Everything we know about Alek's life from start to finish in detail
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Maciej Aleksy Dawidowski was born in Drohobych, Ukraine, on the third of November in 1920. Drohobych was part of Poland at the time so please don't question his nationality.. He got his second name from his father, Aleksy Dawidowski. His mother was Janina Dawidowska and his sister was Maria Strzembosz-Dawidowska. In 1929, Alek and his family moved to Warsaw after his father got a promotion at the gun factory he was working in.

After finishing middle school, Alek started studying in a secondary school named after Stefan Batory. In 1933, he joined the 23rd Warsaw Scout Troop, called "Pomarańczarnia". In 1937, at the same school, he continued his education in the mathematics and physics class. There, he met his best friends Jan Bytnar and Tadeusz Zawadzki among others. In May 1939, everyone graduated high school.

On September 7, 1939, together with a group of scouts and thousands of other men, he left Warsaw and headed east. He returned in early October, and a few weeks later, his father was arrested by the Germans for refusing to cooperate and shot to death in December, 1939.

After his father's arrest, the family moved to Żoliborz. Until December 1939 Alek was a member of the Polish People's Independence Action (Polska Ludowa Akcja Niepodległościowa, PLAN). Later, scouts of the 23rd acted as liaisons in the prison cell of the Związek Walki Zbrojnej (ZWZ). In June 1940, Alek established that prisoners from Pawiak are being taken to the forests near the village of Palmira.

In September 1940, he began studying at the State School of Mechanical Engineering. In March 1941, he joined the Grey Ranks. He was one of the most active members of the Small Sabotage Organization "Wawer". He joined the Home Army in 1942.

His most famous action was "Action Copernicus", taking off a German plaque from the monument of Nicolaus Copernicus in Krakowskie Przedmieście. Initially, Alek planned it for February 19, the astronomer's 469th birthday. On February 11, 1942, around 6 am, pretending to be drunk, he stepped onto the pedestal, wanting to check how tightly the screws securing the board were screwed. When he found that they could be unscrewed with his bare hands, he decided to do it immediately. Although the falling board caused noise, no one paid attention to his actions. He managed to hide an almost hundred-kilogram plate in snow. Two days later, he came back for it with his friends, Jan Rossmann and Andrzej Makólski, and hid it in the basement of his home on the street Mickiewicza 18.

In June 1942, the German plaque was buried in the Rossman garden at Sułkowskiego 45. The Commander-in-Chief of "Wawer" Aleksander Kamiński gave Alek the honorary pseudonym "Kopernicki", at the same time punishing him for acting without the consent of the command.

The announcement of the action was given by the German governor of the Warsaw district Ludwig Fischer. On February 24, an announcement was posted informing that in retaliation for the removal of the German inscription from the Copernicus monument, the monument of Jan Kiliński would be removed. Thanks to this, many residents of Warsaw learned about Alek's feat.

Alek decided to take another action. Having learned from the workers who dismantled the Kiliński monument that they had been hired for this work without giving personal information, he offered to buy back the statue for 1k PLN. However, the transaction was not finalized, because a German policeman was sitting next to the driver in the truck sent for the monument. Alek got from the would-be "contractors" only Kiliński's saber, which they managed to hide during loading. Then, having overheard that Kiliński went to the building of the National Museum, the same evening he painted the inscription on its wall with black paint: "Jam tu. Ludu WWY. Kiliński Jan” (I'm here, people of Warsaw.)

After these events, he hid outside Warsaw for several months and then moved in with his fiancée Barbara Sapińska. In November 1942, the Germans arrived at his family apartment. The Gestapo arrested his mother. From Pawiak, she went to Majdanek, and then to KL Ravensbrück.

Alek became deputy commander of the SAD platoon (sabotage and /diversion.. get it? /diversion cause the url is called that). He participated in German disarming actions several times. When he was stopped by the Germans on January 17 during a street roundup, he jumped out of the car in which he was transported along with the other detainees.

On March 26, 1943, as the commander of the "Grenades" section, he took part in the rescue of Jan Bytnar. It was the most spectacular action of the Grey Assault Groups before the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising. During the retreat, he was shot in the stomach. He died on March 30, 1943 at the Infant Jesus Hospital in Warsaw. Rudy also passed away on the same day.

He was buried under a false name. In 1946, his body was exhumed and transferred to Rudy's grave at the headquarters of the Scout Battalion of the Home Army "Zośka" in the Military Cemetery in Powązki, Warsaw.

Alek was posthumously awarded the Cross of the Order of Virtuti Militari of the 5th class and appointed a sergeant cadet. He was the first scout of the Grey Ranks to be given the highest Polish military decoration.

In 2011, he was awarded the Commander's Cross with the Star of the Order of Polonia Restituta.

I obviously didn't include all of the street names, some translations might be off as I lowkey struggled making this