The Cursed soldiers were the first to fight the communist regime in Poland after World War II. For most of them, it was the same fight that they decided to undertake in 1939 – the fight for the independence of their homeland. Only the enemy has changed.

During World War II, Poland established the Home Army (AK). In 1944, it numbered approximately 380,000-400,000 soldiers. In the oath that each of them took, they repeated the words „independence will be your reward, treason is punishable by death.”

After the entry of the Red Army in 1944 and the installation of the communist regime in Poland, the institutions of the Polish Underground State formally ceased to exist. But the dissolution of the Home Army on the 19th of January 1945 did not end its actual activities.

Despite the tragic situation in which Poland found itself after Tehran and Yalta, many soldiers remained faithful to the moral imperative to fight for independence. They believed that the outbreak of the Third World War was possible, in which the Western powers would defeat the Soviet Union and their fight would bring Poland freedom. These hopes quickly faded.

On the 6th of August 1945, the „Freedom and Independence” (WiN) association was established. In the years 1945-1947 it was the largest nationwide independence organisation, counting 30-40 thousand people. 

As the former head of the Institute of National Remembrance, Janusz Kurtyka once put it, “the goal of WiN was „to win the implementation of the principles of democracy in Poland in the Western European sense of the term (…) The first step to achieve the main goal is to win fair general elections to the new legislative Sejm.” This goal has not been achieved.

Poland’s new Communist rulers not only organised completely rigged elections in 1947, but launched a campaign of severe persecution of their political opponents. Hundreds of people got arrested by Soviet agents from the NKVD among others and suffered atrocious tortures during so-called interrogations. However, until the regime change of 1989, these Polish heroes were portrayed as thugs and criminals by the official Communist narrative.

The national remembrance day of the Cursed soldiers was established in 2010 by the former Polish President Lech Kaczyński. It falls on the 1st of March in commemoration of that same date in 1951, when the leaders of the 4th Main Board of the „Freedom and Independence” Association were shot after an unfair trial. 

Image: IPN

Author: Sébastien Meuwissen