Attack on Hrubieszów
Encyclopedia
The Attack on Hrubieszów
was a joint action of the Polish
post-Home Army (AK) organization Freedom and Independence (WiN) and the Ukrainian
partisans of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which took place on the night of the 27 May 1946. It was the most significant joint action carried out by these two organizations, which had previously often fought one another, but which decided to cooperate in the face of the common threat from the Polish communists and the Soviet NKVD
.
and Zamość
region, while at the same time also fighting the Nazis and sometimes the Soviet partisans
. After the entry of the Red Army
into the area during Operation Bagration, the Soviet NKVD began persecuting members of both organizations (even though the Home Army attempted to cooperate with the Red Army in Operation Tempest
) and the local civilian population. After the establishment in April 1944 of the Polish Committee of National Liberation
(PKNW) (a communist provisional government sponsored by the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin
), the persecution intensified. As a result, faced with a common enemy which threatened to eliminate both anti-communist Poles and independence-minded Ukrainians, the two previous enemies took the first steps towards reconciliation.
As early as September 1944, the UPA commander in Eastern Galicia, Vasyl Sydor
(Szelest), issued an order ending general anti-Polish actions in the region; from then on UPA units were only allowed to attack those Poles who served with the Soviets (although it took several months for the orders to reach individual commanders in the field). In 1945 the AK issued a manifesto calling for an end to fighting between Poles and Ukrainians and for cooperation, printed it in 7,500 copies and distributed it in the surrounding villages. At the same time, the leadership of the UPA in the region made similar moves aimed at the same goal. After mediation by Catholic
and Orthodox clergy, a meeting was arranged in Puszcza Solska (Solska Forest) between the commanders of both groups. The top commander on the Polish side was Marian Gołębiewski (Ster) and on the Ukrainian side Jurij Lopatynsky (Szejk).
The two sides agreed to stop fighting one another, on each others' areas of influence, to come to each others' aid in case of being attacked by communist forces, to put an end to mutual attacks on civilian targets, to share intelligence reports and to coordinate actions against communist agents and common bandit groups which plagued the area. According to some former soldiers of the unit, the agreement was in part due to pressure on the partisans that came from the local civilian population, which was sick of the fighting between the two groups.
In September 1945, the agreement was extended to include the Podlaskie and Chełm regions.
. In May 1946, a meeting took place in the village of Miętkie, between the Lublin region commanders of the two groups; the Poles were represented by Wacław Dąbrowski (Azja), the Ukrainians by Jewhen Sztendera (Pryrwa). An attack upon the town of Hrubieszów
was proposed by the WiN soldiers and accepted by the UPA. The purpose of the attack was to free political prisoners from the local prison, to destroy documents held by the communist security forces, to destroy the headquarters of the Committee for Resettlement (which was in charge of deporting Ukrainians to the Soviet Union), and to destroy the precincts of the Polish secret police
and the MO
.
(Hammer), who later was a delegate to the Polish Sejm
between 2001 and 2005. Lewczuk led the best-armed Polish platoon in the attack, composed of 25 to 30 soldiers, all local volunteers (Lewczuk did not allow some of his soldiers from the Kresy
region to participate in the attack, due to their deep-seated animosity to the UPA).
According to previously made plans, the partisans took control of the bridges and roads leading into Hrubieszów and then proceeded to the center, where their strategic objectives were located. There, as agreed, the UPA soldiers (around 300) assaulted the building of the Committee for Resettlement, while the Poles (around 150 soldiers) attacked the headquarters and prison of the communist secret police and the local office of the Polish Communist Party
. The Resettlement Committee building, however, was heavily fortified and staffed with experienced and well-armed NKVD troops, and the UPA attack stalled. The Poles were more successful; using mine throwers they took the secret police building, freed about twenty prisoners and captured secret documents. After taking the party headquarters they also executed a two high-ranking communist officials.
At dawn, the communist forces were supported by units of the Polish army that were stationed in the town. Quite likely, the regular army soldiers waited as long as they could before joining in the fighting, as WiN had infiltrated its ranks and had previously carried out an extensive anti-communist information campaign.
Under attack by both the NKVD and regular army units, the UPA and the WiN soldiers began to withdraw. While fire fights and skirmishes occurred during the withdrawal between the partisans and the NKVD, the Polish soldiers mostly confined themselves to just following the partisans in their vehicles, without engaging them in direct fighting.
One of the soldiers among the army units happened to be Wojciech Jaruzelski
, the future communist leader of Poland, who declared martial law
in 1981. Jaruzelski's official website, in the "Diariusz" (Diary) section, states that from the fall of 1945 until 1946, Jaruzelski took part in "fighting bandits of the armed underground and Ukrainian nationalist" in order to "defend the Polishness of Hrubieszow Land".
During the fighting, one of WiN's freed prisoners was accidentally killed by friendly fire and the commander of UPA was wounded. The Ukrainians lost two more men during the withdrawal. The Polish communists and Soviets lost from nine to fifteen men.
However, by the end of 1946, the contacts between the two groups tapered off.
The main initial reason for this was the negative attitude of the Polish underground's high command and of the Polish emigre government, the "Delegatura", towards close cooperation with the UPA. The high command issued an order to forbid any further contacts with the UPA, although local contacts continued until at least the end of 1946. One small UPA unit, led by Jan Niewiadomski (Jurka), kept up contacts with the Polish underground until 1948.
By the spring of 1947, however, most of the organized resistance, both Polish and Ukrainian, in the region had collapsed or significantly diminished. By this time, most Ukrainian civilians had been deported and resettled, either back to the Soviet Union or to other parts of Poland and as a result the UPA lost its base of support. Many Polish partisans came out of the underground during the Amnesty of 1947
and were subsequently arrested and persecuted, despite previous promises to the contrary (the amnesty did not cover UPA soldiers). Still, some "cursed soldiers
" held out in the forests as late as 1956.
Hrubieszów
Hrubieszów is a town in southeastern Poland, with a population of 18,661 . It is the capital of Hrubieszów County. Since 1999 Hrubieszów has been part of Lublin Voivodeship . Earlier, 1975–98, it had been part of Zamość Province...
was a joint action of the Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
post-Home Army (AK) organization Freedom and Independence (WiN) and the Ukrainian
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
partisans of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which took place on the night of the 27 May 1946. It was the most significant joint action carried out by these two organizations, which had previously often fought one another, but which decided to cooperate in the face of the common threat from the Polish communists and the Soviet NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
.
Background
Between 1943 and 1944, the Polish Home Army and the pro-Ukrainian independence Ukrainian Insurgent Army engaged each other in brutal fighting in the LublinLublin
Lublin is the ninth largest city in Poland. It is the capital of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 350,392 . Lublin is also the largest Polish city east of the Vistula river...
and Zamość
Zamosc
Zamość ukr. Замостя is a town in southeastern Poland with 66,633 inhabitants , situated in the south-western part of Lublin Voivodeship , about from Lublin, from Warsaw and from the border with Ukraine...
region, while at the same time also fighting the Nazis and sometimes the Soviet partisans
Soviet partisans in Poland
Poland was annexed and partitioned by 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...
. After the entry of the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
into the area during Operation Bagration, the Soviet NKVD began persecuting members of both organizations (even though the Home Army attempted to cooperate with the Red Army in Operation Tempest
Operation Tempest
Operation Tempest was a series of uprisings conducted during World War II by the Polish Home Army , the dominant force in the Polish resistance....
) and the local civilian population. After the establishment in April 1944 of the Polish Committee of National Liberation
Polish Committee of National Liberation
The Polish Committee of National Liberation , also known as the Lublin Committee, was a provisional government of Poland, officially proclaimed 21 July 1944 in Chełm under the direction of State National Council in opposition to the Polish government in exile...
(PKNW) (a communist provisional government sponsored by the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
), the persecution intensified. As a result, faced with a common enemy which threatened to eliminate both anti-communist Poles and independence-minded Ukrainians, the two previous enemies took the first steps towards reconciliation.
As early as September 1944, the UPA commander in Eastern Galicia, Vasyl Sydor
Vasyl Sydor
Vasyl Sydor ; born in Spasiv , 24 February 1910; died 14 April 1949 in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast – colonel of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army , political activist, soldier of the Nachtigall Battalion, commandant of Sotnia 201 Schutzmannschaft auxiliary police, vice-commander of UPA and leader of UPA-West...
(Szelest), issued an order ending general anti-Polish actions in the region; from then on UPA units were only allowed to attack those Poles who served with the Soviets (although it took several months for the orders to reach individual commanders in the field). In 1945 the AK issued a manifesto calling for an end to fighting between Poles and Ukrainians and for cooperation, printed it in 7,500 copies and distributed it in the surrounding villages. At the same time, the leadership of the UPA in the region made similar moves aimed at the same goal. After mediation by Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
and Orthodox clergy, a meeting was arranged in Puszcza Solska (Solska Forest) between the commanders of both groups. The top commander on the Polish side was Marian Gołębiewski (Ster) and on the Ukrainian side Jurij Lopatynsky (Szejk).
The two sides agreed to stop fighting one another, on each others' areas of influence, to come to each others' aid in case of being attacked by communist forces, to put an end to mutual attacks on civilian targets, to share intelligence reports and to coordinate actions against communist agents and common bandit groups which plagued the area. According to some former soldiers of the unit, the agreement was in part due to pressure on the partisans that came from the local civilian population, which was sick of the fighting between the two groups.
In September 1945, the agreement was extended to include the Podlaskie and Chełm regions.
Planning
In April 1946, the first joint action was carried out: an attack on the rail station in WerbkowiceWerbkowice
Werbkowice is a village in Hrubieszów County, Lublin Voivodeship, in eastern Poland. It is the seat of the gmina called Gmina Werbkowice. It lies approximately south-west of Hrubieszów and south-east of the regional capital Lublin....
. In May 1946, a meeting took place in the village of Miętkie, between the Lublin region commanders of the two groups; the Poles were represented by Wacław Dąbrowski (Azja), the Ukrainians by Jewhen Sztendera (Pryrwa). An attack upon the town of Hrubieszów
Hrubieszów
Hrubieszów is a town in southeastern Poland, with a population of 18,661 . It is the capital of Hrubieszów County. Since 1999 Hrubieszów has been part of Lublin Voivodeship . Earlier, 1975–98, it had been part of Zamość Province...
was proposed by the WiN soldiers and accepted by the UPA. The purpose of the attack was to free political prisoners from the local prison, to destroy documents held by the communist security forces, to destroy the headquarters of the Committee for Resettlement (which was in charge of deporting Ukrainians to the Soviet Union), and to destroy the precincts of the Polish secret police
Ministry of Public Security of Poland
The Ministry of Public Security of Poland was a Polish communist secret police, intelligence and counter-espionage service operating from 1945 to 1954 under Jakub Berman of the Politburo...
and the MO
Milicja Obywatelska
Milicja Obywatelska was a state police institution in the People's Republic of Poland. It was created in 1944 by Soviet-sponsored PKWN, effectively replacing the pre-war police force. In 1990 it was transformed back into Policja....
.
Attack
The attack on the town began at 11 pm. One of the main commanders on the Polish side was Henryk LewczukHenryk Lewczuk
Henryk Lewczuk was a Polish soldier, member of the Home Army and the anti-communist organization Freedom and Independence , an activist in the Polish emigrant community, politician and a delegate to the Polish Sejm from 2001 until 2005.-References:...
(Hammer), who later was a delegate to the Polish Sejm
Sejm
The Sejm is the lower house of the Polish parliament. The Sejm is made up of 460 deputies, or Poseł in Polish . It is elected by universal ballot and is presided over by a speaker called the Marshal of the Sejm ....
between 2001 and 2005. Lewczuk led the best-armed Polish platoon in the attack, composed of 25 to 30 soldiers, all local volunteers (Lewczuk did not allow some of his soldiers from the Kresy
Kresy
The Polish term Kresy refers to a land considered by Poles as historical eastern provinces of their country. Today, it makes western Ukraine, western Belarus, as well as eastern Lithuania, with such major cities, as Lviv, Vilnius, and Hrodna. This territory belonged to the Polish-Lithuanian...
region to participate in the attack, due to their deep-seated animosity to the UPA).
According to previously made plans, the partisans took control of the bridges and roads leading into Hrubieszów and then proceeded to the center, where their strategic objectives were located. There, as agreed, the UPA soldiers (around 300) assaulted the building of the Committee for Resettlement, while the Poles (around 150 soldiers) attacked the headquarters and prison of the communist secret police and the local office of the Polish Communist Party
Polish Workers' Party
The Polish Workers' Party was a communist party in Poland from 1942 to 1948. It was founded as a reconstitution of the Communist Party of Poland, and merged with the Polish Socialist Party in 1948 to form the Polish United Workers' Party.-History:...
. The Resettlement Committee building, however, was heavily fortified and staffed with experienced and well-armed NKVD troops, and the UPA attack stalled. The Poles were more successful; using mine throwers they took the secret police building, freed about twenty prisoners and captured secret documents. After taking the party headquarters they also executed a two high-ranking communist officials.
At dawn, the communist forces were supported by units of the Polish army that were stationed in the town. Quite likely, the regular army soldiers waited as long as they could before joining in the fighting, as WiN had infiltrated its ranks and had previously carried out an extensive anti-communist information campaign.
Under attack by both the NKVD and regular army units, the UPA and the WiN soldiers began to withdraw. While fire fights and skirmishes occurred during the withdrawal between the partisans and the NKVD, the Polish soldiers mostly confined themselves to just following the partisans in their vehicles, without engaging them in direct fighting.
One of the soldiers among the army units happened to be Wojciech Jaruzelski
Wojciech Jaruzelski
Wojciech Witold Jaruzelski is a retired Polish military officer and Communist politician. He was the last Communist leader of Poland from 1981 to 1989, Prime Minister from 1981 to 1985 and the country's head of state from 1985 to 1990. He was also the last commander-in-chief of the Polish People's...
, the future communist leader of Poland, who declared martial law
Martial law in Poland
Martial law in Poland refers to the period of time from December 13, 1981 to July 22, 1983, when the authoritarian government of the People's Republic of Poland drastically restricted normal life by introducing martial law in an attempt to crush political opposition to it. Thousands of opposition...
in 1981. Jaruzelski's official website, in the "Diariusz" (Diary) section, states that from the fall of 1945 until 1946, Jaruzelski took part in "fighting bandits of the armed underground and Ukrainian nationalist" in order to "defend the Polishness of Hrubieszow Land".
During the fighting, one of WiN's freed prisoners was accidentally killed by friendly fire and the commander of UPA was wounded. The Ukrainians lost two more men during the withdrawal. The Polish communists and Soviets lost from nine to fifteen men.
Afterward
In the end, the action was partly successful. Documents of the secret police were captured, though not those of the Resettlement Commission.However, by the end of 1946, the contacts between the two groups tapered off.
The main initial reason for this was the negative attitude of the Polish underground's high command and of the Polish emigre government, the "Delegatura", towards close cooperation with the UPA. The high command issued an order to forbid any further contacts with the UPA, although local contacts continued until at least the end of 1946. One small UPA unit, led by Jan Niewiadomski (Jurka), kept up contacts with the Polish underground until 1948.
By the spring of 1947, however, most of the organized resistance, both Polish and Ukrainian, in the region had collapsed or significantly diminished. By this time, most Ukrainian civilians had been deported and resettled, either back to the Soviet Union or to other parts of Poland and as a result the UPA lost its base of support. Many Polish partisans came out of the underground during the Amnesty of 1947
Amnesty of 1947
The Amnesty of 1947 in Poland was an amnesty directed at soldiers and activists of the Polish anti-communist underground, issued by the authorities of People's Republic of Poland. The law on amnesty was passed by the Polish Sejm on February 22, 1947. The actual purpose of the amnesty was the...
and were subsequently arrested and persecuted, despite previous promises to the contrary (the amnesty did not cover UPA soldiers). Still, some "cursed soldiers
Cursed soldiers
The cursed soldiers is a name applied to a variety of Polish resistance movements formed in the later stages of World War II and afterwards. Created by some members of the Polish Secret State, these clandestine organizations continued their armed struggle against the Stalinist government of Poland...
" held out in the forests as late as 1956.