Biali Kurierzy

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White Couriers
Biali Kurierzy
Stanislaw Gerula 1914-1979 Polish goalkeeper who played for Leyton Orient and Walthamstow Avenue. Member of the White Couriers (Biali Kurierzy) during the 2nd World War.jpg
A plaque dedicated to the White Courier Stanisław Gerula, in Waltham Forest
ActiveOctober 1939
DisbandedJuly 1940
Countries
Allegiance Polish Underground State
Branch Grey Ranks
RoleEvacuation of Poles from the occupied kresy
Size30
Engagements WWII

White Couriers (Polish: Biali Kurierzy) was a group of around 20-30 Polish boy scouts and former soldiers of the Polish Army, most of whom had been associated with the interbellum sports club Junak Drohobycz. It existed between October 1939 and July 1940, when it was broken up by the Soviet NKVD. The task of the White Couriers was to smuggle people from the Soviet-occupied southeastern part of the former Second Polish Republic, to the Hungarian region of Carpathian Ruthenia and further to Budapest. The White Couriers were part of the Grey Ranks, a wartime codename for the underground Polish Scouting Association. [1]

Contents

Following the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, eastern Poland, known as the Kresy, was annexed by the Soviet Union. The Soviets immediately began a campaign of large-scale mass terror, with hundreds of thousands of people deported to Siberia. The terror was mostly aimed at Polish professionals and their entire families. [1]

Activities

The creation of the White Couriers was a direct response to the Soviet terror, as hundreds of people, mostly from the city of Lwow, decided to escape the Soviet Union across the Soviet-Hungarian border in the Eastern Carpathians, which had been established as a result of the Polish September Campaign. The Couriers were mostly young men in their 20s or even teens, members of the prewar Polish Scouting Association and athletes of the Junak Drohobycz sports club. They knew the landscape very well and within 10 months they managed to smuggle an unknown number of persons. On their way back from Hungary, they took money, Polish-language newspapers published in the West as well as orders of the Government in exile. [1]

The group was subject to the Ewa department (an abbreviation of the word evacuation) of the Polish Embassy in Budapest and, among others, was supported by Major Mieczyslaw Mlotek. The name came from a humorous dialogue of Szczepko and Tońko, popular Polish Radio Lwow characters of the Wesola lwowska fala broadcast. [1]

The couriers worked alone or in pairs. All had to be physically and emotionally strong, it was crucial for them to know the borderland area, guarded by the NKVD border guard. Altogether, there were up to 30 of them. Only four survived World War II, with the majority captured and executed by the Soviet occupiers. One of the survivors, Tadeusz Chciuk-Celt, also known as Marek Celt, wrote a book White Couriers (Biali Kurierzy), in which he described their fate. [1]

Known members of the White Couriers

Note: the list is incomplete:

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Tadeusz Chciuk, member of Cichociemni, nom de guerre Marek Celt (1986), Biali kurierzy (The White Couriers) (fragment). Karta, 1992. OCLC   247594415.
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