Boleslaw Roja
Bolesław Jerzy Roja (born April 4, 1876 in Bryńce Zagórne in the former powiat Bóbrecki , Austria-Hungary ; † May 27, 1940 in Sachsenhausen concentration camp ) was a Polish officer and politician. During the First World War Roja served in the Polish legions , and in the interwar period he was a general and a member of the Sejm . In 1939 the 74-year-old was arrested by the Gestapo after the conquest of Warsaw , deported to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and murdered there. His wife was Helena, the couple had two sons and two daughters (born 1906 to 1916).
Life
Roja's father was Józef Roja, a forest farmer from the Tatra region . His mother was called Maria. The son was to remain associated with the peasant movement throughout his life. The young Roja attended a cadet institute in Vienna . He took office as a lieutenant in 1899 with the 36th Landwehr Infantry Regiment (36 Pułku Obrony Krajowej) of the kk Landwehr in Kolomyja . For health reasons he was released from active military service in 1905 and transferred to the reserve. He worked as an employee of a law firm in Cracow and studied law and medicine at the Jagiellonian University there .
First World War
After the outbreak of the First World War, he reported to the Polish legions and became a confidante of Józef Piłsudski . Among other things, he led the 4th Infantry Regiment and later the III. Brigade . As part of the oath crisis , he stood behind Piłsudski and therefore came into conflict with the commander-in-chief of the legions, Stanisław Szeptycki . Roja left the successor organization of the legions ( Polish Auxiliary Corps ) and rejoined the Austro-Hungarian army .
Shortly after the collapse of the armies of the Central Powers , he went to Cracow to take part in the disarming of the Austro-Hungarian troops. There he took over the high command. The liquidation commission (Polska Komisja Likwidacyjna), which was formed at the end of October 1918 and was supposed to ensure order in Galicia during the transition period, transferred the military leadership to Roja immediately after its establishment. On the night of November 1, 1918, Roja issued instructions for a military uprising. The following day, the military facilities were largely non-violent. So Roja was able to report on the same day:
“ … As of today I have taken over the military command in Krakow in the Galicia area from Feldzeugmeister Excellency Count Benigni . "
By decree of November 1, 1918, the Regency Council of the Regency Kingdom of Poland appointed Boja, in view of his services in the war, as brigadier general of the Polish troops and commander of the Krakow brigade. A short time later, Roja's appointment was confirmed by the new commander-in-chief of the Polish army, Piłsudski.
In Lviv , where a short time later there were clashes with the Ukrainian population, Roja advocated correct treatment of the local Jewish militia. Its members had been disarmed and arrested by a local commander in the course of anti-Jewish riots for allegedly resisting the entry of Polish troops. Roja tried to suppress the anti-Jewish mood.
Interwar period
As part of the Polish-Soviet War , Roja led the 2nd "Legions" infantry division (2 Dywizja Piechoty Legionów) from January to August 1919 and was deployed on the Lithuanian-Belarusian front. He excelled in the fight against the Red Army . In August 1919 he was appointed commander of the military area Kielce (Dowództwo Okręgu Generalnego "Kielce") and in March 1920 the commander of the military area corps VIII. In Toruń (Dowództwo Okręgu Korpusu nr VIII w Toruniu). After a brief deployment on the northern front, Roja began to doubt the chances of a victory against the Bolsheviks. He developed various ideas for a separate peace and came into conflict with Piłsudski. In August, Piłsudski took him out of command for meddling in politics and spreading defeatism . After the end of the war, Roja increasingly became a critic of Piłsudski and his Sanacja movement. In 1928 he was elected to the Sejm for the radical peasant party Stronnictwo Chłopskie . Here he became vice-president of the parliamentary military committee. In December 1929 he lost his seat in parliament. In 1930 he criticized Piłsudski in a public letter, the publication of which was prohibited by the censors. Further actions by Rojas ended on the instructions of the Minister of War, General Tadeusz Kasprzyckis , with the temporary forced admission to the psychiatric department of a military hospital.
After 1931 Roja supported the People's Party Stronnictwo Ludowe , but did not join it. In retirement he wrote a book about his time with the Polish Legions.
In 1919 Roja called the barracks in Jabłonna , which formerly housed Russian soldiers and which was now assigned to a unit of the Polish army called “Legions”, as “Legionowo”. The name was later to be adopted from the neighboring village, which is why Roja in Legionowo is still honored as the namesake today (see photo of a corresponding memorial stone at the top right).
Second World War
When the Second World War broke out, he was ill; later he joined the underground activities of the Polish Red Cross . On March 27, 1940, he was arrested by the Gestapo and initially imprisoned in Warsaw's Pawiak Prison - together with the former Vice-President of Warsaw, Marian Borzecki . This was followed by transfer to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where he was shot two weeks after his arrival on May 27, 1940.
Individual evidence
- ^ Jon Evans, The Nazi New Order in Poland , Victor Gollancz, London 1941, p. 50
- ↑ Jan Konefał, Jastków 1915: historia i pamięć , volume 240 from: Źródła i monografie , ISBN 978-83-7306-117-0 , Towarzystwo Naukowe Katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego, 2003, p. 251
- ↑ Beata Dorota Lakeberg, The German Minority Press in Poland 1918-1939 and their image of Poland and the Jews , from the series: The Germans and Eastern Europe , Volume 6, Dissertation, Lang, Frankfurt / M. 2007, Appendix, p. 312
- ↑ David R. Stefancic, Armies in exile , Volume 667 from: East European monographs , ISBN 978-0-88033-565-2 , East European Monographs, 2005, p. 112
- ↑ Vasyl Kuchabsky, Gus Fagan, Western Ukraine in conflict with Poland and Bolshevism, 1918-1923 , Volume 4, Wirth Institute for Austrian and Central European Studies, ISBN 978-1-894865-12-8 , Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press , 2009, p. 27
- ↑ Werner Conze and Hartmut Boockmann, German History in Eastern Europe. Between Adria and Karawanken , Volume 8 from: German History in Eastern Europe , Siedler, 1999. P. 168
- ↑ a b Richard Georg Plaschka, Avantgarde of Resistance. Model cases of military rebellion in the 19th and 20th centuries , Böhlau, Wien / Köln 2000, p. 318ff.
- ^ Frank M. Schuster, Between All Fronts: Eastern European Jews during the First World War (1914-1919) , Volume 9 of the series: Lebenswelten Osturopäischer Juden , Böhlau, 2004, p. 431
- ↑ a b c Johannes Sachslehner , The Infarct: Austria-Hungary on October 28, 1918 , Pichler, 2005
- ^ Stefan Meyer, Between Ideology and Pragmatism: The Legitimation Strategies of the Polish Workers' Party, 1944–1948 , ISBN 978-3-86573-392-4 , WVB - Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Berlin, Berlin 2008, p. 442
- ↑ History abstract ( Memento of the original from May 28, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. of the city of Legionowo on the city's website (in Polish, accessed June 14, 2013)
- ^ Tadeusz Bielecki and Leszek Szymański, Warsaw aflame: the 1939–1945 years , Polamerica Press, Los Angeles, 1973, p. 35
- ↑ Zdzislaw Jasko and Wolf Jung, I wanted to go to school and came to the concentration camp , Tom 332, ISBN 978-3-88977-655-6 , Lamuv, 2005, p. 99
- ^ Contemporary Poland , Polish Agency Interpress information bulletin, Volume 13, Polska Agencja Interpress, Warsaw, 1979, p. 62
plant
- Bolesław Roja, Legioniści w Karpatach w 1914–1915 roku , with a foreword by the officer and historian Wacław Lipiński, Wojskowy Instytut Naukowo-Wydawniczy, Warsaw 1933 (in Polish)
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Roja, Boleslaw |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Roja, Bolesław Jerzy |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Marshal of Poland |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 4, 1876 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Bryńce Zagórne |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 27, 1940 |
| Place of death | Sachsenhausen concentration camp |