CALENDAR 2.11.1950 r.

CALENDAR. On November 2, 1950, verdicts were passed before the District Military Court in Warsaw, which were to close the last chapter of the history of one of the most legendary formations of the Polish independence underground – the 5th Vilnius Home Army Brigade. In a show trial staged by the communist security apparatus, its commander, Major Zygmunt Szendzielarz “Łupaszka”, Lt. Col. Antoni Olechnowicz “Pohorecki”, captain Henryk Borowski “Trzmiel” and 2nd Lt. Lucjan Minkiewicz “Wiktor”. Lidia Lwow “Lala”, a nurse and liaison, was sentenced to life imprisonment, and Wanda Czarnecka-Minkiewicz – Lucjan’s wife – to 12 years of imprisonment. It was one of the most famous show trials aimed at “cursed” soldiers, intended to break the memory of resistance to the new order imposed from Moscow. The indictment was prepared entirely by officers of the Ministry of Public Security. The charges – of “betrayal of the homeland”, “participation in armed gangs” and “murder of state officials” – were based on forced confessions and materials fabricated by investigators. The trial itself lasted only a few days, and the verdicts were decided earlier, at the political level. Zygmunt Szendzielarz, soldier of September 1939, officer of the Vilnius District of the Home Army, during the occupation created one of the most disciplined and effective partisan units fighting against the Germans, and after 1944 – against the NKVD and Soviet troops in the Vilnius region, and then in Pomerania and Mazovia. In 1948, he was arrested by the UB in Osielec, after a long investigation, tortured and imprisoned in Rakowiecka Street. Despite brutal interrogations, he did not betray his brothers in arms. #Łupaszka #ZygmuntSzendzielarz #AntoniOlechnowicz #HenrykBorowski #LucjanMinkiewicz #LidiaLwow #WandaCzarneckaMinkiewicz #5BrygadaWileńskaAK #Home Army #Cursed Soldiers #Independence Underground #Rakowiecka #Łączka #PolishHistory #Memory #WorldWar II #Stalinism #Political Trials #Warsaw1950 #IPN #Unbroken #History #Poland