He fought for the Home Army and volunteered for a revenge attack at the Café Adria where he fatally shot several members of the Gestapo before being killed himself.

In view of this, he approached Captain Jerzy Antoni Lewiński [pl] "Chuchro" – the commander of the Warsaw District Kedyw – with a request to order an action for him, even one in which he would have no chance of survival.

[4] At the time, the Kedyw in Warsaw was carrying out a series of assassinations of German Gestapo and SS henchmen in revenge for the torture of Polish prisoners.

On the same day, another Kedyw fighter, Andrzej Góral "Tomasz", carried out a successful assassination on Ewald Lange in front of the Apollo cinema on Three Crosses Square.

[3] Kryst arrived at the restaurant in the evening around 7:00 p.m. Two Home Army men were there for the purpose of covering his retreat: Jerzy Tabęcki "Lasso" and anonymous "Blondyn".

[6] More Gestapo arrived on the scene and held the Polish employees of Adria hostage until 5 a.m. After a brief investigation, Kryst was recognized as a Jewish fugitive from the ghetto.

[8] SS-Hauptsturmführer (Captain) Otto Söldner (born 4 June 1895 in Neukenroth [de]) died in Germany several weeks later, on 9 July 1943, as a result of the wounds he had sustained.

This fighter, going in full consciousness to his own death, was – Jan Kryst, a locksmith.In 1943, the Bureau of Information and Propaganda of the Home Army Headquarters published a book by Sławomir Dunin-Borkowski [pl], entitled Polska karząca (lit.

[7] The émigré poet Kazimierz Wierzyński mentioned Kryst in his poem dedicated to the dissolution of the Home Army:[7] Za mosty wysadzone z ręki robotniczej – Węszyć gdzie kto się ukrył, psy spuścić ze smyczy.