ZOLNIERZE WYKLECI Freedom Fighters Wieliczka Szarkowa

Żołnierze wyklęci. Niezłomni bohaterowie, by Joanna Wieliczka-Szarkowa. 2013

Polish Irregular Fighters for Freedom Against the Soviet-Imposed Communist Puppet Government

THE CURSED SOLDIERS: INDOMITABLE HEROES is the title of this Polish-language work. It focuses on the post-WWII Polish anti-Communist guerrilla movements, with the book organized according to chapter on 33 specific commanders and their guerrilla units. Owing to the wealth of information presented, I can only focus on a few issues.

The anti-Red WiN (WOLNOSC I NIEZAWISLOSC) consisted of 30,000-40,000 members in 1945-1947. (p. 33). Other organizations had memberships with unspecified numbers.

After so many decades of silence and slander, the ZOLNIERZE WYKLECI finally received their long-overdue recognition. March 1, beginning in 2011, has been set aside to honor them. (p. 17, 26).

THE NATURE OF COMMUNISM

Contrary to some leftist apologists, it is obvious that Communism in Poland had unambiguously been a Soviet import. The dreaded Soviet NKVD followed on the heels of the Red Army. It did not begin to withdraw from Poland until the fall of 1946 (p. 38), nearly two years after the Soviet “liberation” of Poland. Even then, President Boleslaw Bierut requested that the 64th division of the NKVD remain in Poland through March 1947. After that, the Polish Communist units were often commanded by Soviet officers. (p. 38).

The author quotes an UBEK (Bezpieka) member who said what was to be done to anti-Communist Poles, “Our assignment is not just to destroy you physically. We must also destroy you morally in the eyes of Polish society.” (p. 24). [Since today’s neo-Marxists and neo-Stalinists cannot do the former, they, in their tactics against those who disagree with them, focus on the latter.]

“MSCISLAW”

Wladyslaw Liniarski “Mscislaw” , of the Bialystok-area A. K. (ARMIA KRAJOWA) disobeyed Leopold Okulicki’s January 1945 order to disband. He commented, “The war goes on! So long as there is on Polish soil a single conquering soldier or foreign combatant, the war goes on!” (p. 218). He then elaborated on Soviet crimes against Poland, the most recent of which were murders, imprisonments, rapes of Polish women and girls, mass confiscations of Polish industrial and other equipment, and systematic looting of individual Poles. (p. 218).

“OLECH”

The unit commanded by Anatol Radziwonik functioned in the northern part of the Soviet-confiscated Kresy, mainly in the Nowogrodek area, especially near Szczuczyn and Lida. His unit had not only Poles, but also Byelorussians, Ukrainians, Russians, deserters from the Red Army, and even an Alsatian German deserter from the Wehrmacht. (p. 101, 104). “Olech” and his unit assassinated NKVD functionaries and informers. His actions delayed the local Soviet implementation of the kolkhoz (collective farming). (p. 107). “Olech” fell in combat in 1949. Some of his soldiers astonishingly kept fighting until the mid-1950’s, and, of these, Stanislaw Mowlik “Jelen” did not give himself up to the NKVD until the spring of 1957. (p. 111).

POIGNANT LAST WORDS OF A POLISH FREEDOM FIGHTER

Lukasz Cieplinski “Plug” was awarded the Virtuti Militari, from General Kutrzeba, for his heroism during the Battle of the Bzura in the 1939 War. He single-handedly wiped out eight German Panzers, of which two were German Commander tanks. (p. 114).

After the German occupation of Poland was replaced by the Soviet occupation of Poland in 1944, Cieplinski joined the WiN (WOLNOSC I NIEZAWISLOSC). He was captured by the U. B. (Bezpieka), and sentenced to death. As he awaited his execution, he wrote these moving words to his wife, which were smuggled out (I translate): “We made a Christmas tree and sang carols” covertly, because prayers out loud are forbidden. I devote the cross I am carrying to the Newly Born Child. I ask- will our sacrifices be for naught, will our unfulfilled dreams rise from the dead, will little Andrew [our son] continue the ideals of his father? I believe that they won’t, that the dreams will rise, and son will replace the father, and the Polish nation will regain her independence. The Mother of God will assuage your pain. I have only this grievance towards Christ- namely, that He is making me die under these conditions, and not on the battlefield of honor. They [Communists] have made out of me a criminal, a traitor, but surely you know the best that I have never intentionally harmed anyone& I delight in the fact that I am being murdered as a Catholic for my faith, as a Pole fighting for his Nation, and as a champion of truth and justice.” (pp. 118-119).

Before being shot in the back of the head Katyn-style, Cieplinski managed to swallow his medallion. He reckoned that this may help in the eventual location of his remains, which the Communists would bury in an unmarked grave, as indeed they did. (p. 121).

WHO BETRAYED JOZEF FRANCZAK “LALEK” ?

“Lalek” continued fighting until falling in combat on October 21, 1963. This was nearly twenty years from the start of the second Soviet occupation of Poland!

Finally, we know the identity of the Pole who had betrayed him. It was “Michal” , that is, Stanislaw Mazur, who had been paid a handsome 5 thousand zloty. This is five average worker’ s wages. (p. 411).

[In Holocaust literature, Jews often make much of the fact that Poles sometimes denounced fugitive Jews to the Nazis for financial or other rewards. “Lalek’ s” demise reminds us that Poles could also be found that would denounce a fellow Pole if the price was right. But the Holocaust establishment makes no big deal of that.]