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16/05/2026

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15/05/2026

Jutro

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06/05/2026

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22/04/2026

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12/04/2026

Fascinating

PUMST Archive - Błyskawica “Lightning” Radio

A photograph from the archive of the Polish Underground Movement Study Trust depicting insurgents broadcasting via the “Lightning” (“Błyskawica”) radio station during the Warsaw Uprising.

“Lightning” was the name of the Polish resistance’s main radio transmitting station. It operated in Warsaw between 8 August and 4 October 1944. Built by engineer Antoni Zębik (Codename "Biegły"), the station used a 200-watt transmitter that broadcast on short (32.8 & 52.1m) and medium wave radio frequencies.

It was operated by two teams: a team subordinate to the Home Army’s Bureau of Information and Propaganda (“BiP”) and a group of Polskie Radio journalists. Both used the same transmitter, airing programmes at different times of the day. In overall command of “Lightning” was 36-year-old Stanisław Zadrożny (“Pawlicz”) of “BiP”. His deputy was Zofia Rutkowska (“Ewa”).

For nearly two months they worked to broadcast news bulletins, communiqués, reports and appeals for Allied assistance alongside cultural contributions such as poems and songs. The station provided a vital connection between the fighting members of the Home Army, Warsaw civilians and the outside world.

Programmes were also aired in English. The RAF pilot and escapee John Ward, who joined the Home Army, frequently read reports on the uprising and made appeals to the British government to give assistance to the insurgents. ‘The Courier from Warsaw’, Jan Nowak-Jeziorański, and Adam Truszkowski, a London-born Pole, also played a key role in the station’s English language programming. The BBC also played a limited role in partly relaying some of the reports from Warsaw. Other languages utilised by the radio station included French and German, the latter used in an attempt at psychological warfare to demoralise the Wehrmacht.

The transmitter was continuously hunted and attacked by the Germans, forcing its managers to frequently move broadcasting locations. It began operating from the Postal Savings Bank building near Zgoda and Jasna streets, before moving to the Café Adria on Moniuszuki Street. On 18 August 1944, Café Adria was struck by a shell fired from a German Mörser Karl self-propelled mortar. Though it tore through the building, it failed to detonate and the radio station survived the attack. “Lightning” was moved again to a building on Poznańska Street. Its final location from late September 1944 was the Warsaw Public Library building.

Two days after the capitulation of the Home Army on 2 October 1944, Lightning broadcast its final 10-minutemessage. At the end of the message the famous song ‘Warszawianka’ was played for the final time on the radio. Jan Georgica, “Lightning” technical manager, then proceeded to destroy the transmitter with a hammer.

“Lightning” (“Błyskawica”) remains a remarkable example of information as resistance; an insurgent radio station operating amid an active combat zone during WWII. It was a direct means of communicating the situation on the ground in Warsaw in the summer of 1944.

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Photo: Insurgents operate the “Lightning” radio transmitter in Warsaw, August 1944. (FOT_1595)

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Written by Harry Denton for PUMST

All rights to the photographs are vested in the Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum and the Polish Underground Movement Study Trust of London.

13/02/2026

Another spotlight on Operation N

PUMST Archive - Operation N
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This document is a 1943 poster published under the auspices of Operation N in occupied Poland. The text charges N**i Plenipotentiary for Labour Deployment Fritz Sauckel with the nightly murder of German women working in the industries of the Reich.

It states that every night 56 German women and girls are killed in industrial accidents as a result of being forced into work. According to the poster, in July 1943 there were 236,700 industrial accidents among female workers and 1,736 deaths.

The poster ends with the declaration that ‘the murderer of women, Sauckel, must be rendered harmless’.

The Polish Underground created such posters in perfect German with the aim of turning German citizens against the N**i regime. By highlighting the sheer number of women that were dying as a result of accidents under Sauckel’s authority, Operation N sought to subvert public opinion among German citizens in occupied Poland and diminish loyalty to the N**i state.

The poster adopts the style of a criminal ‘wanted’ poster. The Reichsmark reward and the statement of rendering Sauckel ‘harmless’ operate on a secondary level to encourage and incentivise Sauckel’s elimination, possibly by kidnapping or assassination.

In the end this was not to be Sauckel’s fate. Captured by American troops in Austria in 1945, Fritz Sauckel was found guilty of crimes against humanity and war crimes at the Nuremberg Trials, having deported approximately 5 million people for forced labour in the Third Reich. Many were from Poland, arrested in the ‘Łapanka’ round-ups organised by the Germans. Sauckel was executed on 16th October 1946.

This document, held by the PUMST archives, frames Sauckel’s criminality as the Reich Plenipotentiary for Labour Deployment years before Nuremberg formally indicted him.

(PUMST Ref: A_210_Page_11)

Write-up by Harry Denton for PUMST

07/02/2026

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