So that cursed would not be forgotten

Today in Poland is celebrated Memorial Day of Cursed Soldiers. The subject in Lithuania is soldiers who had withdrawn from the occupied territories of Wehrmacht troops continued to fight, but with a new invader, it is still a contentious issue. And all because the post-war occupation of Lithuania by the Soviet Union is clearly perceived as occupation, is – according to the official Vilnius – the fight against the occupation by the Polish underground was unlawful.

In People’s Poland Polish underground soldiers struggle with the Soviet NKVD and the pro-Soviet imposed rule was considered to be unlawful, and thousands of soldiers who died after the war, to fight for an independent homeland were not only excommunicated, but also the memory of them tried to be erased. Only political changes after 1989 helped to restore, and above all to commemorate the heroes and places of their struggle for freedom.

In Lithuania, there are few places as part of the Polish underground army troops moved from Vilnius to Podlasie and they continued to fight. Few other underground resistance forces were liquidated by the NKVD and the Soviet Army.

– One of those memory places was in Ławżach , a village between Turgielami Onżadowem (now a town in Belarus). Today there are bare fields, because the whole village NKVD burned in the winter of 1945, and its inhabitants where murdered by the soldiers of one of the last in the Vilnius branch underground resistance movement. 60 people died there – mentions Edward Klonowski, vice president of the Polish Combatants Association Charitable Lithuania.

It a place of memorial fallen commemorates a modest monument and a shrine, which in 1995 was put by veterans and war veterans.

Three nurses managed to escape the massacre in Ławżach. One of them probably lives today in Wroclaw.

Another place of mass execution of participants self-Vilnius is now under Nowogrodek in Belarus. According to Edward Klonowski, at the end of World War II, at the hands of the NKVD was about 80 people killed.

Meanwhile, most of the soldiers of the Polish underground, mostly division of Zygmunt Edward Szendzielarz – the legendary “Lupaszka” of Vilnius – the Grodno reached the vicinity of Bialystok, where he resumed the fight against Soviet troops and forces allied with Moscow’s post-war Polish communist authorities.

After the transformation of the armed Home Army troops in early April 1945, near the village Oleksin in the district Bielsk Podlaski took place a  mobilization of troops of a  famous AK Vilnius 5 Brigade, which became a division of dispositional Citizen Army Headquarters. In mid-May 1945, the Brigade had about 200 people. It operated until mid-1948, in June of this year, worked out and crashed UB Vilnius District Army and its leader was arrested. “Lupaszka” was transferred to Warsaw and jailed in Mokotów. He stayed there until 8 February 1951, in the process, former members of the Vilnius District AK “Lupaszka” sentenced to death. Judgment was made ​​on February 8, 1951

Also on the 8 February, but in 2009 at the initiative of late President of the Institute of National Remembrance Janusz Kurtyka and George Szmid on the first General Meeting of the Association of NZS 1980 was a  resolution adopted supporting the initiative of the World Association of Home Army, the establishment on 1 March Day of Cursed Soldiers. Post-war independence conspiracy was – until a “Solidarity” – the largest form of organized resistance to the Polish society imposed authority. In the most active armed underground, 1945, it operated directly from 150 to 200 thousand conspirators. 20 thousand of them fought in partisan. The next few hundred thousand people were providing partisans chandlers, interview, shelter and communications, and 20 thousand – students of the underground youth organizations opposed to the Communists. Altogether, this group of over half a million people formed the community of Cursed Soldiers.

Today, March 1, the day is celebrated with the construction of a virtual monument and placing flowers at memorials and educational equity throughout the country.

In Lithuania, a few years ago, tried to organize together a Polish-Lithuanian exhibition commemorating Polish Cursed Soldiers and Lithuanian partisan soldiers of resistance movement. The “unknown” reasons, however, have failed to have an exhibition on the Lithuanian side.

Source: http://kurierwilenski.lt/2013/02/28/by-wykleci-nie-byli-zapomniani/

Tłumaczenie Katarzyna Dąbrowska w ramach praktyk w Europejskiej Fundacji Praw Człowieka, www.efhr.eu. Translated by Katarzyna Dąbrowska the framework of a traineeship programme of the European Foundation of Human Rights, www.efhr.eu.