November Uprising decorated with the Golden Cross of the War Order of Virtuti Militari.

The temple was also the final resting place of its founder, Prince Maciej Radziwill (1842-1907), master of the hunt at the imperial court, former president of the Agricultural Society and of the Charitable Society in Warsaw. Up to 1966, the grave of the private Kozlowski, who died during the 1920 Polish-Soviet War, was situated in front of the church. In 1966, the tomb was transferred to the cemetery.

On the outer wall of the church, at the main entrance, there is a memorial plaque funded by the local population on the November 11, 1928, to commemorate the anniversary of Poland’s recovery of independence.

The concrete fort in Dębe is one of the best preserved imperial fortified facilities in the Legionowo County. At the beginning of the 20th century, the fort reinforced the defence line between Zegrze and Modlin, designating thus the northern sector of the Warsaw Fortified Region. It was meant to guard the crossing of the Narew river.

The fortifications were built on a trapezoidal plan according to the architectural concept of the Russian general, Professor Konstantin Ivanovich Wieliczka (1856-1927).

During the German offensive in August 1915, the unit’s objective was to shield the fort against the Russian army retreating to the Modlin fortress. The German assault was preceded by artillery fire. Several 420 mm (16.5 in.) shells, each weighing nearly one ton, were fired on the fortifications from the largest cannons existing at that time. Having completed the shielding operation, the Russians left the fort on the night of 6 to 7 August 1915. On the same day, the fort was captured by the German military units, trying to capture the bank of the Narew river. Due to the fort’s strategic location, in August 1920, it was used to prepare the Polish line of defence for the subunits of Colonel Stanislaw Malachowski.

Also during the defensive fighting operation in September 1939, the 3rd Company, 26th Polish Army Infantry Regiment was stationed in Dębe.