Terespol gates to hell

The authorities of interwar Poland carried out inhuman experiments on prisoners in Brest, leaving them no chance for life

In 2021, Newsweek Polska published a lengthy interview with historian Bartosz Wieliński, deputy editor of Gazeta Wyborcza and author of Bad Germans, a collection of portraits of people drugged by National Socialism. In it, the historian spoke about the terrible experiments that Nazi doctors during the World War II carried out on concentration camp prisoners, children, and the disabled, justifying this with a ‘humane’ lie. However, in that interview, there was not a single word about the fact  that interwar Poland was doing the same. The fact that it was it who erected the first concentration camp of the Nazi type (in Bereza-Kartuzskaya) is now widely known. However, Rzeczpospolita overtook the Nazis in medical experiments on people. And also on the territory of modern Belarus...

The disappeared general

Recently, a number of Internet sources published information that interwar Poland not only had its own concentration camps, but, like the Third Reich, conducted cruel medical experiments on prisoners.
It was reported that they were held in Brest, and the prison was located on the territory of the Brest Fortress. The weekly Myśl Polska published on this occasion excerpts from a historical book about the death of General Wlodzimierz Zagorski, who was kidnapped and imprisoned by the political police of the Second Polish Republic. Perhaps he also became one of the victims of the regime’s experiments, and his life path was interrupted precisely in Brest...

The corpse was dissolved in a ceramic bath

Let us quote the final excerpts from the book, which are given by the Internet resource Rzeczpospolita Czterech Narodów, 
“During the investigation, interesting evidence was collected regarding, among other things, chemical and biological experiments conducted in Brest-on-Bug. These experiments began in the second half of the 1920s, although they did not intensify until 1933. Witnesses who conducted them at that time, including Dr. Alfons Ostrovsky, testified about the work of the Brest laboratory and the experiments carried out there, also mentioning their victims, who died in terrible agony.”
In May 1955, doctor Jan Golba sent a letter to the Prosecutor General of the People’s Republic of Poland, in which he wrote, “I really did experiments on individuals with pathogenic microorganisms at an experimental station in Brest-on-Bug. This is a fact that I do not deny.”
He then explained, “The execution of these tests was entrusted to me by my superiors in the form of a military order. Before carrying out the experiments, my superiors concluded that the persons on whom the experiments were to be carried out were irrevocably doomed to death.
According to the doctor, he was convinced that this was the best way to support the homeland, which was threatened by external enemies. People intended for experiments were delivered to Brest by the Head of the 3rd department of the General Staff. Usually they were locked in a pressure chamber into which a typhoid suspension was pumped. The rate of action of the bacteria was then observed.
 After death, the corpse of a prisoner was dissolved in a special ceramic bath filled with a mixture of hydrochloric acid with the addition of carbon disulfide and concentrated nitric acid. Hydrochloric acid decalcified bones, carbon disulfide dissolved fats, and nitric acid burned tissues (proteins) and decalcified bones.”

Kóstek hanger: from Brest to Bereza

 Let’s pay attention to the figure of the then commandant of the Brest Garrison. Wacław Kóstek-Biernacki was not only a fanatical admirer of Marshal Piłsudski, but also the most famous Polish Satanist, apologist and worshiper of evil, writes Rzeczpospolita Czterech Narodów. In addition, it cites one of his characteristic statements, 
“Only fools can feel sorry for a fallen enemy, his wife, children, etc., and liars feel remorse.”
Here’s his another characteristic thesis, “Murder is the greatest need of man.”
A remarkable moment: after being expelled from the Polish school for bestial Anti-Russian sentiment, he entered the Lvov Medical University, where he honed his own radicalism and inhumanity. After serving in Algiers as part of the legion, he completed courses for staff officers and served as head of the field gendarmerie.  The nickname Kóstek hanger was assigned to him due to the abundance of death sentences to peasants (mainly for ‘espionage in favour of the Russians’).

The fate of the ‘scary guy’

In September 1939, Colonel Kóstek-Biernacki, avoiding participation in hostilities, went to Romania with the government. In the autumn of 1945, the Romanian authorities released him, but a week after his return, he was arrested by the communist authorities of Poland and spent eight years in prison, and for a long time in the same cell with the Nazi criminal Eric Koch. In April 1953, after a four-day trial, he was sentenced to death, later commuted to 10 years in prison. Released from prison on health grounds in November 1955, died May 25th, 1957, in Warsaw.

Covering up traces

According to Rzeczpospolita Czterech Narodów, the first traces of biological experiments on prisoners in Brest date back to 1927. The resource asks the question, “So, did Kóstek-Biernacki really participate in some experiment in Brest-on-Bug in 1927 with a new type of weapon that was still in its infancy?”
The publication refers to the memoirs of the then wife of Gendarmerie Colonel Jan Yura-Gozhechovsky: “Gozhechovsky cursed terribly during his stay in Brest and was ill every day of his stay, which he treated as a godsend, but obedience to the marshal did not allow him to avoid this hated work. In 1927, Gendarmerie Colonel Jan Yura-Gozhechovsky replaced Kóstek-Biernacki as commander of the garrison in Brest-on-Bug. He told General Kordian Zamorsky that he needed to go to Brześć in order to finally eliminate the remnants of gas experiments (allegedly carried out there by Kóstek-Biernacki)... He allegedly ordered that the remnants of the experiments be buried, and then, having established a post, he forbade even cows to graze in this place.
We must not underestimate any of these circumstances. The history of the Austrian intelligence archives after the Great War is excellent material for work that must be done as soon as possible.
A fierce struggle began for their capture on the territory of the Second Polish Republic already in the first hours of independence. The materials concerning Józef Piłsudski were partly in his hands, the rest were destroyed. However, the marshal knew: there is no guarantee that someone did not leave something, and suddenly it will not see the light.

By Maksim Osipov