Zdzisław Najmrodzki. The King of Thieves in Communist Poland

Written by Rory Thornfield

Zdzisław Najmrodzki, known in the underworld as „Saszłyk” (Shashlik), was a figure who in the 1970s and 1980s became a legend of Polish criminality. His twenty-nine successful escapes from prisons, convoys, and detention centers humiliated the communist-era police and made him a symbol of rebellion against a system that in the eyes of many Poles was oppressive and corrupt. Although his methods were criminal, he was remembered in collective memory as a Robin Hood of the era of socialist gray reality.

A Mechanic Who Became a Criminal

Zdzisław Najmrodzki was born on August 20, 1954, in Czermno, a small town in Lower Silesia. He grew up in a typical working-class family – his father worked physically, his mother took care of the home and children. He completed vocational school as an auto mechanic, which in the 1970s was a popular choice for young men without academic aspirations. After two years of military service, mandatory for all citizens of communist Poland, he returned to Gliwice and took a job in a workshop.

In 1977, he got married and it seemed his life would follow a well-worn path: work, family, the monotony of socialist everyday life. Poland at the turn of the 1970s and 1980s was a country of shortages, queues for meat, limited freedom, and ubiquitous grayness. For many young people, crime became a form of protest or simply a way to obtain goods unavailable legally.

At age 22, Najmrodzki went to prison for the first time – he was sentenced to a year and a half for assaulting a police officer. In the communist system, such incidents were treated with particular severity because they undermined the foundations of authority. For Zdzisław, however, this was only the beginning of his criminal career. Already during his first stay behind bars, he did something that foreshadowed his future fame: handcuffed, he jumped through the window of a slowly moving prison train.

Pewex Stores, Polonez Cars, and Posters

After his release, Najmrodzki organized his own criminal group that specialized in robbing Pewex stores. These establishments were a symbol of inequality in communist Poland – they sold Western goods for foreign currency, meaning dollars or marks, which the average Pole had no access to. For many citizens, Pewex stores were synonymous with the privilege of the party nomenclature and speculators.

Najmrodzki developed a method later called the „poster method.” Burglars would cut a hole in the display window, take the goods, then cover the hole with a previously removed advertising poster. Guards and police would pass by without noticing the break-in – the alarm system didn’t react because technically the window was intact. Thefts were only discovered in the morning, when the perpetrators were already far away.

Najmrodzki’s group also stole cars, mainly Polonez models – popular and relatively modern vehicles produced by FSO. Over three years, they stole over a hundred of them, then registered them in their own names using forged documents. In a country where you had to wait several years for a new Polonez, stealing and legalizing a car was a lucrative business.

Najmrodzki was not brutal – he avoided violence, focusing on burglaries and fraud. His true legend, however, was built not on crimes but on escapes. In 1980, he escaped from detention in Gliwice through a window with sawed-through bars. No one knows how he obtained the tools, but the result was spectacular: police found an empty cell and a note thanking the warden.

Escapes That Became Myth

Najmrodzki’s twenty-ninth escape took place on October 19, 1987, and went down in history as the most spectacular. During a walk in the courtyard of the Gliwice detention center, he suddenly fell through the ground – his mother and an accomplice had been digging a tunnel under the prison wall for many days. Zdzisław disappeared into the opening before the guards realized what was happening. In his cell, he left a letter to the warden: full of irony and thanks for the hospitality.

Other escapes were equally impressive. Once he jumped from a prison train, taking advantage of the fact that the escorting police officers had gotten drunk during transport. Another time he escaped from the Mostowski Palace in Warsaw, headquarters of the main investigative detention center, by disguising himself in a police uniform and marching through the building as if nothing had happened. Each of these escapes was precisely planned but also required enormous calm and composure.

In the 1980s, „Saszłyk” became a mythical figure. People in communist Poland lived with a sense of helplessness toward authority, so every story about a man who humiliated the police and evaded the system was received with enthusiasm. For many, Najmrodzki was a symbol of cunning and freedom – someone who showed that the state apparatus was not omnipotent.

Poetry, Pardon, and Tragic End

In 1989, the year of communism’s fall in Poland, Najmrodzki was caught for the last time and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. This time he ended up in penal institutions in Gliwice and Strzelce Opolskie, where authorities considered him a particularly dangerous prisoner. His cells were monitored, walks limited, and contacts with other prisoners minimized.

In 1990, already in free Poland, Najmrodzki published a volume of poems and aphorisms titled „Faces of Truth.” The book was published by the small Galicja Publishing House and unexpectedly found seven thousand buyers. The poems were harsh, honest, full of reflections on life behind bars and the meaning of freedom. For many readers, it was a souvenir from the legendary burglar; for others, a rare example of prison literature from the perspective of the criminal himself.

In 1994, President Lech Wałęsa pardoned Najmrodzki, shortening his sentence. The decision was controversial – some saw it as recognition of a legend, others as overly lenient treatment of a recidivist. Zdzisław was released and tried to find his place in the new reality of democratic Poland, a country of stores full of goods, where Pewex stores no longer existed and Polonez cars could be bought legally.

Death on the Highway

On August 31, 1995, Zdzisław Najmrodzki’s life ended in a tragic and symbolic way. He was driving a stolen car with fake license plates and a fake identity card. Near Mława, north of Warsaw, he lost control of the vehicle and skidded directly into an oncoming truck. He died on the spot.

Three children were in the car – all died in the accident. The details of this tragedy were never fully explained. Najmrodzki had previously changed his surname to his mother’s surname, which made identification of the bodies difficult. Only the father of the children confirmed the victims’ identities. The circumstances of the accident remained unclear: was it a desperate attempt to escape from police? Or just an ordinary road accident?

Today, Najmrodzki’s name is forgotten by most Poles. But for the generation that grew up in communist Poland, „Saszłyk” remains a mythical figure – someone who for years humiliated the police, evaded the system, and gave hope that even in the most oppressive conditions, one could maintain freedom. His story is dark, full of crimes and tragedy, but it also recalls times when the line between hero and criminal was very thin, and social opposition to authority took the most unexpected forms.

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Rory Thornfield

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Rory's grandfather left behind a wartime diary filled with accounts of a minor Burma skirmish that history books never mentioned. Reading it, Rory realized: behind every famous battle are dozens of forgotten struggles, each with its own human drama.

His preferred topics: The overlooked corners of military history – secondary campaigns, shadow battalions, local conflicts that never made headlines. From medieval sieges to twentieth-century expeditions, he focuses on the soldiers, not the generals. The people who faced impossible choices and carried those experiences forever.

Rory strips away the romanticism without losing respect for those who served. He combines tactical analysis with personal stories, examining human endurance and moral complexity rather than celebrating warfare. His writing is balanced, thoughtful, and deeply researched.

Outside work, Rory visits forgotten battlefields (now quiet farmland), photographs war memorials nobody tends anymore, and interviews veterans' families.