Frank Blaichman Frank Blaichman ( born 1922 ) ( also Ephraim Blaichman , occasionally spelled Frank Bleichman , and in Polish Franek or Franciszek Blajchman ) was a Polish - Jewish member of an armed organization during World War II . Near the end of the war and immediately afterward he worked for the communist Ministry of Public Security . Afterward he emigrated to the USA . His 2009 memoir has caused a controversy in Poland . World War 2 . Frank Blaichman was born in Kamionka , Poland on December 11 , 1922 . His grandmother owned a grocery story and his father was a grain merchant . He was 16 years old at the time of the German invasion of Poland in September 1939 . Although German officials issued decrees that limited Jewish travel outside of Kamionka and required Jews to identify themselves by wearing armbands , Blaichman took a number of risks in order to help his parents and six brothers and sisters . He rode his bicycle from the neighboring farms and villages to Lubartów ( six miles east ) and Lublin ( 12 miles south ) where he bought and sold goods such as honey , chickens , butters , grains , meat , tobacco , yarns , and sugar . Blaichman was able to travel among the population without being recognized as a Jew ( he refused to wear the Star of David armband and traveled without the necessary permits ) . He was assigned to work two days a week on a nearby estate with crops , but instead he paid someone to fill his place and continued to engage in underground trading . In October 1942 , the Kamionka Jewish council ( Judenrat ) informed the Jewish residents that they would be resettled in the Lubartów Ghetto . Blaichman slipped out of Kamionka and went to a gentile farmer in the village of Kierzkówka who offered him assistance ( the family of Aleksander and Stanisława Głos , which would later be listed among the Polish Righteous Among the Nations ) . He later learned that the Jews of Kamionka had not been relocated to the Lubartów Ghetto but rather were deported on trains to an unknown destination . Blaichman heard that a group of Jews were hiding in the forest , so after two days with the farmer , he made his way to the forest and found more than one hundred Jews living in an encampment of small bunkers in the forest . He realized that the group was in constant danger . Blaichman encouraged the group to form a defense unit to guard the camp even though they had no firearms . In December 1942 the group managed to acquire firearms from a local Polish farmer . ( However , according to another biography , it was only in summer of 1943 that Blaichman left the Głos family and joined the resistance ) . Over time , Blaichman ' s unit increased in size . They were joined by refugees from Markuszow and expanded to sixty fighters . In the spring of 1943 , Blaichman encountered Samuel Gruber . Gruber ' s group consisted of men who had fought in the Polish Army and knew how to use explosives and mines . The two groups joined together and became a more effective fighting force . By September 1943 , the Polish People ' s Army realized that the Blaichman and Gruber groups could be a dependable ally in the fight against the Germans and provided them with supplies that had been parachuted in by the Soviet air force . Now equipped with hand grenades , explosives , land mines , machine guns , and ammunition , the group could be even more successful in fighting the Germans . In 1944 , Blaichman ' s group received an order from the People ' s Army to move east and join forces with another Jewish partisan unit in the Parczew area commanded by Yechiel Grynszpan . Gruber was appointed deputy commander and Blaichman , at the age of 21 , became the unit ' s youngest platoon commander . In July 1944 , the Soviet Red Army advanced from the east and entered the Parczew forest . Also that month , Lublin was taken from the Germans by the Soviets , and Blaichman ' s partisan group entered the city . After the war , Blaichman married Cesia Pomeranc , who had also lived in the Parczew area , and six years later they settled in the United States . Near the end of the war and immediately afterward ( April to 19 July 1945 ) he has worked for the Polish communist secret police ( Office of Public Security ) , as the temporary head of the Department of Prisons and Camps ( " Wydział Więzień i Obozów " ) in the Kielce ' s Voivode Office of Public Security ( " Wewódzki Urząd Bezpieczeństwa Państwowego " , WUBP ) . Blaichman published a memoir in November 2009 , " Rather Die Fighting : A Memoir of World War II " . In August 2010 , a Polish translation , " Wolę zginąć walcząc . Wspomnienia z II wojny światowej " , was released in Poland . Controversy . The same month the book was published in Poland the Polish newspaper " Rzeczpospolita " publicized information " Franciszek Blajchman " was the temporary head of the Department of Prisons and Camps of the Office of Public Security in Kielce . His image was also at the exhibition " Faces of the Kielce ' s Communist Security Agencies " , organized by the IPN . This information was widely reported in Polish mass media . The book has been criticized in Poland for controversial , revisionist claims , such as the accusation of widespread antisemitism in Armia Krajowa ( AK , or Home Army ) . Stanisław Aronson , a former Polish - Jewish officer of the AK , called the charges made in the book against the Home Army " absurd " , as did Polish historians such as Jan Żaryn and Waldemar Paruch ( see also Armia Krajowa and the Jews ) . Blaichman portrayal of his activities in Jewish resistance has been questioned , and it has been alleged that he was a member of a criminal gang ( associated with communist Gwardia Ludowa resistance ) which focused on forcefully obtaining provisions from the local populace and clashed with the Polish resistance . Blaichman also mentions that at one point he shot dead two AK soldiers , which has led to demands for this case to be investigated by the authorities . The spokesman for the Polish Institute of National Remembrance has declared that Blaichman ' s book will be investigated to determine whether he is guilty of what Polish legal system describes as " communist crime s " .