“The deadly machine rolls forward toward me but I filter everything around me out go straight at it. A terrifying screech … The tank stands right in front of me. A crucified child, a boy, on the front surface of the tank. Blood from his wounds trickles down the iron. With Danka, we begin to free the boy’s arms tied to the tank with rags. I don’t pay attention to what’s going on around me. A Russian soldier jumps out of the tank. In his hand he holds browning pistol. Then comes another another, who threatens us … For me he does not exist, I can only see the eyes of the child, full of fear and torment. And I see the arms released from the ties stretch out to us with unrestrained confidence.”
Freed by the Polish army, he died in the arms of his mother.
On 14 September 2009 Tadeusz Jasinski was posthumously awarded the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta by the President of Poland, for heroism shown during the defense of Grodno in 1939.
