Helena Wolińska-Brus
| Helena Wolińska-Brus | |
|---|---|
Helena Wolińska
in the Polish Peoples Army uniform |
|
| Born |
Fajga Mindla Danielak 28 February 1919 Warsaw, Poland |
| Died | 26 November 2008 (aged 89) Oxford, England |
| Resting place | Wolvercote Cemetery, Oxford |
| Citizenship | Polish, British |
| Occupation | Prosecutor |
| Known for | State Security Services (Służba Bezpieczeństwa) |
| Spouse(s) | Włodzimierz Brus |
| Personal details | |
| Ethnicity | Jewish |
| Belief system | Communist |
Helena Wolińska-Brus (28 February 1919 – 26 November 2008) was a military prosecutor in postwar Poland with the rank of lieutenant-colonel (podpułkownik), involved in Stalinist regime show trials of the 1950s. She has been implicated in the arrest and execution of many Polish anti-Nazi resistance fighters including key figures in Poland's wartime Home Army. Post-communist Poland sought the extradition of Wolińska-Brus from the United Kingdom on three separate occasions between 1999 and 2008. The official charges against her were initiated by the Institute of National Remembrance, which investigates both Nazi and Communist crimes committed in Poland between the years 1939 and 1989.
Wolińska-Brus was accused of being an "accessory to a court murder", which is classified as a Stalinist crime and a crime of genocide, and is punishable by up to ten years in prison. She was also accused of organising the unlawful arrest, investigation and trial of Poland's wartime general Emil August Fieldorf, a legendary commander of the underground Polish Home Army during World War II. Fieldorf was executed on 24 February 1953, following a show-trial, and buried in a secret location – his family was never shown the body. A 1956 report commissioned during Poland's period of de-Stalinization concluded that Wolińska-Brus had violated the rule of law by her involvement in biased investigations and had also staged questionable trials that frequently resulted in executions.
Wolińska-Brus was born to a Jewish family in Warsaw, where she later married Włodzimierz Brus (born Beniamin Zylberberg). They became separated during the German occupation of Poland after Wolińska-Brus escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto. She joined the communist People’s Guard and became the mistress of its commander, Franciszek Jóźwiak, whom she married in 1942, thinking that her first husband was dead. However, she met Brus again in 1944 and they eventually remarried in 1956, after she had separated from Jóźwiak, now a deputy minister of the Stalinist Secret Police (1945–1949) and a member of the Politburo of the governing communist Polish United Workers' Party (until 1968). She was dismissed from her job as prosecutor during the Polish October of 1956.
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