Cursed soldiers

Formation of the anti-communist underground

Uniform of a Polish anticommunist fighter, with breast badge displaying image of the Black Madonna of Częstochowa

The first AK structure designed primarily to deal with the Soviet threat was NIE (short for niepodległość "independence", and also meaning "no"), formed in mid-1943. NIE's goal was not to engage Soviet forces in combat, but rather to observe and conduct espionage while the Polish government-in-exile decided how to deal with the Soviets. At that time, the exiled government still believed that a solution leading to Poland's post-war independence could be found through negotiations.

On 7 May 1945, NIE was disbanded and transformed into the Delegatura Sił Zbrojnych na Kraj ("Armed Forces Delegation for Homeland"). However, this organization lasted only until August 8, 1945, when the decision was made to disband it and to stop partisan resistance on Polish territory.^[8]

In March 1945 a staged trial of 16 leaders of the Polish Underground State, who had been captured and imprisoned by the Soviet Union took place in Moscow (the Trial of the Sixteen).^{[11][12][13][14]} The Government Delegate, together with most members of the Council of National Unity and the Commander-in-Chief of the Armia Krajowa, were invited by Soviet general Ivan Serov, with the agreement of Joseph Stalin, to a conference on their eventual entry into the Soviet-backed Provisional Government. They were presented with a warrant of safety, but the NKVD arrested them in Pruszków on 27 and 28 March.^[15][16] Leopold Okulicki, Jan Stanisław Jankowski and Kazimierz Pużak were arrested on the 27th and 12 more the following day. Alexander Zwierzynski had already been detained earlier. They were all taken to the Lubyanka prison in Moscow for interrogation prior to the trial.^[17][18][19] After several months of brutal interrogation and torture^[20] they were charged with false accusations of "collaboration with Nazi Germany" and of "planning a military alliance with Nazi Germany".^[21][22]

The Polish Committee of National Liberation declined jurisdiction over former AK soldiers. Consequently, for more than a year, it was Soviet agencies like the NKVD that dealt with the AK. By the end of the war, approximately 60,000 soldiers of the AK had been arrested, and 50,000 of them were deported to the Soviet Union's prisons and prison camps. Most of those soldiers had been captured by the Soviets during or in the aftermath of Operation Tempest, when many AK units tried to cooperate with the Red Army during their nationwide uprising against the Germans.

Other veterans were arrested when they decided to approach the communist authorities after being promised amnesty. In 1947, the government of the People's Republic of Poland proclaimed an amnesty for most of the wartime resistance fighters. The authorities expected around 12,000 people to give up their arms, but the actual number of partisans to come out of the forests eventually reached 53,000. Many of them were arrested despite promises of freedom; and after repeated broken promises during the first few years of communist rule, former AK members refused to trust the government.^[8]

After the Delegatura Sił Zbrojnych na Kraj ("Armed Forces Delegation for Homeland") was disbanded, another post-AK resistance organisation was formed, called Wolność i Niezawisłość ("Freedom and Sovereignty"). Its primary goal was not combat - Wolność i Niezawisłość (WiN) was more concerned with helping former AK soldiers make the transition from a life as partisans to that of civilians. Continued secrecy and conspiracy were necessary in light of the increasing persecution of AK veterans by the communist government. WiN was, however, much in need of funds to pay for false documents and to provide resources for the partisans, many of whom had lost their homes and entire life-savings in the war. Viewed as enemies of the state, starved of resources, and with a vocal faction advocating armed resistance against the Soviets and their Polish proxies, WiN was far from efficient. A significant victory for the NKVD and the newly created Polish secret police, Urząd Bezpieczeństwa (UB), came in the second half of 1945, when they managed to convince several leaders of WiN that they truly wanted to offer amnesty to AK members. Within a few months, intelligence gathered by the authorities led to thousands more arrests.^[8] The primary period of WiN activity lasted until 1947. The organisation finally disbanded in 1952.^[23]

Persecution

"The Giant and the Reactionary Spittle-Covered Dwarf". A postwar Polish communist propaganda poster showing a soldier of the Polish People's Army striding over a partisan of the Armia Krajowa (Home Army).

The NKVD and UB used brute force and deception to eliminate the underground opposition. In the autumn of 1946, a group of 100–200 accursed soldiers of Narodowe Siły Zbrojne (National Armed Forces, NSZ) were lured into a trap and massacred. In 1947, Colonel Julia ("Bloody Luna") Brystiger of the Polish Ministry of Public Security proclaimed at a security briefing that: "[t]he terrorist and political underground" had ceased to be a threatening force for the UB, although the "class enemy" at universities, offices and factories still had to be "found out and neutralised."^[8]

The persecution of AK members was only one aspect of the reign of Stalinist terror in postwar Poland. In the period from 1944 to 1956, at least 300,000 Polish civilians were arrested,^[24] although some sources claim numbers up to two million.^[8] Approximately 6,000 death sentences were issued, and the majority of them were carried out.^[24] It is probable that over 20,000 people died in communist prisons including those executed "in the majesty of the law" such as Witold Pilecki, a hero of Auschwitz.^[8]

A further six million Polish citizens (i.e., one out of every three adult Poles) were classified as suspected members of a 'reactionary or criminal element' and subjected to investigation by state agencies. During the Polish October of 1956, a political amnesty freed 35,000 former AK soldiers from prisons. Nevertheless, some partisans remained in service, unwilling or simply unable to rejoin the civilian community. The cursed soldier Stanisław Marchewka "Ryba" ("The Fish") was killed in 1957, and the last AK partisan, Józef Franczak "Lalek" ("Doller"), was killed in 1963 — almost two decades after the Second World War ended. Four years later, long after the abolition of Stalinist terror, the last member of the elite British-trained Cichociemny ("The Silent and Hidden") intelligence and support group, Adam Boryczka was finally released from prison (1967). Until the end of the People's Republic of Poland, former AK soldiers were under constant investigation by the secret police. It was only in 1989, after the fall of communism, that the convictions of AK soldiers were finally declared invalid and annulled by Polish law.^[8]

Pacification

One of the biggest anti-partisan operations by the communist authorities took place from 10–25 June 1945, in and around the Suwałki and Augustów regions of Poland. The "Augustów roundup" (Polish: Obława augustowska) was a joint operation of the Red Army, the Soviet NKVD, and SMERSH battalions with assistance from Polish UB and LWP units, against Armia Krajowa resistance fighters. The operation extended into the territory of occupied Lithuania. More than 2,000 suspected anti-communist Polish fighters were captured and detained in Soviet internment camps. About 600 of the "Augustow Missing" are presumed to have died in Soviet custody, their bodies buried in unknown mass graves on the present territory of Russia. The Polish Institute of National Remembrance has declared the 1945 Augustów roundup to be "the largest crime committed by the Soviets on Polish lands after World War II."^[31]