Stanislaw Karolkiewicz

Stanisław Karolkiewicz (nom de guerre Szczęsny) (1918–2009) was born in 1918 in the Polish historical region of Podlasie. Raised in a patriotic family, he joined the Polish Army in the 1930s, and then fought in the Polish September Campaign, in the area of Upper Silesia. On September 17, 1939, when the Red Army, allied with the Wehrmacht, attacked eastern Poland, Karolkiewicz was around Nisko.

Caught by the Germans, he escaped and returned to his homeland in the Białystok countryside, which had been incorporated to the Soviet Union. He immediately began organizing anti-Soviet resistance movement, taking advantage of the landscape of the province, full of forests and swamps. His unit stayed around Augustów, between the Biebrza river and the Augustów Canal.

In February 1940, the NKVD launched an offensive against anti-Soviet Polish guerillas, and Karolkiewicz was caught. The Soviets put him in prisons in Białystok and later in Brześć nad Bugiem. He was charged of counterrevolutionary activities, but, unlike other prisoners (see: Katyń massacre), he was not shot. Kept in the prison in Brzesc, he was released in June 1941, when the Wehrmacht seized the city (see: Operation Barbarossa).

Under German occupation, Karolkiewicz did not change his stance and became commandant of the Directorate of Sabotage and Diversion of the Białystok area. Then, he joined underground forces in Szczuczyn and was the commandant of the 1943 Polish underground raid on East Prussia, which took place on August 15, 1943. After the raid, Karolkiewicz and his men got to the Naliboki Forest, to join units of Wilno’s Home Army district and to take part in the Operation Tempest (summer 1944).

...
Wikipedia