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Zolnierze Wykleci - Zapomniani Bohaterowie is the most comprehensive Polish language website dedicated to the individual members and units of the Polish Democratic Underground from Home Army, |
| National Armed Forces, Wolnosc i Niezwislosc (WiN), and other patriotic organizations resisting Nazi and Soviet occupation of Poland. Click here to visit the "Zolnierze Wykleci" website. |
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Institute of National Remembrance, Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation.
One of the many Commission's activities include examinations and prosecutions pertaining |
| to deportations of the Home Army (AK) soldiers and soldiers of other formations fighting for independence of Poland as well as the deportations of inhabitants from the Eastern parts of former Poland into the territory of the Soviet Union. The Commission is also responsible for investigating crimes committed by members of the Army Intelligence (pol. "informacja") and Ministry of Public Security (MBP). |
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The Foundation "Pamietamy" [engl. "We Remember" The primary goal of the Foundation "Pamietamy" is restoration of the proper social and historical place for the individuals who during second half of the 1940's, and beginning of the 1950's, undertook armed resistance against the Communist regime in Poland. |
| The goal of the foundation is to commemorate those, who in the name of freedom, and in the name of human dignity, laid on the altar of freedom their own personal and professional aspirations, their personal freedoms, and above all, their lives. (In Polish) |
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Freedom And Independence - Zrzeszenie "Wolność i Niezawisłość", WiN: The emergence of an armed anti-communist resistance during 1944-1956, with particular emphasis on 1947, underscores the psychological condition of the Polish society at large. It was an act of desperate protest against the Soviet military might, brought upon Poland and its citizens under the banner of the conjured Communist Polish Workers’ Party (PPR). |
| The public disclosure of the provisions agreed to by the “Allies” in Tehran and Yalta, which conceded to the Soviet political and territorial demands for Poland, dramatically altered the political landscape, leaving it under the Soviet sphere of control. |
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National Armed Forces (pol. Narodowe Sily Zbrojne) [In Polish] - This informative website is maintained by former NSZ officer and President of the National Armed Forces Ex-Servicemen Association, Dr. Bohdan Szucki, nom de guerre "Artur". In Polish. Please see English language version here. |
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Narodowe Sily Zbrojne [In Polish] |
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Soviet-Nazi Relations 1939-1941 - Documents from the Archives of The German Foreign Office Edited by Raymond James Sontag and James Stuart Beddie, Department of State, 1948. |
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Polish Home Army ex-Servicement Association - Montreal Branch - The discovery of Germany's secret rocket armaments research centre and munitions factories in Peenemunde, and their subsequent bombardment, constituted a decisive element in the outcome of World War II. |
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The Katyn Massacre Museum | Muzeum Zbrodni Katynskiej |
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Electronic Museum"Just before the outbreak of World War II, in 1937 and 1938, 143,810 Poles living in the Soviet Union were officially charged with one thing or another as a part of Stalin's war on national minorities - they were the first to be targeted on purely ethnic grounds. |
| Of these 139,835 were sentenced administratively, that is, without following the usual legal procedures. All told, 111,091 of them were executed. Poles accounted for about 40 percent of the victims of the Stalinist purges aimed at national minorities. Such abysmal numbers are absolutely staggering to the normal, healthy mind. And every one of these 'numbers" had a first and last name and a life - such as it was - before his or her dislocation or 'liquidation'. But a greater tragedy was yet to follow - during the 1939-41 Soviet occupation of Poland and in the postwar years". Source: Dr. Tadeusz Piotrowski, "DEPORTATION, 'AMNESTY', AND THE POLISH DIASPORA", Please Visit the Electronic Museum To Learn More |
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The Forgotten Holocaust - Who Were the Five Million Non-Jewish Holocaust Victims?
"Of the 11 million people killed during the Holocaust, six million were Polish citizens. Three million were Polish Jews and another three million were Polish Christians and Catholics. Most of the remaining mortal victims were from other countries including Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Ukraine, Russia, Holland, France and even Germany". Terese Pencak Schwartz, the author of this important website poignantly asks: "[...] what about "the others"? There were five million of them. Who were they? Whose children, whose mothers and fathers were they? How could five million human beings have been killed and forgotten?"
Visit the Holocaust Forgotten to learn more.
In the photo: Polish Boy Scouts (pol. Harcerze)- The Warsaw Uprising, 1944. |
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A Forgotten Odyssey - This site is connected to 'A Forgotten Odyssey', a recent documentary film by Jagna Wright and Aneta Naszynska. |
| It deals with the forgotten tragedy of 1.7 million Polish citizens of various faiths and ethnicities (Polish, Ukrainian, Belorussian, Catholic, Orthodox, Jewish) deported from eastern Poland (Kresy) in 1940-42 to special labour camps in Siberia, Kazakhstan and Soviet Asia. Some 120,000 of these escaped through Persia in 1942 as soldiers of Anders Army and their families - and eventually made their way to the West because their pre-war homeland was consigned by the Allies to remain under the hated Soviet regime. The circumstances of their odyssey and the tragic history of the Polish citizens under Soviet occupation during the war was hushed up by the Allies during the war to protect the reputation of the Soviet Union, an important ally in the war against the Nazis. After years of courageous suffering, followed by heroic efforts fighting at the side of the Allies in Africa, Italy and Europe, the staunchly anti-communist Polish soldiers were prevented from even participating in the Allied victory celebrations. View the "Forgotten Odyssey" online ... |
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Poland in Exile: This web site is dedicated to the men and women who left Poland to fight against the Nazis and Russian Communism in the 1939 - 1945 War. These pages are a tribute to their unselfish valour and acts as a memorial in their honour. The following pages are not about major battles or great leaders but are dedicated to ordinary individuals. |
| Their escape stories are some of the war's best adventure stories where bravery and military training in field-craft together with luck saved them from death or the gulags. Many of these stories remain largely untold to even those who we may regard as the 'nearest and dearest'. |
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At the conclusion of World War I, various groups of American veterans of Polish descent formed organizations for the purpose of maintaining and preserving the true spirit of fraternity and patriotism that arose from service in the Armed Forces of the United States and to perpetuate the friendships arising there from by mutual aid and cooperation in patriotic, charitable, educational and civic activities. |
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Memorial. International Historical - Enlightment Human Rights And Humanitarian Society Memorial. Memorial is a movement which arose in the years of perestroika. Its main task was the awakening and preservation of the societal memory of the severe political persecution in the recent past of the Soviet Union. |
Memorial is a community of dozens of organizations in different regions of Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Latvia, and Georgia.
Memorial is a group of specialized research, human rights, and education centers in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and several other cities.
Memorial is a museum, a repository of documents, and a number of specialized libraries. |
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Internet Portal Human Rights in Russia |
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Reconciliation of European Histories is an informal group of Members of the European Parliament. The task of true reunification of European history based on truth and remembrance is not completed ... |
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“The war had began …” these were the words of the announcer on the Polish Radio on September 1, 1939 […] Every nation has its own perception of war, each concentrates on its own suffering, and each embarks on building its own understanding of the past. For some, the war began in 1939, for others in 1940, or in 1941. |
| There is no agreement as to its outcome. For the nations of the Central and Eastern Europe, it culminated in the second occupation, this time brought upon by the Soviet Union. Visit Muzeum II Wojny Swiatowej. In Polish. |
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The Corps of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers - Museum of Technology.
The Weapons Collection |
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The Cold War Museum is a non-profit organization dedicated to education, preservation, and research on the global, ideological, and political confrontations between East and West from the end of World War II to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. |
| Virtual exhibits, photos, and resources are online source for Cold War research and history. Visit the Cold War Museum. |
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Association of Former Intelligence Officers AFIO members subscribe to the US intelligence community’s core values of patriotism, excellence, integrity, dedication and loyalty. |
| By understanding the history of intelligence from its ancient world underpinnings to twenty-first century wizardry, AFIO’s key objectives and principles are to support today’s needs and foster forward thinking ... Visit AFIO website to learn more ... |
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The World Factbook provides information on the history, people, government, economy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for 266 world entities. The Reference tab includes: maps of the major world regions, as well as Flags of the World, a Physical Map of the World, a Political Map of the World, and a Standard Time Zones of the World map. |
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Nation's Memory Institute - The Slovak Republic. |
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Office for the Documentation and the Investigation of the Crimes of Communist Police of the Czech Republic |
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Federal Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the former German Democratic Republic (BStU) |
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Historical Archives of the Hungarian State Security |
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The Museum's goal is to portray life of Latvia and Latvians during the three occupation periods. The items in the exhibition tell about Latvia during the more than fifty year long subjugation: about power politics, about Soviet and Nazi terror, about the destruction of Latvia's economy, about Soviet and Nazi totalitarian ideologies, about the opposition to the regimes, and finally, about how the Latvian nation regained its freedom in 1991. |
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The Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, the Czech Republic. |
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Genocide And Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania - International Commission For The Evaluation of The Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania.
The Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania is a state institution which investigates all manifestations of genocide and crimes against humanity, the persecution during the Soviet and Nazi |
| occupations, and the armed and peaceful resistance to the occupations. It also gives juridical evaluations of the perpetrators of the reprisals and genocide, and immortalises the memory of the freedom fighters and genocide victims. |
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The Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes in Romania: The main objectives of the Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes in Romania are the gathering of data, documents and testimonies regarding all oppressive actions exerted by the system, as well as the notification of the state’s criminal investigation departments. |
| In addition, one of the Institute’s major priorities is the objective informing of the large public on the crimes, abuses and instigations to crime, undertaken in the name of ‘class struggle’ by the powerful people within the communist system. Moreover, the necessity of establishing and maintaining close connections with the victims of the communist regime is also taken into account by the Institute’s experts. |
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The Warsaw Uprising Museum- "In the middle of August, the Americans plan to make a big airdrop over Warsaw. However, to carry out the plan, it is necessary to land on Soviet airfields. The U.S. ambassador in Moscow receives information that the Soviet government will not give its permission because the Rising was inspired by 'enemies of the Soviet Union.' |
| A British pilot Stanley Johnson comments: 'If only we could have landed there, we could have taken an additional load [...] I could never understand the Russians standing on the other side of the Vistula River.”"The Warsaw Uprising will culminate in the death of 15,200 insurgents killed and missing, 5,000 wounded, and other 15,000 sent to POW camps. Among civilians 200,000 will die, and approximately 700,000 will be expelled from the city. Approximately 55,000 civilians will be sent to concentration camps, including 13,000 to Auschwitz. To Learn More About the Epic Warsaw Uprising And Its Aftermath, Please Click Here |
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Foundation for the Investigation of Communist crimes. Communist crimes need to be understood globally, and they must be condemned the same way Nazi crimes were. In pursuing its mission, the Foundation gathers data regarding Communist crimes and Red terror across the world, provides grants for scholarly research, disseminates |
| information globally via modern communication channels, and supports experts advising the last remaining communist regimes in their transformation to democracies. |
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Polish Resistance In World War II - "300,000 strong at its peak it is credited with supplying the Allies with constant intelligence information about the eastern front, providing information about the V-1 rocket in Peenemunde, the sending over to Britain of the V-2 rocket, the sabotage and destruction of German supply trains and communication centers". Read More |
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Katyn, The Movie - "After 3 April, 1940, at least 22,436 [Polish] POWs and prisoners of war were executed by the Soviet NKVD: 15,131 POWs (most or all of them from the three camps) and at least 7,305 prisoners in western parts of [the Soviet Republics of] Belarus and Ukraine. [...]". THE UNITED STATE HOUSE OF THE REPRESENTATIVES, REPORT NO. 2505 82ND CONGRESS CONCERNING THE KATYN FOREST MASSACRE READS: "The Katyn massacre was one of the most barbarous international crimes in world history". |
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HistoricalEye.com: We are the last generation of historians able to question those men and women who were alive and in the centre of events. Yes oral history is full of pitfalls and often raises more questions than answers, but not to record the voices and memories of those that are left would be nothing short of an academic loss of unimaginable proportions. |
| I hope readers will find the stories of the Poles in WW2 of particular interest. The Poles' war record, while ably recorded in their mother tongue, has, for one reason or another, often been overlooked by English-speaking historians. |
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As the Jewish people’s living memorial to the Holocaust, Yad Vashem safeguards the memory of the past and imparts its meaning for future generations. |
| Established in 1953, as the world center for documentation, research, education and commemoration of the Holocaust, Yad Vashem is today a dynamic and vital place of intergenerational and international encounter. For over half a century, Yad Vashem has been committed to four pillars of remembrance: Commemoration, Documentation, Research, Education. |
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South African Pilots over Warsaw in 1944, The Warsaw Airlift - "The Airlift could not save the gallant Polish [Home] Army. While the Polish army was being destroyed, the Russians sat idly by a bare 20 miles (32 km) away. The Polish government in London appealed to the Russians for help or simply co-operation, but Stalin flatly refused |
| even to grant permission for aircraft based in Britain to land behind Russian lines. The Airlift failed in its purpose but it served to cement a bond between Poles and South Africans based on mutual respect and sincere friendship. Evidence of this are the annual commemoration services arranged by our local Polish community. But there is further evidence, and in this lies a wonderful story. A letter from the Director of Information Services of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, tells of a selfless and public-spirited Pole, one Bronislaw Kowalski, who has, on his own initiative, and over a period of years, erected a shrine in the woods near the village of Michalin, some thirty kilometers south-east of Warsaw. The shrine marks the exact spot where a S.A.A.F. Liberator crashed in flames at midnight on 14/15 August 1944". Source: The South African Military History Society |
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"The official name of the Memorial is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. It is sometimes referred to as VVM or "the Wall". The figures are called "The Three Servicemen". This is not a war Memorial but a Memorial to those who served in the war, both living and dead. Visit the Vietnam Veternas Memorial. |
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Polish WW II Graves - "Polish WW II graves in Western Europe are marked by crosses and headstones which vary greatly in shape and material. This are a number of reasons for this phenomenon. |
| When Polish units liberated a particular area, regimental units, colloquially called "Lapiduchy" (soul-catchers), were despatched to search for soldiers killed in action. They identified the dead by means of nametags which soldiers wore about their neck. The dead were buried in linen bags and the graves were marked by a provisional iron, aluminium or wooden cross. Sometimes burial took place on the very spot where a body was found. But the dead were also buried in existing cemeteries, if this was feasible." ... Click here to visit this website. |
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The Kresy-Siberia Group is "dedicated to researching, remembering and recognizing the Polish citizens deported, enslaved and killed by the Soviet Union during World War Two" |
| It was established by a number of survivors and their descendants to tell the stories of the "Polish Gehenna" to the world. We have an active discussion group, a website, memorial wall and online gallery containing thousands of photographs and documents posted by our members. |
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The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, a non-profit educational organization, was established by an Act of Congress to build a memorial in Washington, D.C. to commemorate the more than 100 million victims of communism. |
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Polish Troops in Italian Campaign: Prior to arriving in Italy, the Corps totaled 45,000 men. The 3rd Division had 13,200; the 5th Division 12,900; and the 2nd Armoured Brigade 3,400. There was concern as to how they would recieve replacement troops. |
| The British High Command wanted to use the Polish Corps as a replacment pool. This would deplete their organization and they would loose their identity. The Polish command was able to convince the Allies to recruit from soldiers who had been forced to serve in the German Army. They were allowed to fight as a unit. After arriving in Italy, the Polish Corps swelled to a force of 110,000. The Poles were to prove their bravery in the Battle of Monte Cassino. |
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Lambinowice-Opole Museum - During World War 2, Lamsdorf was one of the largest Nazi camp complexes in Europe. At that time, 300 thousand soldiers of the anti-Nazi coalition, belonging to almost 50 nations, were interned here (including nearly 200 thousand Soviet POWs).
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| After the end of WW II, during 1945-1946, this camp was used by Soviet and Polish Communist secret police organizations to imprison German civilians. It is estimated that between 1,000 and 1,500 innocent German civilians died as a result of sickness and maltreatment in the Lambinowice Concentration Camp alone. Read more about Lambinowice-Opole Camp here. |
| Operation "Jodla," the internment of members of the opposition, began at 11:00 pm on the night of December 12, even before the formal introduction of martial law by the Council of State. More than 3 thousand people were interned during the first night of the operation, including almost all members of Solidarity’s National Commission. Read More About Internment Camps Here ... |
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The Soviet Invasion of Poland. September 17, 1939. “We were completely disoriented, we had no idea about the Ribbentrop-Molotow pact. We did not know if they [the Soviet army] were coming to join us in our fight against the Germans or if this was a new attack. When we started to fight and the Soviet planes started to drop bombs on us, it became clear what was going on [...]” says 70 years later Stanislaw Matkowski [, Polish Army] whose unit was stationed on the Polish-Soviet border". |
