Second lieutenant Jerzy Zakulski (28 June 1911 – 31 July 1947) was an attorney in interwar Poland, and World War II member of the

National Armed Forces National Armed Forces (NSZ; '' Polish:'' Narodowe Siły Zbrojne) was a Polish right-wing underground military organization of the National Democracy operating from 1942. During World War II, NSZ troops fought against Nazi Germany and communist p ...

(''Narodowe Siły Zbrojne'', NSZ) in

German-occupied Poland German-occupied Poland during World War II consisted of two major parts with different types of administration. The Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany following the invasion of Poland at the beginning of World War II—nearly a quarter of the ...

. He was sentenced to death and executed by Stalinist officials in Soviet-controlled postwar Poland, on charges of being an enemy spy.

Biography

Jerzy Zakulski was born to a family of a high-school teacher, Ludwik Zakulski. The Zakulskis settled in Kraków, at St. Kinga Street 7 in the district of

Podgórze Podgórze is a district of Kraków, Poland, situated on the right (southern) bank of the Vistula River, at the foot of Lasota Hill. The district was subdivided in 1990 into six new districts, see present-day districts of Kraków for more details. ...

. Jerzy enrolled at the Jagiellonian University and graduated with a degree in law in 1936. Two years later he passed the bar. On 1 September 1939 Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany. Zakulski was conscripted into the

Polish Army The Land Forces () are the land forces of the Polish Armed Forces. They currently contain some 62,000 active personnel and form many components of the European Union and NATO deployments around the world. Poland's recorded military history stre ...

with the reserve military rank of ''

Podporucznik ''Podporuchik'' ( sh-Cyrl-Latn, потпоручник, potporučnik, cs, podporučík, pl, podporucznik, russian: подпору́чик, bg, подпоручик, sk, podporučík) is the most Junior officer in some Slavic armed forces, an ...

'' (lieutenant) and took part in the

September campaign The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week af ...

. After Poland's defeat Zakulski joined the underground Military Organization Lizard Union (''Związek Jaszczurczy'') due to his prewar contacts in the ''Organizacja Polska''. In the Podgórze district where he lived, on 3 March 1941 the Nazis created

Kraków Ghetto The Kraków Ghetto was one of five major metropolitan Nazi ghettos created by Germany in the new General Government territory during the German occupation of Poland in World War II. It was established for the purpose of exploitation, terror, and ...

on the orders of ''Gauleiter''

Hans Frank Hans Michael Frank (23 May 1900 – 16 October 1946) was a German politician and lawyer who served as head of the General Government in Nazi-occupied Poland during the Second World War. Frank was an early member of the German Workers' Party ...

.Krakow-Poland.com
History of the Krakow Ghetto with photographs.
Accessed 9 April 2014. Some 15,000 Jews were removed from their homes in the district of

Kazimierz Kazimierz (; la, Casimiria; yi, קוזמיר, Kuzimyr) is a historical district of Kraków and Kraków Old Town, Poland. From its inception in the 14th century to the early 19th century, Kazimierz was an independent city, a royal city of the ...

– the main spiritual and cultural centre of Kraków Jewry – and crammed into an area of Podgórze previously inhabited by 3,000 people.Jewish Krakow
Krakow Ghetto, complete with gallery of contemporary photographs.
nbsp; Accessed 9 April 2014. Just before the liquidation of the Ghetto in the course of the murderous Operation Reinhard in Kraków under

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

perpetrator

Amon Göth Amon Leopold Göth (; alternative spelling ''Goeth''; 11 December 1908 – 13 September 1946) was an Austrian SS functionary and war criminal. He served as the commandant of the Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp in Płaszów in Germa ...

, Maria Błeszyńska Bernstein escaped from there at night with her three-year-old daughter. They were rescued by Jerzy Zakulski. He engaged his whole family in the rescue mission including his father-in-law Jan Bahr, hiding Maria and her child in both households by turns. Eventually, they took them out of the city to a safer place of a cousin Zofia Strycharska in

Myślenice Myślenice is a town in southern Poland, situated in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship (since 1999), previously in Kraków Voivodeship (1975–1998). Population: 20,261 (2007). The town is divided into six districts. One of them, Zarabie, is a popu ...

. Both Maria and her daughter survived the war and returned to Kraków afterwards. In her letter to the Stalinist military court in Warsaw dated 23 June 1947, Maria, living at 32 Długa street at the time, insisted that the Zakulskis had all risked their lives to save theirs.

Execution

After the takeover of Kraków by the Red Army, Zakulski continued his clandestine work with the anticommunist ''

Delegatura Sił Zbrojnych na Kraj The Armed Forces Delegation for Poland (''Delegatura Sił Zbrojnych na Kraj'') was a Polish Anti-communism, anti-communist resistance organization formed on May 7, 1945, by the Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Armed Forces, General Władysław And ...

'', collecting data on the Soviet crime wave and looting of the city. He was betrayed and captured by the security forces a year later along with several others. His trial began on 29 May 1947 in Warsaw and concluded after two weeks on 16 June 1947. A Jewish Holocaust survivor from

Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...

, Maria Błeszyńska '' née'' Bernstein, attempted to save Zakulski's life in gratitude for his rescue of her and her daughter during

the Holocaust in Poland The Holocaust in Poland was part of the European-wide Holocaust organized by Nazi Germany and took place in German-occupied Poland. During the genocide, three million Polish Jews were murdered, half of all Jews murdered during the Holocaust. ...

; however, she was unsuccessful. The certified letter she sent to the Regional Military Court in

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 ...

was thrown out, along with his plea for presidential mercy. Zakulski was sentenced to death and shot in prison on 31 July 1947. The Volume 3 of his court case concerning brutal interrogation by the Department of Ministry of Public Security (Poland),^{g.55/sup> headed by Col. Józef Różański
Józef Różański (; born Josef Goldberg; 13 July 1907, in Warsaw – 21 August 1981, in Warsaw) was an officer in the Soviet NKVD Secret Police and later, a Colonel in the Polish Ministry of Public Security (UB), a communist secret police. Born ...
, was destroyed.

References

The Doomed Soldiers. ''See:'' Jerzy Zakulski
''Polish Underground Soldiers 1944–1963. The Untold Story'' at Doomed Soldiers.com.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zakulski, Jerzy
1911 births
1947 deaths
People from Wadowice
Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria
National Radical Camp politicians
20th-century Polish lawyers
Polish anti-communists
Polish military personnel of World War II
National Armed Forces members
Polish people who rescued Jews during the Holocaust
Cursed soldiers
Jagiellonian University alumni
People executed by Poland by firearm
People executed by the Polish People's Republic}