Anders' Army
Anders' Army was the informal yet common name of the
Establishment in the Soviet Union
At the start of the
On 4 August 1941 the Polish prime minister and commander-in-chief, General
The formation began organizing in the Buzuluk area, and recruitment began in the NKVD camps among Polish POWs. By the end of 1941 the new Polish force had recruited 25,000 soldiers (including 1,000 officers), forming three infantry divisions: 5th, 6th and 7th. Menachem Begin (the future leader of the anti-British resistance group Irgun, prime minister of Israel and Nobel Peace Prize winner) was among those who joined. In the spring of 1942 the organizing center moved to the area of Tashkent in Uzbekistan and the 8th division was also formed.
The recruitment process met obstacles. Significant numbers of Polish officers were missing as a result of the Katyn massacre (1940), unknown at that time to the Poles. The Soviets did not want citizens of the Second Polish Republic who were not ethnic Poles (such as Jews, Belarusians, Lithuanians and Ukrainians) to be eligible for recruitment. The newly established military units did not receive proper logistical support or supplies. Some administrators of Soviet camps holding the Poles interfered with the already authorized release of their Polish inmates.[citation needed]
The Soviets, coping with the deteriorating war situation, were unable to provide adequate food rations for the growing Polish army, which was sharing its limited provisions with the also growing group of
Under British command
More military personnel and civilians were transferred later that summer, up to the end of August, by ship and by an overland route from Ashgabat, Turkmenistan to the railhead in Mashhad, Iran. Thousands of former Polish prisoners walked from the southern border of the Soviet Union to Iran. Many died in the process due to cold weather, hunger, and exhaustion. About 79,000 soldiers and 37,000 civilians – Polish citizens – left the Soviet Union.[5]
Anders' Army was transferred to the operational control of the British government, as part of the British
Jewish soldiers and civilians
When Anders' Army left the Soviet Union on its journey towards the Middle East, families of the soldiers and groups of Jewish children, war orphans, joined the Jewish soldiers. After arriving in Tehran, Iran, the children were transferred into the hands of the emissaries who brought them to Palestine. Central in obtaining permission for Jewish groups to cross the Iraqi border – permission that had initially been denied – were individuals like Polish Red Cross worker Halina Dmochowska, and prayers were later said for her in various synagogues in Palestine.
When Anders' Army reached Palestine, of its over four thousand Jewish soldiers three thousand left the army.[6]
Of the Jewish officers and men in Anders' Army who fought in the Italian campaign, 28 were killed and 62 were wounded. 136 of Anders' Jewish soldiers were decorated, including 6 Jews who received the Order of the "
In 2006, a memorial to Anders' Army was erected in the Catholic cemetery on
Notable veterans of Anders' Army
- Wojtek (1942–1963), bear
- Menachem Begin (1913–1992), sixth prime minister of Israel (1977–1983)
- Julian J. Bussgang (1925-2023), mathematician, author of the Bussgang theorem
- Józef Czapski (1896-1993), Polish officer, painter, author, delegated by Anders to investigate the 1940 disappearance of Polish officers in what became known as the Katyn massacre
- Moszek "Monty" Kuper (1920-2011), Texas real estate developer, philanthropist, humanitarian
- Alexander Nadson (1926–2015), post-war Belarusian religious leader and Apostolic Visitor for the Belarusian Greek-Catholic faithful abroad
- Stanisław Nicewicz (1916–2021), Polish officer of the 11 Szwadron Żandarmerii and carpenter.
- Nikodem Sulik(1893–1954), Polish WWII general
- Stanisław Szostak (1898–1961), Polish officer
- Leonid Teliga (1917–1970), Polish sailor and writer, the first Pole to single-handedly circumnavigate the globe
- Vincent Zhuk-Hryshkevich (1903—1989), Belarusianemigre politician, president-in-exile (1971—1982)
- George Chlystek (born 1923), Polish Corporal, fought at El Alamein, Tobruk and Monte Cassino
- Alf Krauzowicz of Dobrzanica, Tarnopol (1924-1977), Polish Private, fought at Monte Cassino, Ancona, Bologna and more
References
- ^ See telegrams: No. 317 of September 10 Archived 2009-11-07 at the Wayback Machine: Schulenburg, the German ambassador in the Soviet Union, to the German Foreign Office. Moscow, September 10, 1939–9:40 p.m.; No. 371 of September 16 Archived 2007-04-30 at the Wayback Machine; No. 372 of September 17 Archived 2007-04-30 at the Wayback Machine Source: The Avalon Project at Yale Law School. Last accessed on 14 November 2006; (in Polish) 1939 wrzesień 17, Moskwa Nota rządu sowieckiego nie przyjęta przez ambasadora Wacława Grzybowskiego (Note of the Soviet government to the Polish government on 17 September 1939 refused by Polish ambassador Wacław Grzybowski). Last accessed on 15 November 2006.
- ISBN 9788308041253.
- ISBN 978-0-674-06814-8.
- ^ Anders, Lt.-General Wladyslaw. An Army in Exile. MacMillan & Co. Ltd, 1949, pp. 98–100.
- ^ Czesław Brzoza, Andrzej Leon Sowa, Historia Polski 1918–1945 [History of Poland: 1918–1945], p. 531.
- ^ Halik Kochanski (2012). The Eagle Unbowed: Poland and the Poles in the Second World War, pp. 197–198.
- ^ "Museum of the Jewish Soldier in WW2".
- ^ United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. "Jewish Brigade Group". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved 8 July 2018.
- ^ "The Saga Of The Polish Anders Army : SHELDON KIRSHNER". Retrieved 2019-10-07.
Further reading
- Davies, Norman (2015). ISBN 978-1-4728-1603-0.
External links
- Artists in Arms: Arts & Culture on the Trail of Anders' Army, 1941–1945, extended multimedia guide from Culture.pl