Only in his capacity of a voivode, he supervised the operation of nearby Bereza Kartuska; nonetheless, he also took a lot of interest in it, often to the detriment of communist prisoners whose sentences were sometimes prolonged extra-judicially.

[3] Also in 1932, Kostek-Biernacki published his best-known collection of horror stories and novellas called Straszny gość (Ghastly guest) under the pen name Brunon Kostecki.

The book featured six titles: "Twarda proswirka", "Straszny gość", "Zdradliwe żonki", "Zmora", "Kamienne krzyże", and "Chytrość Marusi".

He was arrested by the Communist secret police and after eight years without trial spent in Mokotów Prison, he was sentenced to death in April 1953 on the false charge of "supporting fascism."

In 1903 he joined the medical faculty of the John Casimir University and at the same time started studies at the Imperial Polytechnical Academy.

Within the structures of the Combat Organization of the Polish Socialist Party he adopted a nom-de-guerre of Kostek (diminutive of the given name of Konstanty), which he later added to his surname.

Constantly risking arrest and life imprisonment or forced resettlement to Siberia (a common penalty in Russia until the mid-20th century), he once again fled to Galicia, this time settling in Kraków, where he requested political asylum.

Under pressure from Russian diplomats the authorities of Austria-Hungary refused and Kostek-Biernacki had to flee to France, where he joined the French Foreign Legion.

He also returned to the John Casimir University to finish his medical studies and underwent the officers' military training within the Austro-Hungarian Army.

As chief of military police he presided the court martial and signed most sentences, often as high as capital punishment, for treason, collaboration with the Russians or attempts at harming the Austro-Hungarian war effort.

Factory workers' demonstration turned into a riot and city fights erupted, leaving 31 dead and more than 100 civilians wounded.

While Kostek-Biernacki argued he was in Kraków on vacations and did not take part in the riot, he was openly accused by some members of parliament and the press of attempting to start a workers' revolution with the aim of overthrowing the government.

The press and the National Democrats opposing Piłsudski speculated, that Kostek-Biernacki might have been involved in the disappearance of Gen. Włodzimierz Ostoja-Zagórski, which however was never proven.

In any case, around that time Wacław Kostek-Biernacki was made the military area commander of Brześć Litewski, first informally and then since 1930– officially.

According to various accounts, the fortress' commanding officer was particularly brutal against the incarcerated politicians, forcing them to do tedious and humiliating tasks, beating them and even staging executions without actually shooting them.

While his actions resulted in complete pacification of anti-Pilsudskiite opposition, he himself became particularly infamous and often presented in the press as a man without honour and Piłsudski's bull-terrier.

Wacław Kostek-Biernacki remained the voivode of Polesie until the outbreak of World War II in the effect of the Nazi-Soviet Pact.

The Commander-in-Chief Śmigły-Rydz replaced the Commissioner with Leon Kniaziołucki, but after the Soviet Union attacked Poland, the directive did not come into effect.

Waiting for his trial he spent 8 years on death row, initially together with a Nazi war criminal Erich Koch.

Wacław Kostek-Biernacki, once a Colonel of the Polish Army and one of the highest-ranking officials of Poland's administration spent the rest of his days in poverty, searching for his son Leszek Biernacki, whom he met for the last time in 1939.