The Home Army was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej established in the aftermath of the German and Soviet invasions in September 1939. Over the next two years, the Home Army absorbed most of the other Polish partisans and underground forces. Its allegiance was to the Polish government-in-exile in London, and it constituted the armed wing of what came to be known as the Polish Underground State. Estimates of the Home Army's 1944 strength range between 200,000 and 600,000. The latter number made the Home Army not only Poland's largest underground resistance movement but, along with Soviet and Yugoslav partisans, one of Europe's largest World War II underground movements.
Stefan Paweł Rowecki was a Polish general, journalist and the leader of the Armia Krajowa. He was murdered by the Gestapo in prison on the personal order of Heinrich Himmler.
Around six million Polish citizens are estimated to have perished during World War II. Most were civilians killed by the actions of Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, the Lithuanian Security Police, as well as the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and its offshoots.
The Polish government-in-exile, officially known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile, was the government in exile of Poland formed in the aftermath of the Invasion of Poland of September 1939, and the subsequent occupation of Poland by Germany, the Soviet Union, and the Slovak Republic, which brought to an end the Second Polish Republic.
Operation Tempest was a series of uprisings conducted during World War II against occupying German forces by the Polish Home Army, the dominant force in the Polish resistance.
People's Army was a communist Soviet-backed partisan force set up by the communist Polish Workers' Party (PPR) during World War II. It was created on the order of the Polish State National Council on 1 January 1944. Its aims were to fight against Nazi Germany in occupied Poland, support the Soviet Red Army against the German forces and aid in the creation of a pro-Soviet communist government in Poland.
Peasant Battalions was a Polish resistance movement, guerrilla and partisan organisation, during World War II. The organisation was created in mid-1940 by the agrarian political party People's Party and by 1944 was partially integrated with the Armia Krajowa. At its height, in summer 1944 the organisation had 160,000 members.
The Polish resistance movement in World War II, with the Polish Home Army at its forefront covered both German and Soviet zones of occupation. The Polish resistance is notable among others for disrupting German supply lines to the Eastern Front, and providing intelligence reports to the British intelligence agencies. It was a part of the Polish Underground State.
Poland was invaded and annexed by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in the aftermath of the invasion of Poland in 1939. In the pre-war Polish territories annexed by the Soviets the first Soviet partisan groups were formed in 1941, soon after Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union. Those groups fought against the Germans, but conflicts with Polish partisans were also common.
Aleksander Krzyżanowskinom de guerre "Wilk" was an artillery colonel of the Polish Army, officer of the Service for Poland's Victory, Union of Armed Struggle, commander of the Vilnius District of the Home Army, political prisoner of the Stalinist period. In 1994 he was posthumously promoted to the rank of brigade general.
The "cursed soldiers" or "indomitable soldiers" is a term applied to a variety of anti-Soviet imperialist and anti-communist Polish resistance movements formed in the later stages of World War II and its aftermath by members of the Polish Underground State. This all-encompassing term for a widely heterogeneous movement was introduced in the early 1990s.
Stalag VIII-F was a German prisoner-of-war camp for Soviet Red Army and Polish Home Army prisoners during World War II. It was located at the northern end of a Germany Army training area at Lamsdorf, Silesia, just to the north of Stalag VIII-B.
Tadeusz Walenty Pełczyński was a Polish Army major general, intelligence officer and chief of the General Staff's Section II.
John Ward, MC, was a Flight Lieutenant in the Royal Air Force decorated twice for bravery. During World War II he was a member of a bomber crew shot down and taken POW but escaped and served as a BBC war correspondent behind enemy lines and fought with the Polish resistance Armia Krajowa participating in the Warsaw Uprising in occupied Poland being wounded in action against the SS controlled German forces.
The Zamość uprising comprised World War II partisan operations, 1942–1944, by the Polish resistance against Germany's Generalplan-Ost forced expulsion of Poles from the Zamość region (Zamojszczyzna) and the region's colonization by German settlers.
Ryszard Reiff was a Polish politician, lawyer, publicist and resistance fighter. He was a deputy to the Polish parliament (Sejm) during the 1968 Polish political crisis and again during the Martial law in Poland.
Adolf Pilch was a Polish resistance fighter during World War II. He became part of the Polish special forces (cichociemni) trained in the United Kingdom, and was parachuted into occupied Poland on 17 February 1943. There, as a member of the Armia Krajowa Polish resistance, he organized a cavalry partisan unit in the Nowogródek area, and broke through to the Kampinos forest near Warsaw, taking control of this area. At its height of operations his unit consisted of up to 1000 men. Between 3 June 1943 and 17 January 1945 his partisans fought in 235 battles.
The Polish Home Army Museum in Orchard Lake, Michigan is dedicated to the memory of the brave men and women of the Armia Krajowa during World War II. The museum tells the story of the struggle for the freedom and independence of Poland during World War II. On September 1, 1939, without declaring war, the Nazi German Army, Navy, and Air Forces invaded Poland from the north, west and south. Sixteen days later, on September 17, the Soviet Union also attacked Poland from the east. For Europe, the Nazi invasion of Poland marked the beginning of World War II; for Poland, the Soviet invasion also marked the beginning of a 50-year struggle against communism.
Stanisław Witold Aronson is a Polish Jew and an Israeli citizen, as well as a former officer of the Polish Home Army (AK) with a rank of lieutenant colonel. He was also a member of the Kedyw unit, "Kolegium A", of the Warsaw Region of AK, a participant in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, and a lieutenant colonel of the Israeli Defense Force who took part in the 1947–1949 Palestine war, the Yom Kippur War and the 1982 Lebanon War.
Around 6 million Polish citizens perished during World War II: about one fifth of the pre-war population. Most were civilian victims of the war crimes and crimes against humanity during the occupation by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Approximately half were Polish Jews killed in The Holocaust. Statistics for Polish World War II casualties are divergent and contradictory. This article provides a summarization of these estimates of Poland's human losses in the war and their causes.
