Organisation of Independent Youth Zarzewie was a clandestine Polish youth organization, formed in May 1909 in Lemberg, Austrian Galicia. Based on Association of the Polish Youth "Zet", its objective was the restoration of independent Poland. As part of Polish Military Union (Polski Zwiazek Wojskowy), Zarzewie trained recruits for the future Polish Army.
From March until May 1911, Zarzewie, with support of scouting instructor and physician Kazimierz Wyrzykowski, carried out first training course, with emphasis both on physical education and political training (with lectures by Eugeniusz Romer). Meanwhile, Zarzewie formed first cells in Russian-controlled Congress Poland and the Kingdom of Prussia. During World War I, most members of the organization joined Polish Legions in World War I.
Zarzewie was dissolved in February 1920.
Władysław Eugeniusz Sikorski was a Polish military and political leader.
Józef Haller von Hallenburg was a lieutenant general of the Polish Army, a legionary in the Polish Legions, harcmistrz, the president of the Polish Scouting and Guiding Association (ZHP), and a political and social activist. He was the cousin of Stanisław Haller.
The Polish Scouting and Guiding Association is the coeducational Polish Scouting organization recognized by the World Organization of the Scout Movement and the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts. It was founded in 1918 and currently is the largest Scouting organization in Poland. The first ZHP was founded in 1916, the current one is the fourth organization with this name. It is a public benefit organization as defined by Polish law.
The Blue Army, or Haller's Army, was a Polish military contingent created in France during the latter stages of World War I. The name came from the French-issued blue military uniforms worn by the soldiers. The symbolic term used to describe the troops was subsequently adopted by General Józef Haller von Hallenburg himself to represent all newly organized Polish Legions fighting in western Europe.
The Polish Military Organisation, PMO was a secret military organization that was formed during World War I (1914-1918). Józef Piłsudski founded the group in August 1914. It adopted the name POW in November 1914 and aimed to gather intelligence and to sabotage the enemies of the Polish people. Piłsudski used it to act independently from his cautious Austro-Hungarian supporters, and it became an important, if somewhat lesser known, counterpart to the Polish Legions. Its targets included the Russian Empire in the early phase of the war and the German Empire later. Its membership rose from a few hundred in 1914 to over 30,000 in 1918.
Olga Drahonowska-Małkowska, with her husband, founded scouting in Poland.
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.
Brigadier General Mieczysław Makary Smorawiński (1893–1940), was a Polish military commander and officer of the Polish Army. He was one of the Polish generals identified by forensic scientists of the Katyn Commission as the victim of the Soviet Katyn massacre of 1940.
Yevhen Mykhailovych Konovalets, also anglicized as Eugene Konovalets, was a military commander of the Ukrainian National Republic army, veteran of the Ukrainian-Soviet War and political leader of the Ukrainian nationalist movement. He is best known as the leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists from its foundation in 1929 until his assassination in 1938.
The Związek Młodzieży Polskiej "Zet" was a clandestine organization of Polish students at universities of the three partitioning powers and other European universities with larger groups of Polish students. Its aim was to bring together talented young men and further educate them as community leaders, pro-Polish agitators and possibly for a role in the civil service of a future Polish state. Universities where Zet was active included St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev (Russia), Warsaw, Berlin, Breslau, Munich (Germany), Vienna (Austria), Kraków, Lemberg, Paris (France), Zürich, and Geneva (Switzerland).
Gen. Antoni Chruściel was a Polish military officer and a general of the Polish Army. He is best known as the de facto commander of all the armed forces of the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, as well as Home Army's chief of staff.
The Polish Riflemen's Association known as Związek Strzelecki formed in great numbers prior to World War I. One of the better known associations called "Strzelec" was a Polish paramilitary cultural and educational organization created in 1910 in Lwów as a legal front of Związek Walki Czynnej, and somewhat reinstated in present-day Poland in 1991, after the fall of communism.
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.
The Lithuanian minority in Poland consists of 8,000 people living chiefly in the Podlaskie Voivodeship, in the north-eastern part of Poland. The Lithuanian embassy in Poland notes that there are about 15,000 people in Poland of Lithuanian ancestry.
The Polish Rifle Squads was a Polish pro-independence paramilitary organization, founded in 1911 by the Youth Independence Organization Zarzewie in the Austro-Hungarian sector of partitioned Poland. Among its founders were Norwid Neugebauer, Marian Januszajtis-Żegota, Henryk Bagiński and Eugeniusz Homer.
Aeroklub Polski is the Polish central association of persons practising air sports or recreational flying. It was founded in 1921 and is a member of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale. It has a headquarters in Warsaw.
Henryk Jan Józewski was a Polish visual artist, politician, a member of government of the Ukrainian People's Republic, later an administrator during the Second Polish Republic.
Janusz Julian Głuchowski was a divisional general of the Polish Army in the Second Polish Republic. Born on August 6, 1888, in Bukowa, he fought in Polish Legions in World War I, Polish–Ukrainian War, Polish–Soviet War and the Invasion of Poland. Głuchowski died on June 11, 1964, in London.
Stanisław Witkowski CBE (Hon.), was an officer, engineer and military industry organiser in the Polish Army, Hononary Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
Polish Armed Forces were the armed forces of the Second Polish Republic from 1919 until the demise of independent Poland at the onset of Second World War in September 1939.