Latest / The Story of Poland: A Nation That Refused to Disappear — Fexingo History / Poland's Cursed Soldiers: Anti-Communist Guerrillas 1944-1963
Transcript
- Lucas: So last time we talked about the Warsaw Uprising, the sheer tragedy of 1944. But when the uprising fell and the Red Army rolled in, for many Poles the war didn't end. It just changed uniforms. Luna: You mean they kept fighting? Lucas: Exactly. Thousands of former Home Army soldiers, partisans from other underground groups — they refused to accept Soviet domination. They took to the forests, the mountains, the swamps. They called themselves the Żołnierze Wyklęci — the Cursed Soldiers. And they fought on for nearly two decades, from 1944 all the way into the early 1960s. Luna: Cursed Soldiers — that's a heavy name. How did they get it? Lucas: It's a name the communists gave them, meant to brand them as bandits and traitors. After the war, the Soviet-backed government declared them enemies of the people. Their own countrymen were told these were criminals hiding in the woods. But for many Poles then and now, they were heroes — the last defenders of an independent Poland. Lucas: Now, these weren't just scattered bands. They had structure, leadership, and a cause. The core came from the Armia Krajowa, the Home Army, which formally dissolved in January 1945. But its commander, General Leopold Okulicki, had already set up a secret organization called NIE — 'No' in Polish, but also an acronym for 'Niepodległość', independence. Luna: So they were planning for this even before the war ended? Lucas: Yes. The Allies at Yalta had basically handed Poland to Stalin. The London government-in-exile realized they couldn't trust the Soviets. So NIE was meant to be an underground network to resist Sovietization. It was short-lived though — the Soviets arrested Okulicki in March 1945, and he was later murdered in Moscow. Lucas: Out of that collapse rose other groups. The most famous was the Delegatura Sił Zbrojnych, the Armed Forces Delegation, and later WiN — Wolność i Niezawisłość, Freedom and Independence. These were political-military organizations trying to coordinate resistance. But the real story is the men and women on the ground, the guerrilla fighters. Luna: Can you give me someone specific? Lucas: Let's talk about Major Zygmunt Szendzielarz, codename 'Łupaszko'. He was a cavalry officer in the pre-war Polish army, fought in the September Campaign of 1939, then joined the underground. In 1945, he formed the 5th Vilnius Brigade of the Home Army — a unit that operated in the Białystok region and further east. Lucas: Łupaszko's brigade was incredibly effective. They ambushed Soviet convoys, raided NKVD posts, and even freed prisoners from communist jails. At its peak, the brigade had over 500 men. But they were hunted relentlessly by the UB — the Urząd Bezpieczeństwa, the communist secret police. Luna: How did the UB operate? Were they like the NKVD? Lucas: Very much so. Many of their officers were trained by the NKVD. They used informants, torture, show trials. Their goal was to destroy the underground completely. And they had a lot of resources — the Soviet Union backed them fully. By 1947, the pressure was immense. Lucas: Another key figure was Captain Stanisław Sojczyński, codename 'Warszyc'. He commanded the Independent Operational Unit 'Warszyc' in the Radomsko region. He was known for his strict discipline and his refusal to harm civilians. His unit fought dozens of skirmishes with the UB and the KBW, the Internal Security Corps. Luna: So they had rules of engagement? Lucas: They tried to. Many of these commanders had a code of honor — they saw themselves as soldiers, not bandits. But the situation was desperate. They had to rely on local support for food, shelter, information. And the communists were ruthless in punishing anyone who helped them. Entire villages were pacified, burned down, people deported. Lucas: One of the darkest episodes was the Augustów Roundup in July 1945. Soviet and Polish security forces surrounded the Augustów Forest in northeastern Poland. They rounded up over 7,000 people — mostly men, but also women and children. They were taken to Soviet camps, interrogated, and likely executed en masse. Only a handful survived. Luna: 7,000 people? That's a massacre. Lucas: It was. And it was just one of many. The communists called these 'cleansing operations'. The goal was to break the backbone of the resistance by terrorizing the civilian population. And it worked, to a degree. By the late 1940s, most of the large units had been destroyed or forced to disband. Lucas: But some kept fighting. The very last Cursed Soldier was Józef Franczak, codename 'Lalek'. He was a former Home Army soldier who never surrendered. He operated alone in the forests around Lublin for years, evading capture. On October 21, 1963 — almost two decades after the war — he was cornered by the ZOMO, the communist riot police, and killed in a shootout. Luna: 1963. That's the year Kennedy was assassinated. It's incredible he lasted that long. Lucas: It is. And his death marks the end of the Cursed Soldiers. But for the communist government, the story was over much earlier. They had successfully erased these fighters from public memory. In official history, the Cursed Soldiers were criminals and fascists. Their names were removed from monuments, their graves unmarked. Luna: When did that start to change? Lucas: After the fall of communism in 1989. Gradually, historians and activists began to uncover the truth. They found mass graves, declassified documents, tracked down surviving veterans. In 2011, the Polish parliament established March 1st as the National Day of Remembrance of the Cursed Soldiers. That date was chosen because on March 1, 1951, the communists executed seven members of the underground leadership in a Warsaw prison. Luna: So now they're honored as heroes? Lucas: For many Poles, yes. But it's not without controversy. Some historians point out that a few Cursed Soldier units committed atrocities against civilians, particularly against ethnic Ukrainians and Jews. The underground was not monolithic — there were extreme nationalist elements. So the legacy is complicated. But the core story — of men and women who refused to accept foreign domination, who fought against overwhelming odds — that resonates deeply in Polish national identity. Lucas: And it's a story that was almost lost. The communists tried to erase them, but they couldn't. Today, there are museums, documentaries, and a growing body of research. The Cursed Soldiers are finally getting the recognition they deserve — even if the full truth is still emerging. Luna: It makes you wonder how many other stories like this are out there, hidden in the margins of history. Lucas: Exactly. And that's why we do this show.