Henryk Flame Henryk Antoni Flame ( or Flamme , nom de guerre " Grot " or " Bartek " ; January 19 , 1918 – December 1 , 1947 ) was a corporal and pilot in the Polish Air Force , and a captain of the anti - Nazi , and anti - Communist resistance organization NSZ . Early life . Henryk was the son of Emeryk and Maria ( née Raszyk ) . In 1919 the Flame family moved from Frysztat in Zaolzie to Czechowice - Dziedzice . He finished the local gimnazjum and the Technical School in Bielsko . In 1936 he volunteered for the army and began studying at the School for Cadets of the Airforce in Bydgoszcz , which he completed in 1939 with the rank of corporal - pilot . He was alloted to the 123rd Fighter Squadron which was stationed in Kraków . During World War II . During the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939 , as a pilot of the squadron he fought the Luftwaffe at the Siege of Warsaw ( 1939 ) . On September 1 , 1939 the first air battle of World War II took place , during which the plane piloted by Flame was shot down . From then on he was under the direct command of the President of Warsaw , Stefan Starzyński . On the 7th of September the 123rd Squadron was withdrawn from Warsaw to Lublin . On the 17th of the same months most of the soldiers of the squadron crossed the Romania n border in order to avoid capture by the Nazis . However , Flame remained and most likely became part of the newly formed Reconnaissance Squadron operating on the Lwów – Zaleszczyki line . Sometime after the 17th of September his plane was shot down by the Soviets who had invaded Poland in accordance with the Nazi - Soviet Molotov - Ribbentrop Pact . He organized from various groups of retreating soldiers a convoy , which at the end of September crossed into Hungary . In Hungary together with other Polish soldiers he was interned and placed in a temporary holding camp from which he soon escaped . However , while hiding with a Hungarian farmer , he was denounced to the German authorities who arrested him and imprisoned him in a POW camp in a part of Austria which had been made part of the Third Reich . In the second half of 1940 , thanks to the intervention of his family he was released and came back to his home town of Czechowice . . Back home , Flame began working as a machinist at the local rail year while at the same time establishing contacts with the anti - Nazi resistance . He started an underground organization called " HAK " which soon was merged into the Home Army ( AK ) . The purpose of the organization was gathering intelligence and sabotage . At the end of 1943 , due to the danger of an arrest by the Gestapo , together with his men he escaped to the forests where he organized an independent partisan group , which operated in the Beskid foothills . The command of the National Armed Forces ( NSZ ) took notice of his actions and he received an invitation to join that organization . He agreed and in October 1944 he was sworn in as a soldier of NSZ and promoted to the rank of captain . After the war ( in the NSZ ) . On February 12 , 1945 , the Red Army entered Czechowice . Flame , acting on the orders of NSZ command , revealed himself to Soviet authorities and together with his men presented himself at their disposal . However , at the same time , the group retained its conspiratorial structure ( the ostensible purpose was to infiltrate the Communist authorities and bureaucracy with NSZ men ) . Despite objections from local communist activist , Flame was made the commandant of the Czechowice milicja ( MO ) . Realizing the orders of NSZ command he put his own men in charge of the police force and hired other anti - communists into the militia . At the same time he began stockpiling weapons knowing that sooner or later a confrontation with the real communists was inevitable . In April 1945 he was once again threatened with arrest , this time by the communists . As before he escaped to the forests , assumed the nom - de - guerre " Bartek " and created a partisan unit - the NSZ Group of the 7th Region of Silesia and Cieszyn . From May 1945 until February 1947 Flame " Bartek " , led the largest anti - communist partisan group in the Zaolzie region . At its height his unit numbered 300 men , all of whom had military uniforms and were well armed thanks to Flame ' s previous efforts as commandant of the MO . All together the group carried out around 340 military actions . Among the best known occurred when Flame ' s men marched in formation through the town of Wisła . This military parade lasted two hours and took place in full sight of the local communist authorities who could not do anything about it . This demonstration of power by the " King of the Beskid foothills " , as Flame soon became known , remained a source of embarrassment for the communist authorities even after Flame ' s death and underlined the lack of support for communists in the Cieszyn region . Operation " Lawina " . In September 1946 in Operation Lawina , organized by a secret police mole in Flame ' s unit , the UB convinced him and many of his men that they could be transported to the American zone in Germany . In actuality while waiting to be transported out of Poland , around 200 of his soldiers were first drugged , then stripped and taken into the forests and murdered . " Bartek " himself escaped from the transport when he realized that something was not right . The exact place of the execution site is unknown but the forests near Łambinowice , Hubertus or the village of Barut have been proposed . After this incident the initiative passed to the secret police and Flame found himself hunted and more and more of his men were caught and killed . Individuals implicated in the annihilation of the Flames ' - lead NSZ units were : Henryk Wendrowski ( UB agent who penetrated its ranks ) , Roman Romkowski ( Natan Grinszpan - Kikiel ) who along with Marek Fink ( Mark Finkienberg ) devised and supervised the conduct of the Operation " Lawina " . In 1970 , Fink began to use the name Witold Jozwicki . Jan Fryderyk Zielinski , Polish Secret Police functionary stated that the murdered NSZ soldiers were buried in two pits , and further elaborated that " Neither [ himself ] , nor other functionaries knew where [ they were ] going . When [ they ] arrived there , it became apparent that [ they were ] in Lambinowice . At night [ they ] cordoned off the entire area , and began operation in the morning . Wladyslaw ' Wladzio ' Osobowski [ who until 1959 was an UB functionary , and later lived in the Soviet Union ] finished off the ' Bartek ' s ' unit guard with a knife . Next , through opened windows , somebody threw two grenades into two rooms . After explosions however , most of them [ the NSZ soldiers ] [ were ] still alive . They started to run . They were shocked by both the explosions and the alcohol that they drank earlier . The whole area was surrounded , and all of them were captured . After they were detained , they were ordered to take their clothes off , and then naked , they were individually lead to a 3 meter deep pit where they were murdered ; everyone with a shot to the back of the head . After the shooting , either a diesel fuel , and / or gasoline was poured on bodies , and clothes , and then it was set on fire " . Because the situation became hopeless Flame decided to give himself up . The opportunity arose with the passage of the 1947 Amnesty on February 22 which promised underground soldiers that they would not be prosecuted ( the promise was not kept ) . Henryk presented himself to the UB in Cieszyn on March 11 , 1947 . While this was regarded as quite a success for the communist authorities , many of them wanted revenge . However , for the time being because of the amnesty , Flame could not be legally prosecuted . A secret death sentence was supposedly issued by the President of Poland Bolesław Bierut himself , who could not forgive the humiliation associated with a 400 strong NSZ unit staging a military parade in Wisła . Death . On December 1 , 1947 in Zabrzeg Henryk Flame was assassinated by the local communist policeman Rudolf Dadak , in a plot organized by Henryk Wendrowski ( who was also responsible for " Action Lawina " in which Bartek ' s men were killed ) . Flame was shot while dining in a restaurant . Neither Dadak nor anyone else involved was ever charged with his murder .