Secret Polish Army (Polish : Tajna Armia Polska, TAP) was a Polish resistance movement founded in November 1939 in German-occupied Poland, which was active in the voivodeships of Warsaw, Podlasie, Kielce and Lublin.
Founders were:
The organization had up to 24,000 members at its peak.[ when? ] In 1940, it joined the Confederation of the Nation. In 1941, it became part of the Polish Home Army.
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Józef Adam Zygmunt Cyrankiewicz was a Polish Socialist (PPS) and after 1948 Communist politician. He served as premier of the Polish People's Republic between 1947 and 1952, and again for 16 years between 1954 and 1970. He also served as Chairman of the Polish Council of State from 1970 to 1972.
Witold Pilecki was a Polish World War II cavalry officer, intelligence agent, and resistance leader.
Łapanka ( ) was the Polish name for a World War II practice in German-occupied Poland, whereby the German SS, Wehrmacht and Gestapo rounded up civilians on the streets of Polish cities. The civilians arrested were in most cases chosen at random from among passers-by or inhabitants of city quarters surrounded by German forces prior to the action.
Wachlarz was a Polish World War II resistance organization formed by the Armia Krajowa for sabotage duties behind the German Eastern Front, outside of the Polish borders. Its commanders were Lieutenant Colonel Jan Włodarkiewicz and Lieutenant Colonel Adam Remigiusz Grocholski.
Lieutenant Colonel Jan Włodarkiewicz was a Polish soldier, an officer of the Polish Army and a freedom fighter during World War II. He is notable as the first commander of the Wachlarz, the first secret service formed by an underground resistance organization in occupied Europe.
In Poland, the resistance movement during World War II was led by the Home Army. 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.
Freedom and Independence Association was a Polish underground anticommunist organisation founded on September 2, 1945 and active until 1952.
The "cursed soldiers" or "indomitable soldiers" were a heterogeneous array of anti-Soviet-imperialist and anti-communist Polish resistance movements formed in the later stages of World War II and in its aftermath by members of the Polish Underground State. The above terms, introduced in the early 1990s, reflect the stance of many of the diehard soldiers.
NIE was a Polish anticommunist resistance organisation formed in 1943. Its main goal was the struggle against the Soviet Union after 1944. NIE was one of the best hidden structures of Armia Krajowa, active until 7 May 1945. Its commanders were Generals Leopold Okulicki and Emil August Fieldorf. One of the first members of the organisation was Witold Pilecki.
The Scouting and Guiding movement in Poland consists of about twelve independent organizations with an overall membership of about 160,000 Scouts and Guides. The largest organization by membership is Polish Scouting and Guiding Association with about 140,000 members.
Józef Różański was an officer in the Soviet NKVD and later, a Colonel in the Polish Ministry of Public Security (UB), the communist secret police. Born into a Polish-Jewish family in Warsaw, Różański became very active in the Communist Party of Poland before World War II. He joined the NKVD following the Soviet invasion of Poland and after the war, adopting the name Różański, served as an agent with the Polish Communist Security apparatus.
Związek Organizacji Wojskowej, abbreviated ZOW, was an underground resistance organization formed by Witold Pilecki at Auschwitz concentration camp in 1940.
The Warsaw Uprising Cross was a Polish military decoration. It was established by law on 3 July 1981 in order to honor the participants of the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. It was discontinued in 1999. It is distinct from Cross of the Warsaw Uprising, which was an informal award instituted during the Uprising itself.
Witold's Report, also known as Pilecki's Report, is a report about the Auschwitz concentration camp written in 1943 by Witold Pilecki, a Polish military officer and member of the Polish resistance. Pilecki volunteered in 1940 to be imprisoned in Auschwitz to organize a resistance movement and send out information about the camp. He escaped from Auschwitz in April 1943. His was the first comprehensive record of a Holocaust death camp to be obtained by the Allies.
Piotr Śmietański was a Polish non-commissioned officer and communist functionary in the Ministry of Public Security and executioner at Mokotów Prison.
The Pomeranian Griffin secret military organization was a Polish anti-Nazi resistance group active in Pomerania and East Prussia during World War II. A major Polish resistance organization in the Pomerania region, at its height in 1943 it might have had as many as 20,000 members, although only about 500 were active partisans in the forests (leśni).
Rzeczpospolita Polska was the official monthly underground journal and mouthpiece of the Government Delegation for Poland, the highest authority of the Polish Underground State, accountable to the Polish government-in-exile located in London during the wartime occupation of its territory by two hostile powers. According to the historian Lewandowska, it acted as "a source of instruction and information" for Polish underground organizations in the field, including other underground publications, operating in occupied Poland. It was staffed by a network of professional writers both in Poland and correspondents in exile.
The organization of underground resistance movements in Auschwitz concentration camp began in the second half of 1940, shortly after the camp became operational in May that year. In September 1940 Witold Pilecki, a Polish army captain, arrived in the camp. Using the name Tomasz Serafiński, Pilecki had allowed himself to be captured by Germans in a street round up (łapanka) with the goal of having himself sent to Auschwitz to gather information and organize resistance inside. Under Pilecki's direction the Związek Organizacji Wojskowej, ZOW, was formed.
Adam Cyra is a Polish historian. A specialist in World War II history of Central Europe, he graduated from Jagiellonian University. Since 1972 he is a staff member of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświęcim. His doctoral thesis at the Silesian University was on a Polish cavalry officer, intelligence agent, and resistance leader Witold Pilecki. He authored several dozen books and articles, mostly on World War II history of Poland and the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Jerzy Dąbrowski, Dąmbrowski, Dombrowski Junosza coat of arms, nom de guerre"Łupaszka" – cavalry officer with the rank of podpułkownik in the Polish Army of the Second Polish Republic, guerilla fighter.
