back...Cursed Soldiers National Remembrance Day
On 1 March, we commemorate the Cursed Soldiers National Remembrance Day. This day was established in 2011 by the Sejm of the Republic of Poland to honour those who resisted the communist regime in the Polish anti-communist underground.
It was on 1 March 1951 that seven members of the 4th Board of the “Freedom and Independence” Association, including its president, Lieutenant Colonel Łukasz Ciepliński “Pług”, were executed in a Warsaw prison in Rakowiecka Street.
Following the entry of the Soviet army into Poland and the end of the Second World War, Joseph Stalin imposed a subservient communist government, meticulously carrying out orders from Moscow. In response, some soldiers of the anti-German underground continued their activities in secrecy. Others, facing arrest and lengthy imprisonment, were forced into hiding in the forests. Anti-communist organisations proliferated, including the “NIE” Organisation, the Armed Forces Delegation for Poland, the “Freedom and Independence” Association, the National Military Union, the Citizens' Home Army, the Home Army Resistance Movement and the Underground Polish Army.
Estimates suggest that between 120,000 and 180,000 people were active in the anti-communist underground, with over 20,000 partisans passing through forest units. Among these were around 11,000 young people aged 14 to 21, who were active in youth organisations. It is estimated that 8,600 insurgents were killed in combat, and nearly 80,000 were arrested, with 2,500 death sentences carried out. Many convicts died in prisons and camps. One of the last Cursed Soldiers, Józef Franczak “Lalek”, was killed in combat on 21 October 1963. This happened 18 years after the end of the Second World War.
Through the use of collective punishment, the families of the Cursed Soldiers, including their children, were also subjected to repression. Janusz Niemiec, son of Antoni and Janina Żubryd, was arrested as a young child and imprisoned for “collaboration with the Żubryd gang”.
Stanisław Wnorowski, whose mother Alicja was awaiting execution for passing secret information to the independence underground, was born in the death cell of the Rzeszów Castle prison. Even years later, the children of the Cursed Soldiers were stigmatised as “children of bandits”, and were often barred from attending university or securing employment.
