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Institute of National Remembrance

Strona główna
Polska
Warsaw
Institute of National Remembrance

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The largest research, archival and educational institution dealing with Polish history (1917-1990)

06/10/2026

Poland’s Oldest Man and Oldest Polish Armed Forces Veteran Has Passed Away at 109

🕯️One of the last witnesses to the generation that took up arms in defence of Poland in September 1939 and continued the struggle in the underground has passed away. May his memory be honoured.

➡️Captain Tadeusz Lutak, nom de guerre “Pancerz”, passed away on 5 October 2026 at the age of 109. At the time of his death, he was the oldest man living in Poland and the oldest veteran of the Polish Armed Forces.

➡️He fought in the Polish Defensive War of 1939, escaped German captivity and returned home, only to continue the struggle for freedom in the Polish underground.

➡️Born in Żarnowa in 1917, Lutak volunteered for military service and trained with the 2nd Armoured Battalion in Żurawica. When Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, he went to war. Serving with the 121st Light Tank Company of Col. Stanisław Maczek’s 10th Cavalry Brigade, he took part in heavy fighting, including the Battle of Jordanów.

➡️Captured by the Germans near Stary Dzików, he managed to escape from a prisoner transport and return home. But his fight was not over.

➡️From 1940, under the codename “Pancerz”, he served in the Polish underground, first in the Union of Armed Struggle (ZWZ) and later in the Home Army (AK). He gathered intelligence and participated in sabotage and diversionary operations. In 1944, he became a commander of a sabotage squad in the Home Army post in Strzyżów.

➡️After the war, Tadeusz Lutak became a guardian of the memory of his generation. He shared his wartime experiences, supported historical research and worked closely with the Institute of National Remembrance. In 2019, the IPN honoured him with its “Witness of History” award.

📷 Tadeusz Lutak (1917-2026) (IPN)

06/10/2026

The Visit of the Delegation from the IPN to the United States Came to a Close

On 5th October, at the Piłsudski Institute, IPN Deputy President Karol Polejowski held a working meeting with leaders of Polish-American organisations.

➡️The discussions focused on cooperation and the Institute of National Remembrance’s future activities in the United States.

➡️From 2 to 5 October 2026, a delegation from the Institute of National Remembrance headed by Deputy President Karol Polejowski is visiting the United States. The programme included a ceremony to present state decorations, participation in the Pulaski Day Parade, and a series of meetings with representatives of Polish diaspora institutions across the United States.

05/10/2026

🗓87 years ago, on 5 October 1939, Adolf Hi**er visited the conquered Warsaw to review the victory parade. Some Poles considered this an opportunity to eliminate him...

➡On 25 September 1939, three days before Warsaw, besieged by the Wehrmacht, surrendered, Gen. Karaszewicz-Tokarzewski ordered Maj. Niepokólczycki, commander of the 60th Engineers Battalion, to start preparations for removing Adolf Hi**er.

➡It was not as impossible as it seemed – the city would fall at any moment, and the Führer had always reviewed parades of his troops in the capitals he conquered (vide: Vienna and Prague). It was conceivable he’d do the same in Warsaw.

➡Niepokólczycki had his officers take 500 kilograms of TNT from army stores, transport it under bombs, artillery fire and among burning buildings to Warsaw’s most representative quarter, then split the load in half and bury both charges in anti-tank ditches by one of the crossroads.

➡On 5 October 1939, Hi**er watched the parade, and then made a quick tour around the city centre. A team of spotters was following his moves, and in the basement of a house near one of the crossroads, a Polish officer, his hand on the detonator, was waiting for a signal.

➡500 kilos of TNT, plus a number of artillery shells, would have certainly done the job: the blast would have wiped out the entire section of the street, along with Hi**er’s open Mercedes, and the Führer’s entourage. But when the cavalcade was in the right spot, nothing happened.

➡Was it because German security measures thinned the spotters’ chain and the signal never came? Did the issue of the hostages – twelve prominent citizens and a few hundred ordinary people – make the officer hesitate? Or was it something else?

➡Whatever the reason, even though the explosives were removed by the Germans, the attempt organiser, Maj. Niepokólczycki, until the end of his life in the 1970s, never came close to the spot where the TNT had been buried.

05/10/2026

Manhattan in Poland’s White and Red 🇵🇱 🇺🇸

➡ An IPN delegation led by Deputy President Karol Polejowski is visiting the United States from October 2 to 5, 2026. The extensive program includes a ceremony presenting Polish state honors, participation in the Pulaski Parade, and numerous meetings with representatives of Polish American institutions.

➡ On October 4, the delegation took part in the Pulaski Parade. The celebrations began with Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan, followed by a gathering before the parade, during which Karol Polejowski was formally presented with his Honorary Marshal sash.

💬“I regard the invitation I received as an honor for the entire Institute of National Remembrance. It recognizes the work we have carried out for more than a quarter of a century, for the glory of the Polish nation and of Poland,” said the IPN Deputy President during the sash presentation ceremony.

➡ At 12:30 p.m., participants set off along Fifth Avenue. As an Honorary Marshal, Karol Polejowski marched in the parade and then greeted the Polish American groups that followed along one of New York’s most iconic avenues.

➡ This year’s 89th Pulaski Parade took place under the theme “For Your Freedom and Ours! Tadeusz Kościuszko and Casimir Pulaski: Generals of Freedom for Poland and America,” marking the 250th anniversary of the United States’ Declaration of Independence in 2026.

➡ Held in New York since 1937, the Pulaski Parade is one of the oldest and most important Polish American events in the United States. An estimated 100,000 people marched through Manhattan this year.

📷 Mateusz Niegowski (IPN)

04/10/2026

An IPN delegation led by Deputy President Karol Polejowski is visiting the United States from October 2 to 5, 2026. The program includes a ceremony presenting Polish state honors, participation in the Pulaski Parade, and numerous meetings with representatives of Polish American institutions. 🇵🇱🇺🇸

➡ The second day began with Mass at the Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa, Doylestown, PA in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Popularly known as “American Częstochowa,” the shrine is the most important place of worship for Poles in the United States and a center of the Polish American community.

➡ Karol Polejowski laid flowers at the monument honoring the heroes of Poland’s struggle for independence after 1944–1945 and the Solidarity movement, and at the Avenger Monument, also known as the Hussar Monument. The ceremony was attended by 103-year-old Fryderyk Dammont, a Sybirak (a survivor of Soviet deportation) and a longstanding member of New York’s Polish community.

➡ The highlight of the visit to Doylestown was a ceremony presenting Polish state honors. On behalf of the President of the Republic of Poland, Karol Polejowski presented the Officer’s Cross and the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, as well as the Cross of Freedom and Solidarity.

➡ In a letter to those gathered at “American Częstochowa,” Polish President Karol Nawrocki wrote:

💬“The source of this inner strength was not only anger, but also an uncompromising rejection of brutal violence, poverty, and injustice. Of mindless, deceitful propaganda, the falsification of history, and Poland’s humiliating status as a Soviet colony. The experience of faith within the Church community was a tremendous source of strength at that time. Fervent prayer before Our Lady of Jasna Góra, Queen of Poland (Our Lady of Częstochowa), also played a decisive role in the initial successes and ultimate victory of the Solidarity revolution.”

➡ The IPN Deputy President emphasized the dedication and steadfastness of those receiving honors:

💬“Very often, when I speak with the heroes of our struggle for freedom, they tell me modestly: ‘We weren’t heroes. That’s how we were raised, and we did what we believed in.’ But, ladies and gentlemen, acting on your values under a totalitarian communist system took courage!”

🎬Following the ceremony, Sebastian Pilarski, director of the IPN’s Historical Research Office, delivered a lecture titled “Solidarity: Poland’s Path to Freedom.” The event also featured a screening of the documentary “A Thread of Hope” and the exhibition “Wyszyński and Wojtyła’s Grammar of Life,” prepared by the IPN and Mt5,14 Muzeum Jana Pawła II i Prymasa Wyszyńskiego

04/10/2026

“Let us love animals.” “We will not allow animals to be harmed.”

These slogans appeared on banners carried through Kraków in 1936, during “Kindness to Animals Day.” 🐎🐈🐕🐖

➡ October 4 is World Animal Day, whose roots reach back to the 1920s. In interwar Poland, concern for animals found expression in legislation, public campaigns, and efforts to involve children.

➡ In 1928, a presidential decree prohibited cruelty to animals. It explicitly banned overloading draft and pack animals, making sick or injured animals work, and transporting them in ways that caused unnecessary suffering. Its protection extended beyond household pets.

➡ Animal welfare organizations also worked to change everyday attitudes. In Warsaw, the Polish League of Friends of Animals organized processions, distributed leaflets, and collected donations. A 1931 account described crowds lining the route and children carrying a banner reading “We love animals.” Animal protection groups also organized winter feeding for birds.

📷The photographs from Warsaw and Kraków in 1936 capture this campaign for compassion in public life. Their banners called on people to take responsibility for how animals were treated.

03/10/2026

: the POWs

During the Warsaw Uprising 50,000 people fought, many more helped; 16,000 to 18,000 underground soldiers perished, and at least ten times that number of civilians lost their lives. 17,000 combatants went into POW camps.

➡The most important resolutions of the act of surrender signed on 2 October 1944 by SS-Obergruppenführer Erich von dem Bach, representing the German side, and Polish emissaries, Col. Kazimierz Iranek-Osmecki „Heller” and Lt. Col Zygmunt Dobrowolski „Zyndram” were related to the way Insurgents would be treated following the surrender.

➡They were given the full combatant rights, granted by the Geneva Convention and they didn’t take any responsibility for their military and political activity before the Warsaw Uprising. The same thing applied to the civilians who worked for the Home Army in the administrative sector.

➡The insurgents gave up their weapons and left the city on 4 and 5 October 1944. They were sent, among others, to such camps as: Stalag 344 Lamsdorf, Stalag X B Sandbostel, Stalag XI A Altengrabow, Stalag XI B Fallingbostel, Stalag XI C Bad Sulza, Stalag VIII C Sagan (Żagań), Stalag XI D Nürnberg, or Stalag IV B Mühlberg.

➡One of the most extraordinary POW camps was Stalag VI-C in Oberlangen. Following the fall of the Warsaw Uprising, it was the only POW camp in German-occupied Europe for female prisoners of war. The first Polish female soldiers who fought during the Warsaw Uprising were transferred there in November 1944 from other camps such as Stalag XI B Fallingbostel.

➡In April 1945 the camp was liberated by….a Polish unit, the 1st Armoured Division commanded by General Maczek. It was a truly remarkable meeting. Both the former Home Army insurgents and the 1st Armoured Division soldiers who began their fight for freedom in August 1944, finally met.

03/10/2026

: the fate of civilians.

➡ It was the civilian population who suffered the most during and after the fall of the Warsaw Uprising.

➡ Between August and October 1944, the civilian population of Warsaw died in massacres, bombings, and street combat or went through the drama of expulsion.

➡ The inhabitants of the capital, who were deprived of their homes and belongings during the exodus, were sent to transit camps, from where they were deported to work in the Third Reich, deep into the General Government and to concentration camps.

➡ For most of them, the first stage of their wandering was Dulag 121 - a transit camp for civilians established in Pruszków on 6 August 1944. It is estimated that as many as 650,000 people passed through the camp.

➡ About 150,000 people were sent to forced labour in the Third Reich, and another 350,000, deemed unfit for work, were sentenced to wandering around the territory of the General Government, where their survival depended on the help of the inhabitants of towns and villages.

➡ In turn, as many as 70,000 prisoners of the transit camp in Pruszków were sent to concentration camps. In this difficult time, the inhabitants of Pruszków and the surrounding towns set out to help the expelled Warsaw residents. Thousands of people supported the prisoners at that time, organising medical and financial aid and food within the camp and outside its walls. Thanks to them, about 100,000 people were able to move out - legally or illegally - from the camp in Pruszków.

02/10/2026

Warsaw Uprising – the Bitter End...

🗓82 years ago today, on 2 October 1944, after 63 days of heroic struggle, the Home Army's command was forced to sign the capitulation order of the remaining Polish forces still fighting in Warsaw. Approximately 17,000 insurgents were taken prisoner and about 18,000 were killed. The Warsaw Uprising was over…

➡The Warsaw Uprising, which broke out on 1 August 1944, was the largest attempt at regaining independence during WW2. The insurgents fought for 63 days, trying to get back their freedom after five years of German enslavement, terror, humiliation, street round-ups and killing.
Why did the Warsaw Uprising fail?

➡The Warsaw Insurgents fought a heroic fight against the enemy who possessed an overwhelming superiority in terms of armaments and troops. The Soviet offensive which stopped at the gates of Warsaw gave the German command an opportunity to supress the Uprising and get rid of the Insurgents who caused them a lot of headaches, as they disrupted their rear lines and distracted their troops from the main task of stopping the Soviet advance at the Vistula River. Stalin however had political reasons not to engage in the „thoughtless, pathetic, brawl” which was the Warsaw Uprising according to him.

➡Joseph Stalin did not expect an army raised in secret and consisting of alleged civilians to be capable of long-term and effective resistance against regular German units armed to their teeth. However, rebuilding the free Republic of Poland in the capital city spoiled his plans of transferring the puppet PKWN government to Warsaw. It also denied the false claim spread by the Soviets that the Home Army was a fiction and that the only power that counted in Poland were the communists. A quick quenching of the uprising by German forces and the destruction of the stock of the underground army was what suited Moscow best.

➡ In order to suppress any form of resistance in Warsaw, the Germans commenced horrendous war crimes against civilians. They targeted them because according to their logic, everyone could be an insurgent, even women and children. Although it’s hard to establish the exact number, we can assume that more than 100,000 civilians perished during the Warsaw Uprising. Some died during massacres like the one in the Wola District in August 1944, and others were killed as a result of the combat.

➡As time passed and the German reinforcements entered the battlefield, the resistance of the insurgents, scattered and separated from each other in different districts of the city, was systematically broken.

➡The only real help was the air drops supplied by the Allied aircraft taking off from bases in southern Italy and Great Britain. The flights were extremely exhausting, difficult and dangerous for the airmen from Poland, the USA and from the British Empire. At least 220 lost their life. Nevertheless, during the Uprising, 306 allied aircraft dropped 159 tons of weaponry, medicines and provisions. It was blood in the ocean, but any kind of help was precious.

➡The very moment the Home Army commanders began negotiations for surrender, Stalin gave a fraction of help. The Soviets took the Praga District, planes with Red Stars appeared above Warsaw and the soldiers of the Berling army landed on the left bank of the river on a su***de mission. The whole operations was only meant to postpone the Polish surrender and prolong the fighting, which ended in a total defeat.

➡The act of surrender was signed by SS-Obergruppenführer Erich von dem Bach, representing the German side, and Polish emissaries, Col. Kazimierz Iranek-Osmecki „Heller” and Lt. Col Zygmunt Dobrowolski „Zyndram”.The most important resolutions were related to the way Insurgents were to be treated: they were given the full combatant rights, granted by the Geneva Convention and they wouldn’t take any responsibility for their military and political activity before the Uprising.

➡The civilians who worked for the Home Army in the administrative sector will not be held responsible for their actions as well – however, many non-combatants will be deported to the concentration camps or used as forced labourers in Germany. The Insurgents must give up their weapons and leave the city on 4 and 5 October 1944. The destroyed, empty city grieved in silence…
➡The Soviets resumed their offensive in January 1945. At that time the left bank of Warsaw was completely destroyed. Although Poland stood against the two totalitarian powers from the very beginning of the global conflict, remained in the camp of the countries of the anti-Hi**er coalition and was the most faithful ally to Great Britain, it had to pay an enormous price for its will to be independent. Warsaw bled out, while the entire world, despite the words of compassion and solidarity, idly stood by and watched as the city slowly died. And then Poland could not avoid decades of communist slavery anyway.

📷 Insurgents march along Nowowiejska Street in Warsaw on their way to captivity following the capitulation of the Warsaw Uprising, 5 October 1944. (Wikimedia Commons, colorized using AI by IPN)

01/10/2026

The article “A World War II-Era Feud Is Threatening a Pivotal Alliance for Ukraine,” by Matthew Luxmoore and Stephen Kalin, published in The Wall Street Journal and republished by other news outlets, significantly understates the number of people murdered by Ukrainian nationalists, citing a death toll of up to 90,000 Poles.

According to the latest estimates by the Institute of National Remembrance, up to 130,000 Polish citizens, the vast majority of them ethnic Poles, were murdered in the Volhynia massacre.

We ask the authors and the outlets that published the article to update the figure to reflect the IPN’s latest estimates. Historical accuracy is essential to honoring the victims and preserving their memory.

The Wall Street Journal

Adres

Ulica Janusza Kurtyki 1
Warsaw
02-676

Godziny otwarcia

Poniedziałek	08:15 - 17:00
Wtorek	08:15 - 16:15
Środa	08:15 - 16:15
Czwartek	08:15 - 16:15
Piątek	08:15 - 16:15

Strona internetowa

https://ipn.gov.pl/en

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