Life
Sergiusz Piasecki was born on April 1, 1901 (or June 1, 1899) in Lyakhavichy, then in Northwestern Krai of the Russian Empire (now Brest Province, Belarus). The latter date was presented by Piasecki on several occasions, probably because he deliberately wanted to mislead the authorities. He was an illegitimate son of a russifed Polish nobleman Michal Piasecki and a Belarusian mother Klaudia Kukalowicz, a servant working for the Piasecki family, whom Sergiusz never met. According to his own life story, he was looked after by stepmother Filomena Gruszewska, a devout Catholic, who openly disliked him. His childhood was very difficult also, because children at school mocked his Polish roots, calling him "Lach" (which, in loose translation, is the Russian equivalent of the ethnic slur Polack). Conversely, Piasecki hated the Russian school – as he later explained – and in the seventh grade, armed with a pistol attacked the teacher. Sentenced to jail, he escaped while in prison, and thus his formal education ended.
In the monograph about his life, work and legend, researcher Krzysztof Polechoński noted that most available data about Piasecki's whereabouts often doesn't correspond to reality, not to mention the claims made by the writer himself. Perhaps the discrepancies came from his work as intelligence agent, but there's no way to confirm many of his personal stories. Piasecki's addresses in Vilnius are not available and neither are the registers of houses in which he lived. His personal documents in possession of Piasecki's son: such as the copy of a marriage certificate with Jadwiga Waszkiewicz or the birth certificate of his son Władysław Tomaszewicz are falsifications, as revealed by Polechoński himself after a search performed in Vilnius archives. It is not possible to say whether his evacuation card is authentic. There is no photo of him in the prisoners' photo archives of Łukiszki penitentiary. There is no proof of his residency amongst the Vilnius city dwellers. He might have stayed in a hotel.
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