English versionOn 27 March 1945, the Soviet political police – the NKVD – arrested 16 leaders of the Polish Underground State, who had come to Pruszków at the invitation of Soviet commanders. They were supposed to discuss the implementation of the Yalta Conference resolutions. The NKVD arrested, among others, the Government Delegate for Poland and the Deputy Prime Minister Jan Stanisław Jankowski (de facto head of the underground government), the last Commander-in-Chief of the Home Army, General Leopold Okulicki (commander of the largest underground armed forces in Europe), and the Chairman of the Council of National Unity, Kazimierz Pużak (speaker of the underground parliament).
After the Nazi occupation, the kidnapping of Polish leaders was one of the elements of the new enslavement of Poland by another totalitarian regime – this time the Soviet regime. It left no doubt that Stalin was not planning to honour the Yalta arrangements, such as free elections in Poland. In parallel, the new authorities had already launched an extensive campaign of repression, brutally suppressing all manifestations of social independence.
Members of the Polish authorities (considered legitimate by Western countries) were transported to Moscow and, in June 1945, prosecuted during a show trial. People who had led the Polish Underground State – which was part of the anti-Hitler coalition – were accused of collaborating with the Germans, even though they had fought against them in the war. According to other charges, they had allegedly fought against the USSR; in fact, they had not, as the Soviet Union had been a member of the coalition of countries allied against the Third Reich.
The longest sentences were received by: Leopold Okulicki (10 years in prison), Jan Stanisław Jankowski (8 years) and his deputies: Adam Bień, Stanisław Jasiukowicz and Antoni Pajdak (5 years each). General Leopold Okulicki, Jan Stanisław Jankowski and Stanisław Jasiukowicz did not live to see the end of their sentences. After his return to Poland, Kazimierz Pużak was arrested again and tortured to death in a communist prison.
Stanisław Jasiukowicz died on October 22, 1946 in Butyrka prison in Moscow. General Leopold Okulicki died at the same prison on December 24, 1946. Both were probably buried at the Donskoy Cemetery in Moscow.Jan Stanisław Jankowski , died on March 13, 1953 (two weeks before the end of the sentence) in a prison in Vladimir on the Klyazma River. He was buried at the cemetery near the prison in a mass grave. There are no remaining records regarding the graves.
In 2003–2009, The Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation – the investigative division of the Institute of National Remembrance – conducted an investigation of the Moscow trial of the leaders of the Polish Underground State. However, the investigation was discontinued after the Main Military Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation refused the request for legal assistance in this matter.
Polish point of view:
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