CYMS Paweł Kazimierz

1894

1949

Official, insurgent in the Greater Poland and Silesia Uprisings, company and regiment commander and captain in the Polish Army. Born on 2 March in Pawłowo (Witkowo poviat), as the son of Leon Piotr - a teacher, and Paulina née Kamrowska. In 1914 he graduated from gymnasium in Gniezno, being a member of the Tomasz Zan Society there. After his secondary school-leaving examination he entered the Archbishop’s Seminary in Poznań. In 1916, he was conscripted into the Germany army. For three years he fought on the Eastern and Western Fronts. In 1917 he graduated from the military academy in Biederitz near Magdeburg, being awarded the rank of second lieutenant. After desertion in 1918, he joined the Polish Military Organisation of the Prussian Partition in Gniezno. On 28 December, he participated in the liberation of Gniezno. At the head of the Gniezno-Września company, consisting of 120 people and a growing cluster of troops, he liberated: Trzemeszno, Mogilno, Strzelno, Kruszwica and Inowrocław. In Inowrocław, he organised (7-11 January 1919) 2 infantry battalions, which were the foundation for the 1st and 2nd Kuyavian Grenadier Regiments. As the commander of the 1st Regiment, he fought at Złotniki Kujawskie, Łabiszyn and Brzoza. On 13 January, he became the commander of the 7th Military District .On 7 February, he became the commander of the 3rd Greater Poland Rifle Regiment (59th Infantry Regiment). In May he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant, and after a year he became a captain. During the Polish-Bolshevik war, he was at the head of the 2nd battalion of the 57th Infantry Regiment. In March 1921 he volunteered for the Command of the Plebiscite Defence in the Upper Silesia region. He organised the Polish Military Organisation of Upper Silesia in the Zabrze poviat. After the outbreak of the Third Silesian Uprising, he commanded a tactical group of 1510 soldiers, then the 2nd Silesian Insurgent Regiment. After the end of the uprising, Cyms resigned from the army. He started a 3-year economic-political course at Poznań University, interrupting this for financial reasons in 1922. He undertook civil activities: 1922-1923 in a wood forwarding service for the Commercial Bank in Gdansk, 1926-1928 –he then leased property in Modliborzyce in the Inowrocław poviat. He was also an official in the General Commissariat of the Republic of Poland in the Free City of Gdańsk. In 1929 he returned to military service with the 59th Infantry Regiment in Inowrocław. In the years 1932-1934 he organised the division courses for the Cavalry Reserve. From 1934 he served in the 2nd Division of the Polish Army Headquarters. Because of his ill-health, he was transferred to the reserves in October 1935. He settled in Bystra Górna near Bielsko, where he acted as a representative of the voivode in a cloth factory. On 15 August 1939, he was called up to the 80th Infantry Regiment in Słonim, and then held the function of operations officer of the 179th Infantry Regiment. For four months he was held in a temporary camp in Radom. He escaped in 1940 and settled in Krosno, from May 1941 he lived in Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, where he worked under a false name as the secretary of a Carpenter Cooperative. He was active in the underground resistance of the Union of Armed Struggle formed by the Home Army. After the war, he lived for three years in Gniezno at his sisters' - Maria and Paulina. Then, he moved away to Szczecin working for a company called Spedycja Morska Polska Bandera. In autumn 1948, yet again he settled in Bystra Górna, where he bought a house. There, he was employed as a commune secretary. His health steadily declined. He died on 13 November 1949 and was buried in Bystra Krakowska. At the request of his grandchildren he was exhumed on 21 December 2013. His body was laid to rest in the insurgent quarter of the cemetery of the St. Peter parish church in Gniezno. From the year 1931 he was married to Maria Franciszka Krawczak. Children: Barbara Maria and Janusz Józef. Awards: Silver Cross of Virtuti Militari, 5th class, Cross of Valour (4 times), Golden Cross of Merit, Cross of Independence with Swords. Cyms is a patron of streets in Gniezno, Inowrocław, Poznań and Bystra Górna. One of the primary schools in Inowrocław bore his name in the years 1978-1999.

G. Roczek, Cyms Paweł Kazimierz (1894-1949) (in:) Słownik biograficzny powstańców wielkopolskich 1918-1919, ed. A. Czubiński, B. Polak, Poznań 2002, pp. 59-60.

Janusz Karwat