Antoni Heda
Antoni Heda (11 October 1916 – 15 February 2008) was a Polish military commander and a notable veteran of the Polish resistance movement in World War II and later independence movement against Soviet occupation following the war. Among the best known of his partisan actions was the raid on Communist prison in Kielce in August 1945, in which roughly 300 political prisoners were freed. His codename was "Szary" (Grey). Early life and activities at the beginning of the Second World War Antoni Heda was born in 1916 in the village of Małomierzyce near Iłża to a local peasant family. After graduating from a local primary school he moved to Radom, where he finished a Technical School and started a job in Starachowice Arms Works. Drafted into the Polish Army in 1937, he was dispatched to the Reserve Officer School (Szkoła Podchorążych Rezerwy). Shortly before the outbreak of World War II he was demobilized and started working for the State Arms Works at Starachowice. Mobilized ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Małomierzyce
Małomierzyce is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Iłża, within Radom County, Masovian Voivodeship, in east-central Poland. It lies approximately north-east of Iłża, south-east of Radom, and south of Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia .... References Villages in Radom County {{Radom-geo-stub ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Polish 12th Infantry Division
The 12th Bolesław Krzywousty Szczecin Mechanised Division () is a division of the Polish Armed Forces, headquartered in Szczecin. It traces its heritage back to the 1919 formation of the 6th Polish Rifle Division of the Blue Army in France. The division returned to Poland and was redesignated as the 12th Infantry Division () later that year, fighting in the Polish–Soviet War. During the September 1939 Invasion of Poland, the division was part of the southern group of the Prusy Army and was surrounded and destroyed by German forces during the Battle of Radom. It was briefly reformed in 1944 as part of the Home Army, and later that year the Polish People's Army briefly formed a 12th Infantry Division as part of the abortive 3rd Polish Army, but it was quickly broken up. The Polish People's Army reformed the division in Poznań during the final weeks of World War II, and it was sent to Szczecin to secure the area and expel the German population in the immediate postwar period. Th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jeleniec, Lublin Voivodeship
Jeleniec is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Stanin, within Łuków County, Lublin Voivodeship, in eastern Poland. It lies approximately east of Stanin, south-west of Łuków, and north of the regional capital Lublin Lublin is the ninth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest city of historical Lesser Poland. It is the capital and the center of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 336,339 (December 2021). Lublin is the largest Polish city east of t .... The village has a population of 595. References Villages in Łuków County {{Łuków-geo-stub ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ethnic Cleansing
Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, and religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal, extermination, deportation or population transfer, it also includes indirect methods aimed at forced migration by coercing the victim group to flee and preventing its return, such as murder, rape, and property destruction. It constitutes a crime against humanity and may also fall under the Genocide Convention, even as ''ethnic cleansing'' has no legal definition under international criminal law. Many instances of ethnic cleansing have occurred throughout history; the term was first used by the perpetrators as a euphemism during the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s. Since then, the term has gained widespread acceptance due to journalism and the media's heightened use of the term in its generic meaning. Etymology An antecedent to the term is the Greek word (; lit. "enslavement"), which was ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sienno, Masovian Voivodeship
Sienno is a village in Lipsko County, Masovian Voivodeship, in east-central Poland. It is the seat of the gmina (administrative district) called Gmina Sienno. It lies some south-west of Lipsko and south of Warsaw. The village has a population of 1,000. History The History of Sienno dates back to at least the 14th century, in 1375AD was built the first wooden church, at that time it belonged to the parish in Chotcza. Between 1431 and 1442 Dobisław z Oleśnicy, the lord of Sienno, was built of a church of brick in the Gothic style and it was consecrated by Cardinal Zbigniew Oleśnicki. In the 16th century the church was replaced by Sebastian Sienieński as a calvinist church. Catholics reconsecrated the building at the beginning of the 18th century. It was partially destroyed by fire in 1879 and again during World War I. Rebuilt in the interwar period, it is today an example of Gothic architecture. Five Gothic paintings on Panel with from 1460AD are located in Medieval Art ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Wehrmacht
The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previously used term and was the manifestation of the Nazi regime's efforts to rearm Germany to a greater extent than the Treaty of Versailles permitted. After the Nazi rise to power in 1933, one of Adolf Hitler's most overt and audacious moves was to establish the ''Wehrmacht'', a modern offensively-capable armed force, fulfilling the Nazi régime's long-term goals of regaining lost territory as well as gaining new territory and dominating its neighbours. This required the reinstatement of conscription and massive investment and defense spending on the arms industry. The ''Wehrmacht'' formed the heart of Germany's politico-military power. In the early part of the Second World War, the ''Wehrmacht'' employed combined arms tactics (close-cover ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jan Piwnik
Jan Piwnik (31 August 1912 – 16 June 1944) was a Polish World War II soldier, a ''cichociemny'' and a notable leader of the Home Army in the Świętokrzyskie Mountains. He used the nickname ''Ponury'' ("Gloomy" or "Grim") and ''Donat''. Biography Jan Piwnik was born on 31 August 1912 in the village of Janowice, Kielce Voivodeship (1919–39), Second Polish Republic, to Jan, a farmer, and Zofia (Kłonica) Piwnik. In 1933, he graduated from a reserve NCO artillery school in Włodzimierz Wołyński. In 1935, he joined the Polish police, where he served as an officer. Mobilized in 1939, during the invasion of Poland by Germany, he commanded a motorized unit of the police. When the Soviets also attacked, on 23 September he and his unit crossed the Hungarian border and were interned. Piwnik managed to escape from the internment camp. In November 1939, he reported to the Polish Government in Exile in Paris. He joined the Polish Army, reconstituted in France at that time and wa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organisation. On 20 April 1934, oversight of the Gestapo passed to the head of the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS), Heinrich Himmler, who was also appointed Chief of German Police by Hitler in 1936. Instead of being exclusively a Prussian state agency, the Gestapo became a national one as a sub-office of the (SiPo; Security Police). From 27 September 1939, it was administered by the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA). It became known as (Dept) 4 of the RSHA and was considered a sister organisation to the (SD; Security Service). During World War II, the Gestapo played a key role in the Holocaust. After the war ended, the Gestapo was declared a criminal organisation by the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at the Nuremberg trials. History After Adol ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Holy Cross Mountains
Sacred describes something that is dedicated or set apart for the service or worship of a deity; is considered worthy of spiritual respect or devotion; or inspires awe or reverence among believers. The property is often ascribed to objects (a " sacred artifact" that is venerated and blessed), or places (" sacred ground"). French sociologist Émile Durkheim considered the dichotomy between the sacred and the profane to be the central characteristic of religion: "religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to ''sacred things'', that is to say, things set apart and forbidden." Durkheim, Émile. 1915. ''The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life''. London: George Allen & Unwin. . In Durkheim's theory, the sacred represents the interests of the group, especially unity, which are embodied in sacred group symbols, or using team work to help get out of trouble. The profane, on the other hand, involve mundane individual concerns. Etymology The word ''sacred'' desce ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Związek Walki Zbrojnej
Związek Walki Zbrojnej (abbreviation: ''ZWZ''; Union of Armed Struggle;Thus rendered in Norman Davies, ''God's Playground: A History of Poland'', vol. II, p. 464. also translated as ''Union for Armed Struggle'', ''Association of Armed Struggle'' or ''Association for Armed Struggle'') was an underground army formed in Poland following its invasion in September 1939 by Germany and the Soviet Union that opened World War II. It existed from 13 November 1939 until 14 February 1942, when it was renamed into Home Army (''Armia Krajowa, AK''). ZWZ was created from an earlier organization, Service for Poland's Victory (''SZP''). In January 1940, it was divided into two parts: *areas under German occupation — commanded by Colonel Stefan Rowecki, headquartered in Warsaw; *areas under Soviet occupation — commanded by General Michał Karaszewicz-Tokarzewski, headquartered in Lwów. Formally, the ZWZ was directed from Paris, by General Kazimierz Sosnkowski (nom de guerre Jozef Godz ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after Frederick Barbarossa ("red beard"), a 12th-century Holy Roman emperor and German king, put into action Nazi Germany's ideological goal of conquering the western Soviet Union to repopulate it with Germans. The German aimed to use some of the conquered people as forced labour for the Axis war effort while acquiring the oil reserves of the Caucasus as well as the agricultural resources of various Soviet territories. Their ultimate goal was to create more (living space) for Germany, and the eventual extermination of the indigenous Slavic peoples by mass deportation to Siberia, Germanisation, enslavement, and genocide. In the two years leading up to the invasion, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed political and economic pacts for st ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Brześć Fortress
Brest Fortress ( be, Брэсцкая крэпасць, '; pl, Twierdza brzeska, russian: Брестская крепость), formerly known as Brest-Litoŭsk Fortress, is a 19th-century fortress in Brest, Belarus. In 1965, the title "Hero Fortress" was given to the fortress to commemorate the defence of the frontier stronghold during the first week of the Operation Barbarossa when Axis forces invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. The title "Hero Fortress" corresponds to the title "Hero City" that the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union awarded to twelve Soviet cities. Description The Brest fortress has sustained its original outline of a star shaped fortification since its construction in the early 19th century. The Citadel, the core of the fortress, was on the central island formed by the Bug River and the two branches of the Mukhavets River. The island was skirted by a ring of a two-storied barrack with 4 semi-towers. The 1.8 km long bar ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |