Rogów raid

The Rogow raid was a train robbery, carried out on November 8, 1906, in the village of Rogow, near the city of Łódź, Congress Poland. It was carried out by 49 members of Łódź branch of the Combat Organization of the Polish Socialist Party, under Jozef “Montwill” Mirecki. They attacked a Russian Empire mail train, stealing money and securities. In 1927, the Robotnik newspaper published memoirs of Jan Kwapinski, who himself took part in the raid. In the same year, the memoirs were printed in a book “Organizacja Bojowa – Katorga – Rewolucja Rosyjska”, with a foreword by Ignacy Daszynski. As Kwapinski wrote, 1906 was a difficult year for inhabitants of Russian-controlled Congress Poland. They were repressed by Tsarist police and Cossacks of the Russian Imperial Army, and Polish taxpayers had to support them with their money. During one of its meetings, the Combat Organization of the Polish Socialist Party decided to confiscate the money of Polish taxpayers, and use it to fight Tsarist oppression. “At that time, we had received a number of fantastic mauser rifles. The Combat Organization found out that a Russian train with money would move along the Warsaw–Vienna railway. A rail station of Rogow, located 10 minutes from the hub of Koluszki, was chosen for the raid”, wrote Kwapinski. Before the raid, selected members of the Combat Organization walked the distance from Rogow to Łódź, to get acquainted with the area. Russian garrisons were stationed in all towns of the region, and to escape capture, the Poles had to quickly cross a forest, which stretched between Koluszki and Brzeziny, in order to get back to Łódź as quickly as possible. “On the selected day before the raid, we gathered along a rail line between Łódź Kaliska railway station and Łódź Widzew railway station. After it...