WWII Underground State Day marked in Poland

The Monument to Polish Underground State and the Home Army in Warsaw. Photo: wikipedia/Adrian Grycuk

The annual commemorative day was not introduced until 1998, almost a decade after the fall of communism, owing to the Underground State's loyalty to the Polish government-in-exile, which was initially based in France, before moving to London in 1940.

The first underground organisation, the Service for Poland's Victory (SZP), was put together in Warsaw on 27 September 1939 by General Michal Tokarzewski-Karaszewicz.

This evolved into a guerrilla army called the Union of Armed Struggle (ZWZ), which functioned in both the Nazi and Soviet-ruled parts of Poland.

ZWZ was renamed the Home Army (AK) in 1942.

However, the Underground State orchestrated a wide range of activities beyond the military sphere, with flying universities, clandestine printing presses, law courts, theatres and various cultural initiatives.

Although the Home Army was tasked with joining forces with the Red Army during the liberation of Poland from the Nazis in 1944, the Soviet secret police began arresting AK officers en masse.

On 1 August 1944, the AK launched the Warsaw Rising against the Germans, but what was intended to be a three-day insurrection became a 63-day struggle, as help from the Red Army failed to materialise.

When a Soviet-backed communist regime was installed in Poland in the wake of the war, arrests of former Home Army members continued, with deportations to Siberia, as well as death sentences meted out to top level leaders. (nh)

Source: IAR