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Short filmTranscript
00:00Polish-Lithuanian War
00:18At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries,
00:21Polish Bydgoszcz was divided into Szwederowo, Wilczak and Długa streets.
00:25The rest was German Bromberg.
00:28Polish people are the minority here,
00:31and even though they are a community of almost 20,000,
00:34they have only one parish and one church.
00:37They do not allow for more abortions.
00:40Polishness was nurtured in the family.
00:44I inherited all these books after my father,
00:47as he was the youngest.
00:50He inherited them after his sisters, after his mother, after his parents.
00:54This whole library is full of Polish literature.
00:57It dates back to the end of the 19th century.
01:00It shows how Polishness was nurtured
01:03in an environment in which
01:06it was not possible to officially speak Polish in Bydgoszcz.
01:15Marian Rajewski was born in the German part of the city,
01:18in today's Bocianów.
01:21He is three years old when the Prussians
01:24began to speak Polish in public places.
01:27Children in schools cannot speak Polish,
01:30not only during lessons,
01:33but also during breaks.
01:36In defense of Polish language in Szwederowo,
01:39there is even a famous school strike.
01:42Children and their parents are severely punished.
01:46TITLE
01:53The father of Marian Rajewski, Józef, is a merchant.
01:56He runs a titanium shop.
01:59His mother, Matilda, comes from Podtoróńska Podgórze.
02:02She was the daughter of the owner of a local brewery.
02:07Today, only small fragments of the walls remain of the brewery.
02:11It was destroyed during the Second World War.
02:18Rajewski lives in a private tenement house
02:21at 6 Wileńska Street.
02:24Marian is the youngest of seven siblings.
02:31When he began his studies in 1914
02:34at the Gimnazjum at Plac Wolności,
02:37the First World War broke out.
02:40When he finished school in 1923,
02:43Poland was already a free country.
02:48His father died two years earlier.
02:51He was 16 years old.
03:00Rajewski goes to Poznań to study.
03:03He studies at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences.
03:08When the headquarters of the Polish Army
03:11organizes a course on cryptology for selected students of mathematics,
03:14Rajewski joins this group.
03:17During this time, he obtains a master's degree in philosophy
03:20and a master's degree in defense of work
03:23under the title of developing the theory of functions
03:26of the double periodic second and third types
03:29and indicating their application.
03:33In the recordings taken by us in the film from the 70s,
03:36there are several minutes of recordings with Marian Rajewski.
03:40Unfortunately, he refers to the times of his youth
03:43only in one statement.
03:48More than 40 years ago, you belonged to the group
03:51of the most talented young mathematicians.
03:54With a diploma in hand, you have a great scientific career.
03:57Meanwhile, you choose cryptology. Why?
04:00It's not so easy for me to answer this question,
04:03at least because it was so many years ago.
04:06I don't know what one is guided by.
04:09I didn't choose cryptology right away.
04:12Rather, cryptology chose me, in a sense.
04:16I actually wanted another career.
04:19I wanted to be what is called a security mathematician.
04:23Rajewski studies mathematical statistics and security
04:26during his annual internship in Gdynia.
04:29After returning to Poznań, he works as a junior assistant
04:32at the Institute of Mathematics of the University.
04:35At the same time, he starts working in the Poznań branch
04:38of the Cipher Office, which is located in the city military command.
04:41There, he meets Jerzy Różycki and Henryk Zygalski,
04:44who previously participated in the course of cryptology
04:47together with him.
04:51In relation to the Polish triplet,
04:54you can meet the term group Z or group 300.
04:57Group 300 is from the later period.
05:00It's not about our triplet.
05:03You probably referred to the whole team,
05:06to the entire office of German ciphers.
05:09BS4, yes.
05:12It was in agreement with Colonel Langier.
05:15They agreed that they would name the French X,
05:18the Poles Z, and the English Y.
05:22After two years, the mathematicians were transferred
05:25to the Cipher Office in Warsaw.
05:28Now they work in the Saska Palace
05:31at Piłsudski Square.
05:34Today, only a fragment of this building exists.
05:37Until January 1933, in the BS4 referendum,
05:40Rejewski, Różycki and Zygalski work separately.
05:43The effect of the cooperation of Polish and French interviews
05:46is the transfer of information
05:50about the Enigma to the Poles.
05:53Rejewski received part of this material.
06:00At the end of December 1932,
06:03the Enigma was broken.
06:06A month later, Hitler came to power in Germany.
06:09Meanwhile, Zygalski and Różycki joined Rejewski.
06:12They have been working together since then.
06:16Was breaking the Enigma's cipher
06:19a one-time thing?
06:22No.
06:25What happened at the turn of 1932
06:28and 1933
06:31and from 1933
06:34until the outbreak of the war itself,
06:37we sat on this cipher non-stop.
06:40Our task was
06:44to deliver the keys to the solution every day.
06:47Without the keys,
06:50the machine itself was not enough.
06:53You had to have the keys to the machine,
06:56which were changed every day.
06:59At the beginning of the cipher,
07:02they used quite often
07:05such completely stereotypical,
07:08banal keys,
07:11such as A, A, A,
07:14or A, B, C,
07:17X, Y, Z,
07:20letters of order or identical alphabets,
07:23or they took them from the keyboard itself,
07:26just like the keys go to the typewriter,
07:29Q, W, E, A, S, D.
07:32This made it easier for us.
07:35After a short time, however,
07:38we stopped using such keys.
07:41These were the kinds of changes.
07:44Other changes were that at some point
07:47they changed the so-called reversing drum.
07:50In German, they changed the umkehrwalze,
07:53from umkehrwalze A to umkehrwalze B.
07:56You had to start all over again,
07:59well, not all over,
08:02but some of the work had to start all over again.
08:05In Warsaw, Marian Rejewski
08:08first lived in a rented apartment in Żoliborz for two years.
08:11Later, after marrying Irena Lewandowska,
08:14he moved into his own apartment.
08:17The Rejewski's bought a 100-square-meter shared apartment
08:20at General Zajączka Street.
08:23Here we meet Mrs. Danuta Barbara Łomaczewska,
08:26who had lived in the same house as the Rejewski's all her life.
08:29On this side, there are only kitchen windows
08:32and the Rejewski's office.
08:35The Rejewski's lived on the first floor,
08:38under the fourth number.
08:41I lived on the third floor, under the twelfth number.
08:44I remember him wearing a hat
08:47and a gabardine coat.
08:50He was always smiling.
08:53When you said good morning to him,
08:56and we were children then,
08:59he would always say good morning
09:02and put his hat down.
09:05He never talked.
09:08He was always in a hurry.
09:11He never talked.
09:14With Mrs. Rejewska, yes, sometimes we talked.
09:17But what was it about?
09:20When a child is 10 years old, what can he talk about?
09:23Irena Rejewska is from Bydgoszcz.
09:26They became friends with each other.
09:29When their son Andrzej was born in 1936,
09:32Irena stayed in Bydgoszcz.
09:35Marian saw the child only after three months.
09:38During this time, the Germans made many significant changes in the Enigma.
09:41That's why he couldn't leave Warsaw.
09:44We had a rather primitive method,
09:47which we called Rusztem.
09:50It was effective,
09:53but it was tiring.
09:56That's why we introduced another device,
09:59called a cyclometer.
10:02This cyclometer represented
10:05an aggregate of two Enigmas.
10:08Two.
10:11So it was at a lower level of development compared to a bomb.
10:14Yes, because it was a simpler way of hiding.
10:17You had to do a lot of preparatory work.
10:21You had to go through
10:24all the possible positions of the Enigmas.
10:27There were 26 times 26,
10:30times 26,
10:33up to the third power.
10:36That's 17,576.
10:39And 6 times 6,
10:42so over 100,000.
10:45You had to make a logbook.
10:48It was a lot of work.
10:51It took about a year and a half.
10:54But when we had the logbook,
10:57it was a matter of a dozen minutes to find the key.
11:00It was very fast.
11:03It was a colossal acceleration.
11:06Yes, yes.
11:09When the war broke out,
11:12Szefrow's office and his employees were evacuated.
11:15Zygalski's company was sent to France.
11:18There, in the middle of Brno,
11:21they continued to solve the Enigmas.
11:24We were supplied by one French machine and one English one.
11:27There were already two machines there.
11:30The other two machines were transported by, as far as I know,
11:33Colonel Lange, so there were four machines there
11:36and we could already work there.
11:39As for Zygalski's company,
11:42it took a very short time,
11:45a few months,
11:48to make a whole set of 60 sets,
11:5126 sheets each,
11:54in a few copies.
11:57And what you were decoding,
12:00in the Gretz Army Villa near Paris,
12:03did it somehow end up in the British Armed Forces?
12:06Yes, yes, of course.
12:09There was a connection,
12:12a direct connection with a cable.
12:15Besides, we had,
12:18in the Gretz Army Villa,
12:21there was always a connector
12:24in the form of Captain McFarlane.
12:27I think he was delivering the keys.
12:30And here I can say something
12:33almost comical.
12:37Namely, these keys were passed
12:40in a encrypted way to the British,
12:43using the same German enigma.
12:46Which you were dealing with.
12:49Yes, yes, yes.
12:52So, gentlemen, you were decoding the key,
12:55it was encrypted back through the same enigma
12:58as all the German ones and passed to the British,
13:01where it was decoded again with an enigma.
13:04In the French Brno facility,
13:07Rejewski develops a secret script
13:10called the encryption method,
13:13which serves as a training material.
13:16At the same time, the British ask
13:19for the transfer of Polish cryptologists
13:22to a secret facility in Bletchley.
13:25The Polish command refuses
13:28because it is associated with a military agreement with the French.
13:32There, he meets the results of the work of the Poles.
13:35After taking over France by Hitler,
13:38Rejewski and other former employees
13:41of the Polish Encryption Bureau
13:44work in a conspiracy facility
13:47in the south of France.
13:50Later, after the liquidation of the facility
13:53by Spain, Portugal and Gibraltar,
13:56Rejewski moves to England.
13:59When the war is over,
14:02he decides to return home.
14:05One of the main reasons for his return
14:08was to meet his family again after 6 years.
14:11His wife and children
14:14had been living in Bydgoszcz
14:17in their parents' apartment
14:20on Dworcowa Street since June 1945.
14:23She survived the Warsaw Uprising
14:26and became a member of the Polish People's Republic.
14:56After the liquidation of the facility,
14:59there was a repression.
15:02There was a string of trials.
15:05They tried to hit and compromise the people.
15:08There were death sentences.
15:11Rejewski could expect
15:14that he would also be subjected to repression.
15:17Nevertheless, in November 1946,
15:20he returns to Poland on an evacuation ship
15:23in the port of Gdynia.
15:26Someone knocked on the door.
15:29My father came running.
15:32He recognized my father.
15:35He was wearing a uniform.
15:38He was very happy.
15:41When he came,
15:44he said a few words.
15:47He said,
15:50We will be fair to you.
15:53For everyone who is worthy,
15:56there will be places in the country.
15:59Your father is waiting for you.
16:02Those who came from the West
16:05did not feel very worthy.
16:08They did not know what would happen to them.
16:11If he wanted to continue his scientific career,
16:14he would have to get a doctorate.
16:17When he returned to Bydgoszcz,
16:20he did not think about his scientific career.
16:23He had earthly matters.
16:26He had to take care of his family.
16:29He could not return to Warsaw
16:32because there was nowhere to go.
16:35There was no home.
16:38My mother and son
16:41settled in Bydgoszcz.
16:44He could not return to Warsaw.
16:47He could go to another city
16:50and live in a working-class hotel
16:53or an academic home.
16:56He could wait until he could
16:59take his whole family with him.
17:02These were difficult decisions.
17:05I think that is why he did not look for something else.
17:08It was difficult to leave your parents
17:11Someone who had little to do with family
17:14could have done it.
17:17But I know my father and I know
17:20that he would not allow it.
17:23He had his family roots in Bydgoszcz.
17:26The war is over.
17:29You, as a cryptologist of this war,
17:32are losing your job.
17:35Is it too late to return to the university?
17:38It would be very difficult for me.
17:41Do you feel successful at this time?
17:44Do you feel fulfilled?
17:51This is a very personal question.
17:54I don't think so.
17:57I don't think so.
18:04He tried to be a stand-in.
18:07That's what human fate is like.
18:10Not only did he lose his job
18:13and wrote to a friend,
18:16but he also wrote that he regretted
18:19one thing very much,
18:22that he regretted his professional position
18:25before the war, which was very important to me
18:28because of my love for it
18:31and also because of my modesty.
18:34He didn't write about it.
18:37What about my current positions in Bydgoszcz?
18:40What can I say about them?
18:43The first job that Rejewski managed to find
18:46after returning to Bydgoszcz
18:49was the head of the invoicing department
18:52in the nationalized Kabel Polski plants.
18:55Rejewski was interested in the
18:58Military Office of Public Security.
19:02He wanted to know what role
19:05Marian Rejewski played
19:08in the second unit of the Main Staff before the war.
19:11They tried to find out
19:14who Rejewski was,
19:17what he did, where he worked,
19:20what he did before the war,
19:23and what he did during the war.
19:26Rejewski was under the observation of UB agents
19:29He didn't hide the fact that he worked
19:32in the Main Staff of the Polish Army
19:35but he also didn't give UB agents reasons to intervene.
19:38He didn't conduct political activities.
19:41He took care of his family.
19:44In Jasiniec we even spent
19:47some holidays after the war.
19:50My father came from Kabel,
19:53working in Kabel.
19:56It's funny to think that
19:59it's a memory of Marian Rejewski
20:02who used to go to Leszniczówka.
20:05I don't know where Leszniczówka is.
20:08I don't know what it was called.
20:11I think it was around 1948.
20:14My brother died in 1947,
20:17he was no longer there in 1948,
20:20so maybe it was in 1948 or 1949.
20:23He was fired from Kabel,
20:26so it was probably the end of the 1940s.
20:29As a result of the pressure
20:32of the UB, Rejewski was fired.
20:35He wasn't the only one.
20:38A few other former soldiers
20:41of the Polish Armed Forces were also fired.
20:44The UB gave this group the nickname
20:47SZTAB,
20:51and one of the employees,
20:54Różankowski,
20:57for the so-called whispered propaganda,
21:00was imprisoned.
21:03I know he couldn't teach as a teacher.
21:06There were some attempts,
21:09although I don't think it was
21:12in his interest.
21:15But just like the one who came back from the West,
21:18I don't think it was possible at the time.
21:21He got involved in the kind of work
21:24he was able to do.
21:27Rejewski worked for a short time
21:30in several different plants in Bydgoszcz.
21:33He is a financial, cashier, accountant.
21:36It was only in 1954 that he joined
21:39the Voivodeship Co-operative Union,
21:42where he worked until his retirement.
21:46The office of the Voivodeship Co-operative Union
21:49was here all the time.
21:52There were two more barracks,
21:55which are no longer there.
21:58In this part, there were the rooms
22:01of the head of the board,
22:04financial and self-governing.
22:07And here was the accounting department.
22:10Our windows were here.
22:13These two windows
22:16covered the room
22:19of the five people.
22:22The financial department of the Voivodeship Co-operative Union.
22:25And in this department of the Voivodeship Co-operative Union,
22:28the head was Stefan Rudziński.
22:31He sat here by the window.
22:34Here was Mr. Mężyński,
22:37Mr. Dąbrowski, and there was Mr. Rejewski and Mr. Dobrzyński.
22:40Mr. Rejewski was at the door,
22:43his back turned to the door.
22:46He was so hunched.
22:49There were five desks.
22:52It was incredibly cramped.
22:55Although Rejewski is a calm citizen,
22:58the interest in the Voivodeship does not cease.
23:01They began to engage
23:04other secret co-operators.
23:07There were four of them.
23:10They, of course, had their pseudonyms.
23:13Among them, Tom, Włókniarz, Demokrata.
23:16I heard that they were following him.
23:19I heard that they were standing at the train station,
23:22that they were looking at people through the window,
23:25that someone was following him, that the track had broken off somewhere.
23:28Some conversations came to me,
23:31but I say, as a child,
23:34I did not experience it.
23:37It did not affect my skin.
23:40I worked here in this last room.
23:43I had Alfonso behind the wall,
23:46and there was Marian Rejewski at the door.
23:49We saw each other every day.
23:52He did not speak much.
23:55He did not speak at all.
23:58And if someone asked him for some advice,
24:01he was always happy to answer.
24:04But he did not even mention his family matters.
24:07In those days,
24:10every workplace had its own guardians.
24:13SSB guardians,
24:16and a committee.
24:19In the PZPR committee
24:22there was a special instructor for community affairs,
24:25who dealt with the Voivodeship,
24:28and he was a guardian.
24:31To have a proper look at the system.
24:34They were watching over it.
24:37There was a recognition among the neighbors.
24:40There was also a recognition at the workplace.
24:43They also began to look through the correspondence,
24:46both Rejewski and his wife.
24:49Except that there was nothing there
24:52that could give us an idea
24:56of how to take action against Rejewski.
24:59These were completely private letters
25:02to his family.
25:05He did not keep correspondence with foreigners,
25:08which, as it turns out now,
25:11is completely justified,
25:14because his footsteps were followed
25:17after his arrival,
25:20who he contacted,
25:23who he kept in touch with.
25:26He was aware of that.
25:29Like other employees,
25:32and there were over 200 of us here,
25:35no one knew what Mr. Rejewski did
25:38before the war, during the war.
25:41At that time,
25:44among your close friends,
25:47did people know about the Enigma?
25:50No, they didn't know anything.
25:53They didn't learn anything from me.
25:56And I don't think anyone could know from anywhere else.
25:59No, completely excluded.
26:07No one would suspect
26:10that there is such a personality
26:13behind this head,
26:16in this head.
26:20The Security Service didn't know
26:23who Rejewski was from the beginning.
26:26I mean, he was a person
26:29who solved one of the biggest puzzles
26:32of the Second World War.
26:35They only knew that he was a civilian employee,
26:38that he was a cryptologist.
26:41However, they were not aware
26:44of who he really was.
26:47They didn't know who he really was,
26:50and they didn't know
26:53what to say about him.
26:56If Rejewski's true identity was discovered,
26:59they would probably try
27:02to get all the information
27:05about how this device works.
27:08He was a man who acted according to the rules,
27:11and it would be difficult to break him.
27:14He was a man who was faithful to his oath.
27:17He certainly wouldn't share information.
27:20And then he would meet with repressions.
27:23Perhaps they would try to force him
27:26to confess with torture.
27:29They would tire him,
27:32and he would probably meet such fate.
27:35Actually, I learned something more
27:38about the nature of my father's work
27:42only when he wrote his memoirs
27:45from his work in the 2nd Division
27:48of the Main Staff
27:51and put them together in the Military Historical Institute.
27:54This was in 1967.
27:58Although 35 years had passed
28:01since the puzzle was broken,
28:04Rejewski perfectly recreates
28:07complicated mathematical operations
28:10with the help of a machine code.
28:14What is unusual,
28:17he keeps the methods of solving the puzzle
28:20only in his memory.
28:23After all, any notes discovered by the Military Historical Institute
28:26could betray him.
28:29He writes his memoirs in Bydgoszcz,
28:32in a small apartment on Gdańsk Street.
28:36He probably wasn't afraid
28:39that he would be harassed at work,
28:42that he would be fired.
28:45He was prepared.
28:49Despite this, he is very careful.
28:52He doesn't publish his memoirs,
28:55he doesn't publish them,
28:58he doesn't meet any journalists.
29:01He passes them on to the Military Historical Institute in Warsaw.
29:04The unusual nature of Rejewski's mind
29:07I remember an incident
29:10when I entered Mr. Rejewski's office
29:13and had my second breakfast.
29:16He was solving a crossword puzzle.
29:19I had the impression
29:22that he had already solved it.
29:25It was a quick solution,
29:28he knew all the passwords
29:31and knew where to enter them.
29:34It lasted for breakfast.
29:37It was a long breakfast.
29:40The crossword puzzle was much shorter.
29:43Mr. Rejewski was sitting opposite me.
29:46He was also there in the afternoon.
29:49He was also doing something there.
29:52He was writing, I don't remember.
29:55He saw that Irka was crying.
29:58He said, Mrs. Irena, what are you doing?
30:01I said, I think I'm going to hang myself.
30:04I told him that she had problems
30:07with summing up,
30:10with counting the numbers.
30:13He said, let me show you how you do it.
30:16He took her this
30:19and said, let her wait for an hour
30:22and I will help you.
30:25After an hour he brought her this table.
30:29One day, two, three, four, etc.
30:32One zloty, two, three, four, ten,
30:35two hundred thousand, etc.
30:38Only these amounts were left.
30:4112% came out.
30:446% was for the Central Bank,
30:47and 6% for us,
30:50for the Social Fund.
30:53Thanks to this, I went on a trip
30:57and in the afternoons, chess lovers
31:00gathered here in Śmietlice.
31:03But no one played with Mr. Rejewski.
31:06No one played, because it was a match
31:09in three or four moves.
31:12They even got the best.
31:15So Mr. Rejewski was limited to cheering,
31:18because he had no opponent in the Voivodeship.
31:21When in the 1970s the role of Polish mathematicians
31:24was to break the enigma,
31:27Mariana Rejewski's apartment in Warsaw was full of guests.
31:30Historians, filmmakers, foreign journalists
31:33visited him.
31:36Mr. Rejewski, this story is simply unbelievable,
31:39and yet true.
31:42In the history of wars, it has never happened
31:45that all the moves of one of the sides
31:48were known to the opposite side.
31:51After opening secret archives,
31:54hundreds of articles, radio broadcasts and TV programs
31:57were published in Europe and overseas.
32:00And in turn, there were pilgrimages of foreign journalists to Poland.
32:03Did the authors of these volumes reach you?
32:06I didn't see any of them.
32:09They probably received their news
32:12only from sources inspired by the British.
32:15In another published volume by William Stevenson,
32:18called Intrepid,
32:21you can read again about the Polish interview.
32:24And again, Stevenson mentions only the names
32:27of three Polish cryptologists,
32:30Różycki, Zygalski and Mademoiselle Marianny Rejewski.
32:33I don't know whether to laugh or cry over these authors.
32:36So these books, written in English,
32:39spread all over the world,
32:42silence or distort the participation of Poles
32:46Unfortunately, yes.
32:49From time to time,
32:52in some of the letters I read now,
32:55I feel a kind of regret
32:58that it all happened so quickly
33:01and that some...
33:04I don't know, maybe not a career,
33:07but a scientific one,
33:10that I didn't associate more with science.
33:13I think it was a result of the fact
33:16that this was the course of fate after the war.
33:19I think he felt some kind of grief,
33:22some kind of incompleteness,
33:25but this happened to many people after the war.
33:28He was definitely against what happened after the war.
33:31He certainly did not expect this
33:34after the won war.
33:37In the year 1980,
33:40a few months before the arrival of August,
33:43Marian Rejewski died suddenly
33:46in his apartment in Warsaw.
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