It's more common than you think
Zygmunt Resiak from Silesia in the summer of 1954 saw the sea for the first time. He almost hopped in the waves when the armed soldiers stopped him. There were still fences on the beaches, and a strip of sand by the water was being defended by the army every day, so that no one would try to escape from the People's Poland.
During his holiday, Resiak bought a oilcloth, two waterproof coats, swimming caps, a sheet, cords, oil, chocolate and sausage. He spent all his savings on shopping.
He did not have enough money to pay for the hotel in Niechorze, where he had lived for the last few days at the seaside. To be a guest, he left a decent coat on the hanger. He had no intention of returning here.
On Friday evening, August 13, 1954, Zygmunt Resiak together with his friend Witold Jarzyna boarded a kayak mooring on the lake, which was connected with the Baltic Sea by a canal.
The men set off towards the sea. They had to travel 100 kilometers. They headed to the island of Bornholm, Resiak learned about their existence from Radio Free Europe shortly before his escape.
In August 1948, a small plane Piper from Gdansk Aero Club with three passengers on board landed in Ro on the Danish island. The daily press reported that the civilian dressed two men and the woman accompanying them made a good impression on the police. They wanted to get to Sweden, but due to the lack of fuel and fog they decided to stop over on Bornholm. After visiting the police station and refueling, they were allowed to continue their journey.
In 1970, 19-year-old Stanisław Dominiak hid four colleagues aboard a fishing boat in Darłowo - two in the hold on ice lumps, two in the engine room. Sam worked with a fisherman two days earlier. Earlier he got a call to the army. He did not intend to serve in the Polish army, he dreamed of changing his life.
Captain Władysław Paracki woke up in the middle of the night with a knife attached to his neck. Previously, the escapees had overpowered the helmsman. In the morning they reached the port of Nexo on Bornholm. All five received permission to stay and work in Denmark. Stanisław Dominiak lives there until today. He founded a family, has children and grandchildren.
About lieutenant Franciszek Jarecki, who on March 5, 1953, landed the Mig-15 fighter at Ronne airport, was loud all over the world. And not only because the 22-year-old soldier decided to escape from People's Poland on the very day of Stalin death.
At the end of 1952, Lieutenant Jarecki, the superior of the Dęblin School of Eaglets, was transferred from the military air base in Warsaw's Bemowo to Redzikowo near Słupsk. From that moment he began to think about escaping from Poland. He set a date - March 5, 1953. He could not have expected that on that day the communist bloc would be mourning because of the departure of the leader of the Soviet Union.
Jarecki was favored by cloudy weather. During the patrol flight he disconnected from the pilot flying the second one. He lost his flight to 400 meters to avoid Soviet radars. Twelve Soviet migrants followed the escapee.
However, the Polish soldier managed to reach Ronne. He expected an air military port there. It turned out that he must land with a heavy jib on runways covered with grass.
It was this daring landing on a short landing strip and uneven terrain that made him famous. Jarecki could decide to break up the plane and parachute jump. However, he wanted to save the machine, the construction of which communists surrounded the greatest mystery.
Franciszek Jarecki emigrated to the USA. He received a $ 50,000 reward for bringing a Soviet fighter aircraft west, met with President Eisenhower, who signed the act of granting American citizenship to the Pole. The handsome and eloquent escapee found the covers of American magazines. He was also a guest of popular entertainment programs. In the USA, he ran a company producing rocket parts used in the US space program.
Andrzej Krajewski, a military pilot, also decided to flee for political reasons. In autumn 1959, he landed a biplane on the Grudziadz aeroclub near Ronne. He was accompanied by his wife and three-year-old daughter. Krajewski was an AK officer, a partisan and a Warsaw insurgent. In Poland, he was sentenced to six years in prison. He was covered by amnesty, but he had problems finding a job due to his political stance.
Krajewski and his family were granted asylum in Denmark. The Polish pilot found work in airlines. He died in an air accident six years after escaping from Poland.
The story of the confectioner Krzysztof Kryński ended tragically too. In the summer of 1970 he went with the grenade into the cockpit of the Il-14 cruise plane and forced the pilot to change course to Bornholm. Although the escape was successful, the kidnapper was sentenced to five years in prison in Denmark. After his release, he could not find a place - he attacked a jeweler's shop, escaped from prison, and when he was caught, he was sent to Poland. He returned to Denmark after 1989. A few years ago, one of the Danish newspapers posted his picture - he was homeless, told a journalist how not to freeze in the cold.
There were also dramatic attempts to escape from the "Mazowsze" ship, which was moored near Bornholm during the Baltic sea cruises. In the summer of 1957, three young men - among them a 31-year-old engineer from Gdansk - jumped overboard. They were about half a kilometer to the shore. They managed to swim to the shore.