Karol Chmiel

Karol Chmiel (1911–1951) was born on April 17, 1911 in the village of Zagorzyce (now in Ropczyce-Sędziszów County, Subcarpathian Voivodeship) to a peasant family of Antoni and Katarzyna née Charchut. He graduated from high school in Dębica, then joined the prestigious Jagiellonian University in Kraków, where he studied law. After graduation, in 1935, Chmiel settled in Wojslaw, a village near Mielec; his wife Irena Suchodolska was a school principal, and he worked for the Town Hall in Mielec.

At the beginning of the Polish September Campaign, Chmiel tried to escape east, to the area of Lwów, where his wife's family owned an estate. Unable to do so, they returned to the village of Zagorzyce, with a three-year-old son Jerzy. On January 6, 1940, Chmiel's wife died, after delivering their second son Zbigniew. After this, the boys were looked after by Irena's mother and her sisters.

As early as January 1940, Chmiel became a member of Zwiazek Walki Zbrojnej, with nom de guerre "Los". Since January 1941 he was commandant of a platoon in Zagorzyce, which was part of Dębica's District of ZWZ (later: Polish Home Army). Nominated to colonel, in 1943 he decided to move to Bataliony Chłopskie (BCh), becoming in early 1944 commandant of BCh's Dębica District. He participated in Operation Tempest activities in the area of Dębica, being member of local headquarters of the anti-German resistance.

Some time in 1944, Chmiel drove a captured German car, but he forgot to display a Polish flag on it, and was peppered with bullets by the Home Army soldiers. Shot 13 times, he was severely wounded, but managed to survive. Nevertheless, he became partly disabled.

After 1945, Chmiel settled in Kraków, where he opened a grocery store and bought a house in Swoszowice, a village in the suburbs. He was an active member of Polish People's Party (PSL), and secretly a member of the anti-Communist organization Wolnosc i Niezawislosc (WiN). In 1947 he became a member of WiN's headquarters and political advisor of Łukasz Ciepliński as well as a liaison between Cieplinski and PSL's Stanislaw Mikolajczyk.

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