NATION-WIDE THAT IS NATIONAL

JAN ŻARYN

In the shadow of conflicts and tensions concerning the National Remembrance Institute, and mainly a group of prof. Krzysztof Szwagrzyk, during identification of debris of our national heroes preparations are taking place for the feast of 1 March – the National Remembrance Day of Outcast Soldiers.

Together with a groups of volunteers, including actively working Wojciech Boberski, my deputy in the Association Poland Is Important, as well as spiritus movens of the Social Committee of Ceremonies of the National Remembrance Day of Outcast Soldiers, having its meetings in the building of Polish Telephone Joint-stock Company in Warsaw – we are getting prepared for ceremonies in Warsaw and nearby districts and we are coordinating the work of other volunteers spread all over Poland, and also abroad. Every year, at least since the year 2011, that is, the date of establishing the feast, thousands of people have prepared local ceremonies and then, they take an active part in it. These are self-governing groups, and, first of all, beside meritorious institutions and national organizations – members of various associations or foundations, supporters’ or reconstructive groups.

Not all organizers know one another, although in most cases we have already had contacts with one another. For the purpose of coordination of all initiatives and getting to know the results of one another’s activities, as the Social Committee of Ceremonies of the National Remembrance Day of Outcast Soldiers and the Association Poland Is Important, we have undertaken efforts to establish a portal devoted to Outcast Soldiers. On 28 February this year in the Polish Seym, in the Column Hall, there is going to be – from the initiative of among the others, the Social Committee of Ceremonies of the National Remembrance Day of Outcast Soldiers and thanks to the activity of Dr. Dariusz Kucharski from Poznań – a meeting of MEPs with veterans and the youth with teachers, creators of various educational contests devoted to activists and soldiers of the independence underground in the years 1944-63. During that ceremony, there is going to be, among the others, the mentioned portal www.podziemnaarmiapowraca.pl presented – run by two young historians, graduates and PhDs of the Institute of Historic Studies of the Warsaw University of Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński – as well as the whole set of information will be provided publicly concerning research and educational achievements of many people engaged in the work of commemorating the fates of the Steadfast Soldiers outcast by the communist regime.

Certainly, the main inspirer of the bottom-up initiatives was and is prof. Krzysztof Szwagrzyk with his volunteers who provided the public opinion in Poland with a secret of ‘Łączka’ in Powązki in Warsaw and other places of burials secretly done by oppressors from the Security Office, procurators and Stalin’s judges.

Recently we have had a possibility to read on one of the portals (wPolityce.pl) an unusual interview of Tomasz Plaskota with Ilona Lewandowska – a historian and journalist for ‘Kurier Wileński’, a resident of Vilnus. The interview concerned searches of alive families of soldiers of the National Army of the Vilnus-Nowogród District, particular soldiers; those who remained on the frontiers after the ‘Storm’ action, in order to continue their fight with NKWD and the whole apparatus of the Soviet country. Those among the soldiers of the National Army, who were not killed with weapon in their hands, were arrested and sentenced to death penalty, murdered, and then secretly buried in Tuskulanum. Today this park is in Vilnus; in the years 1944-47 there was – in a palace – the headquarter of NKWD there. This ‘Łączka’ in Vilnus has been an unknown place for most Poles till now. Thanks to the journalist from Vilnus there is a chance that the debris of the soldiers will be found and particular names and surnames will be assigned to them. The first families have already asked for it…

It is incredible that the feast of 1 March has spread all over Poland and abroad. It became the nationwide, national feast.

AA

„Niedziela” 09/2017

Editor: Tygodnik Katolicki "Niedziela", ul. 3 Maja 12, 42-200 Czestochowa, Polska
Editor-in-chief: Fr Jaroslaw Grabowski • E-mail: redakcja@niedziela.pl