Saturday, May 2, 2020

Antoni OLECHNOWICZ, pencil sketch by Dr k Prabhakar Rao


ANTONI. OLECHNOWICZ, CURSED SOLDIERS, POLISH WW II AND LATER

1 comment:

Dr K Prabhakar Rao said...


Antoni Olechnowicz in a Polish military uniform, possibly before 1939
Antoni Olechnowicz (1905–1951) was a Polish military officer. A Lieutenant Colonel of the Polish Army, he took part in the September Campaign. Arrested by the Soviets, he escaped and returned to his native Vilna, where he soon joined the Polish underground: the Service for Poland's Victory, the Union of Armed Struggle and finally the Home Army. He took part in the Operation Ostra Brama as commanding officer of the East group attacking the city of Vilna from the direction of Nowa Wilejka and Belmont.

After the success of the operation and the arrest of most of the commanders of the Polish forces by the Soviet NKVD, Olechnowicz was one of the few officers to evade capture and assumed the role of the new commanding officer of the Vilna Home Army Area. In the summer of 1945 he evacuated his headquarters to Central Poland. Arrested by the communist authorities, he was sentenced to death in a show trial on 2 November 1949 and was executed on. 8 February 1952. His body was buried in an unmarked grave. Much later it was declared that his body was identified during archaeological excavations.

During his service in the underground, he used a variety of noms de guerre, including "Meteor", "Kurkowski", "Pohorecki", "Lawicz", "Krzysztof", "Roman Wrzeski" and "Kurcewicz".