1939 – founder of the
TAP organisation and the secret agent of Polish resistance in
Auschwitz On 9 November 1939, two soldiers of the Polish army
Witold Pilecki and Major
Jan Włodarkiewiczfounded the
Secret Polish Army (
Tajna Armia Polska, TAP), one of the first underground organizations in Poland after defeat.
Kazimierz Piechowski, Stanisław Gustaw Jaster and Józef Lempart made a daring escape. On the night from 7 to 8 October 1942
Operation Wieniec started. It targeted rail infrastructure near Warsaw. Similar operations aimed at disrupting and harrying German transport and communication in
occupied Poland occurred in the coming months and years. It targeted railroads, bridges and supply depots, primarily near transport hubs such as Warsaw and
Lublin. In early 1943 two Polish janitors Some units of the AK tried to assist the ghetto rising, but for the most part, the resistance was unprepared and unable to defeat the Germans. One Polish AK unit, the
National Security Corps (
Państwowy Korpus Bezpieczeństwa), under the command of
Henryk Iwański ("Bystry"), fought inside the ghetto along with
ŻZW. Subsequently, both groups retreated together (including 34 Jewish fighters). Although Iwański's action is the most well-known rescue mission, it was only one of many actions undertaken by the Polish resistance to help the Jewish fighters. from the
Bug River. In August 1943 the headquarters of the
Armia Krajowa ordered
Operation Belt which was one of the large-scale anti-Nazi operations of the AK during the war. By February 1944, 13 German outposts were destroyed with few losses on the Polish side.
1944 during 1944
Warsaw Uprising On 11 February 1944 the Resistance fighters of Polish
Home Army's unit
Agat executed
Franz Kutschera,
SS and
Reich's Police Chief in Warsaw in action known as
Operation Kutschera. On 7 July,
Operation Ostra Brama started. Approximately 12,500 Home Army soldiers attacked the German garrison and managed to seize most of the city center. Heavy street fighting in the outskirts of the city lasted until 14 July. In Vilnius' eastern suburbs, the Home Army units cooperated with reconnaissance groups of the Soviet
3rd Belorussian Front. This was a World War II operation in which the Armia Krajowa in Poland provided information regarding the German V-2 Rockets to the Allies. Apart from the Armia Krajowa, several inhabitants of the town of Przybysławice also took part in the operation. Almost the entire town, specifically the youth of the town of Przybysławice, joined the Polish resistance or underground fight against the German enemy. A larger part of intelligence from the cities hid in this town during the war due to being pursued by the Gestapo. The most distinguished members of the resistance from this part of Poland during wartime included Paweł Lata, Tomasz Biś, Jan Szpara, Kazimierz Król, Jan Lechowicz, Mieczysław and Józef Wasiowie, Władysław Myśliński, Wawrzyniec Kusior, Jan and Roman Kuma, and Stanisław Gucwa. One of these members, Jan Szpara, was a headmaster of the school in Przybysławice who taught the youth the spirit of patriotism. He also prepared students for participation in choral and stage groups, which were highly valued in the area after the war. The photo of Jan on his wagon attached is owned and was added by a family member. He had been responsible for the transport of the rocket from the storage area in barns to eventually transport it to England during
Most (Wildhorn)|Operation III Most. In August 1944, as the Soviet armed forces approached Warsaw, the government in exile called for an uprising in the city, so that they could return to a liberated Warsaw and try to prevent a communist take-over. The AK, led by
Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski, launched the
Warsaw Uprising. The
Government Delegate, together with most members of the
Council of National Unity and the
C-i-C of the
Armia Krajowa, were invited by Soviet general
Ivan Serov with agreement of
Joseph Stalin to a conference on their eventual entry to the Soviet-backed Provisional Government. They were presented with a warrant of safety, yet they were arrested in
Pruszków by the
NKVD on 27 and 28 March.
Leopold Okulicki,
Jan Stanisław Jankowski and
Kazimierz Pużak were arrested on 27th with 12 more the next day. A. Zwierzynski had been arrested earlier. They were brought to Moscow for interrogation in the Lubyanka. After several months of brutal interrogation and torture, they were presented with the forged accusations of "
collaboration with
Nazi Germany" and "planning a military alliance with Nazi Germany". In the latter years of the war, there were
increasing conflicts between Polish and Soviet partisans.
Cursed soldiers continued to oppose the Soviets long after the war. The last cursed soldier – member of the militant
anti-communist resistance in Poland was
Józef Franczak who was killed with pistol in his hand by
ZOMO in 1963. On 5 May 1945 in
Bohemia, the
Narodowe Siły Zbrojne brigade liberated prisoners from a Nazi
concentration camp in
Holiszowo, including 280 Jewish women prisoners. The brigade suffered heavy casualties. On 7 May 1945 in the village of
Kuryłówka, southeastern Poland, the
Battle of Kuryłówka started. It was the biggest battle in the history of the
Cursed soldiers organization –
National Military Alliance (NZW). In battle against Soviet Union's
NKVD units anti-communist partisans shot 70 NKVD agents. The battle ended in a victory for the underground Polish forces. On 21 May 1945, a unit of the Armia Krajowa, led by Colonel
Edward Wasilewski,
attacked a NKVD camp in Rembertów on the eastern outskirts of Warsaw. The Soviets kept there hundreds of Poles, members of the Home Army, whom they were systematically
deporting to Siberia. However, this action of the
pro-independence Polish resistance freed all Polish political prisoners from the camp. Between 1944 and 1946, cursed soldiers attacked many communist prisons in Soviet-occupied Poland see
Raids on communist prisons in Poland (1944–1946). From 10 to 25 June 1945,
Augustów chase 1945 (the Polish
Obława augustowska) took place. It was a large-scale operation undertaken by Soviet forces of the
Red Army, the
NKVD and
SMERSH, with the assistance of Polish
UB and
LWP units against
former Armia Krajowa soldiers in the
Suwałki and
Augustów region in Poland. The operation also covered territory in occupied
Lithuania. More than 2,000 alleged Polish
anticommunist fighters were captured and detained in Russian
internment camps. 600 of the "Augustów Missing" are presumed dead and buried in an unknown location in the present territory of Russia. The Augustów Roundup was part of an anti-guerilla operation in Lithuania. == Formations ==