The Chemical Plant “Grodzisk” (at present: Gedeon Richter Polska, Poniatowskiego Street)
Warehouse, where during the German occupation the weapon was stored, 1970, photo by S. Deptuszewski, collection of Willa Radogoszcz
Tadeusz Bronowski, leader of Home Army unit in the Chemical Plant, arrested and killed by German occupants in 1944, collection of the Gedeon Richter Polska
Edmund Szumiłowski, director of the Chemical Plant during the years 1935-1945, killed by the Soviets on 16th January 1945, collection of the Gedeon Richter Polska
The Home Army’ unit operating in the Chemical Plant belonged to the most powerful groupings of a secret organisation in Grodzisk Mazowiecki. Among the tasks of the members of a division were: repair of a weapon stored in a secret warehouse and sabotaging of railway transports leaving to Germany. A conspiracy radio station was hidden near the entering gate to the plant. In 1940, production of hand grenades was started in the plant’s laboratory. After the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising the German occupants organised in the warehouses of the plant a temporal camp for displaced people from the capital city. Until its liquidation on October 1944 approximately 4000 people were imprisoned.