Henryk Dobrzański lived and served in the Polish army according to the motto: “I will not lay down my arms, I will not take off my uniform. So help me God.” Henryk Dobrzański, aka Major Hubal, was taken by surprise and killed by the Germans on 30 April 1940. by Piotr Bejrowski He was…
In 1999, during his second to last pastoral trip to Poland John Paul II visited 21 localities. The Holy Father came to Poland, which after the difficult transformation period in the early 1990s was begining to feel an economic upturn and had a relatively stable democracy. A year before the Pope’s visit Poland joined NATO…
He was compared to Moses taking his people out of captivity. He commanded the Polish armed forces during the most renowned attack they mounted and after the war he was supposed to return to Poland on a white horse. He was wounded on seven occasions. Deprived of Polish citizenship by communists, he became one of…
“Fight just like a Polish soldier has always done throughout history. Fight tenaciously, and yet chivalrously!” Thus, General Stanisław Maczek, the model of an indomitable soldier, encouraged his soldiers to fight. Jacques Wiacek, author of “Histoire de la 1re division blindée polonaise (1939-1945): L’odyssée du phénix”, first French-language monograph on the 1st Division of General…
On 1 February 1944, the Polish resistance carried out the assassination of Franz Kutschera, known as ‘the executioner of Warsaw’. The assassination of this SS officer and police commander in the Warsaw District of the General Government was one of the most spectacular operations in the history of the Home Army (Armia Krajowa), because never…
During the Second World War, Poland and Britain cooperated closely and shared some joint victories in the air battle for England, Narvik and Monte Cassino. But that’s not all. The contacts among the secret services of both countries were also of significant importance. Lesser known pages from the history of Polish-British cooperation in this period…
