Bolesław Piasecki

Bolesław Piasecki

Bolesław Bogdan Piasecki (born February 18, 1915 in Łódź , Russian Empire , † January 1, 1979 in Warsaw ; pseudonyms Leon Całka and Sablewski ) was a Polish politician , lawyer and officer.

Life

Born into a civil servant family (his father was an agronomist ), he started attending the Jan Zamoyski grammar school in Warsaw in 1927 and graduated from high school in May 1931. He finished his law studies at the University of Warsaw in 1935. During his studies he was head of the Wielkopolska Academic Department and worked in the youth organization of the People's Party ( Stronnictwo Narodowe ). He was one of the founders of the National Radical Camp (ONR) and, after its split, chairman of the National Radical Movement Falange . After the assassination of Minister Bronisław Pieracki by a Ukrainian nationalist, he was arrested on the night of June 15-16, 1934 and interned in the camp in Bereza Kartuska (now Belarus ). After his release (in September 1934) he led the illegalized RNR-Falange . In September 1939 he was a platoon leader in the Warsaw Motorized Panzer Brigade during the Defense War.

From 1939 to April 1940 he was a Gestapo prisoner . His release came when the Italian fascist Luciana Frassati, an acquaintance of Count Ciano , asked Mussolini to intervene with Hitler . Piasecki then went underground. He was a member of the resistance, founder and chairman of the secret organization Nationale Confederation (KN) , which fought 32 skirmishes with the Germans from May 1943, and after merging with the AK Home Army in the rank of first lieutenant commander of the 3rd Battalion of the 77th Infantry -Regiments of the AK in the fighting near Nawahradak . He escaped internment during the “Burza” campaign - after returning to central Poland, he continued his participation in the conspiracy, this time against the Lublin Committee (PKWN) . Since November 12, 1944, he was a prisoner of the Soviets. He was repeatedly interrogated by the NKVD General Ivan Alexandrovich Serov . In a letter to Serov, he declared his support for social reforms - agrarian reform and the nationalization of industry - and declared himself ready to form an underground armed people's movement. He also described his life - participation in the anti- Sanacja movement, the camp in Bereza, the arrest by the Gestapo, conspiracy and the anti-Hitler partisans. He was released in 1945 and after an introduction to Polish communists in a meeting with Władysław Gomułka , he obtained permission to publish a magazine.

After the war he was a co-founder and headed the socially progressive movement of secular Catholics , concentrated around the newspaper “Dziś i Jutro” ( “Today and Tomorrow” ). In 1952 he was the founder of the PAX association and chairman of the board for the rest of his life. He was a member of the Sejm from 1965 (also chairman of the group of PAX members). From 1971 to 1979 he was a member of the “Rada Państwa” (German “Council of State” ) . In 1956 he was chairman of the Presidium of the All-Polish National Front Committee for a few months . In 1968 - together with the entire PAX - he supported the anti-Semitic and anti-intelligence agitation that was led by a Mieczysław Moczar party faction and was the result of the March 1968 unrest .

In 1957 he experienced a great personal tragedy: his 16-year-old son Bohdan, a high school student, was kidnapped and cruelly murdered. The perpetrators of this crime were never identified and punished, despite the father's efforts.

Bolesław Piasecki died on January 1, 1979 after a serious illness.

Piasecki was married twice: the first time to Halina Kopeć, a soldier in the AK Home Army who died during the Warsaw Uprising - he had two children with her. For the second time with Barbara Kolendo, a member of the KN, with whom he had five children.

He personally chose the magazine “Ojczyzna” as patroness of his writings , edited by the former PAX member Bogusław Jeznach .

Piasecki's book Zagadnienia Istotne (English: problem of the essential ) has been on the index of banned books since 1955, together with the PAX magazine Dziś i Jutro . Piasecki never officially withdrew the views expressed there, but withdrew the book from distribution and a year later the magazine.

Between 1944 and 1969 he received various orders and decorations, including an Order Virtuti Militari .

literature

• Munzinger: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 14, 1979 of March 26, 1979.
• Andrea Rudorff: Piasecki, Bolesław , in: Handbuch des Antisemitismus , Volume 2/2, 2009, p. 637f.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Marek Kietliński, Artur Pasko: Na Fali Października 1956 roku. Białostocczyzna w świetle dokumentów archiwalnych. 2006, p. 212 , accessed on March 22, 2019 (Polish).