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The Uroczysko Baran killing fields ( pl, miejsce zbrodni Uroczysko Baran, lit=Uroczysko Baran crime location), often referred to in Poland as the "Little Katyn" or the "Second Katyn", was the location for secret executions of soldiers and officers of the
Polish Underground State The Polish Underground State ( pl, Polskie Państwo Podziemne, also known as the Polish Secret State) was a single political and military entity formed by the union of resistance organizations in occupied Poland that were loyal to the Gover ...
,
Home Army The Home Army ( pl, Armia Krajowa, abbreviated AK; ) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) esta ...
, and Second Army of
Ludowe Wojsko Polskie The Polish People's Army ( pl, Ludowe Wojsko Polskie , LWP) constituted the second formation of the Polish Armed Forces in the East in 1943–1945, and in 1945–1989 the armed forces of the Polish communist state ( from 1952, the Polish Peo ...
carried out by Communist forces on behalf of the
NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...
,
SMERSH SMERSH (russian: СМЕРШ) was an umbrella organization for three independent counter-intelligence agencies in the Red Army formed in late 1942 or even earlier, but officially announced only on 14 April 1943. The name SMERSH was coined by Josep ...
, and PUBP in the later stages of
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. The killing fields at the Uroczysko Baran," Uroczysko" is the Polish term for a geographical location of arbitrary type, typically within a forest, somehow identified among its surroundings. ''Baran'' means "
ram Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to: Animals * A male sheep * Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish People * Ram (given name) * Ram (surname) * Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director * RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch * Ra ...
" in Polish
also known as the Baran Forest, are located on the outskirts of
Kąkolewnica Kąkolewnica is a village in Radzyń Podlaski County, Lublin Voivodeship, in eastern Poland. It is the seat of the gmina (administrative district) called Gmina Kąkolewnica. It lies approximately north of Radzyń Podlaski and north of the regi ...
village in eastern Poland, near
Radzyń Podlaski Radzyń Podlaski is a town in eastern Poland, about 60 km north of Lublin, with 15,808 inhabitants (2017). Situated in the Lublin Voivodeship since 1999, previously it was part of the Biała Podlaska Voivodeship (1975–1998). It is the capi ...
. It is estimated that up to 1,200 or 1,800 wartime members of the
Home Army The Home Army ( pl, Armia Krajowa, abbreviated AK; ) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) esta ...
(AK),
Freedom and Independence Freedom and Independence Association ( pl, Zrzeszenie Wolność i Niezawisłość, or WiN) was a Polish underground anticommunist organisation founded on September 2, 1945 and active until 1952. Political goals and realities The main purpose of it ...
(WiN), the Agrarian Battalions of BCh, as well as Polish defectors drafted to the Communist armies, and alleged
enemies of the people The term enemy of the people or enemy of the nation, is a designation for the political or class opponents of the subgroup in power within a larger group. The term implies that by opposing the ruling subgroup, the "enemies" in question are ac ...
, were murdered there, with hands tied behind their backs, over execution pits, from late autumn 1944 until February 1945, . The forensic examination of twelve exhumed bodies revealed multiple bone fractures: broken hands, limbs, hips, and cracked skulls indicating extreme beatings in detention, before execution.


History

The killing fields were known to the local people in Kąkolewnica from the beginning. In July 1944, the Soviet
1st Belorussian Front The 1st Belorussian Front (Russian: Пéрвый Белорусский фронт, ''Perviy Belorusskiy front'', also romanized " Byelorussian") was a major formation of the Soviet Army during World War II, being equivalent to a Western army ...
under Marshal
Konstantin Rokossovsky Konstantin Konstantinovich (Xaverevich) Rokossovsky (Russian: Константин Константинович Рокоссовский; pl, Konstanty Rokossowski; 21 December 1896 – 3 August 1968) was a Soviet and Polish officer who becam ...
was stationed in Kąkolewnica, removing cattle and plundering food supplies, throwing people out of their homes to make way for military lodgings, and setting up SMERSH and NKVD interrogation dungeons in the basements. Soon, General Świerczewski with his LWP soldiers joined the fray. The Polish partisans from AK, WiN and BCh, captured in the vicinity – but also transported there from afar – like the soldiers of the 27th Home Army Infantry Division, were executed across the vast area of the forest spanning well over a dozen
hectare The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100-metre sides (1 hm2), or 10,000 m2, and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. An acre is a ...
s. Mass graves were planted over with small pine trees by the killers. A symbolic cross was erected on site by some people in the summer of 1945. Removed by the Communist officials, it was often replaced by the locals under the cover of night. The number of people murdered at Uroczysko Baran is unknown. Even the number of mass graves has not been established to this day. After fifty years of Communist rule in Poland, the closely guarded site is now overgrown with mature trees. Partial documents found in the archives of the Polish Army prove only 43 official executions and 144 military court convictions, but the Soviet archives are either inaccessible or no longer exist. Soon after the end of totalitarianism in Poland, the
Institute of National Remembrance The Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation ( pl, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej – Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu, abbreviated IPN) is a Polish state resea ...
interviewed 110 witnesses. There was only one forensic exhumation conducted at Uroczysko Baran. The human remains were reburied at a local cemetery in Kąkolewnica in 1990. The IPN branch in Lublin states that some 2,000 anti-communist resistance fighters were detained in local prisons by the Stalinist security forces between 1944 and 1956, including 450 of the most prominent so-called "
cursed soldiers The "cursed soldiers" (also known as "doomed soldiers", "accursed soldiers" or "damned soldiers"; pl, żołnierze wyklęci) or "indomitable soldiers" ( pl, żołnierze niezłomni) is a term applied to a variety of anti-Soviet and anti-communist ...
".
Józef Franczak Józef Franczak (17 March 1918 – 21 October 1963) was a soldier of the Polish Army, Armia Krajowa World War II resistance, and last of the cursed soldiers – members of the militant anti-communist resistance in Poland. He used cod ...
witnessed some of the killings. After Soviet troops entered the area, he was conscripted into the Polish Communist 2nd Army stationed in Kąkolewnica, where the military court was located. Franczak deserted in January 1945 and became a cursed soldier. He was shot dead in 1963. ''Also in:'' And: At Kąkolewnica, and at the Uroczysko Baran, hundreds of detainees died without a trial. According to witnesses, military trucks covered with tarpaulin travelled back and forth between the two locations until November 1945, day in and day out.


Commemoration

The killings are the subject of a monograph by Jan Kołkowicz published in 2007. In 1980 a symbolic grave was created at the uroczysko. In May 1993 it was replaced with a monument consisting of a cast iron cross and a huge stone with tablets. The monument was an initiative of Tadeusz Dzięga, the Kąkolewnica parish
parson A parson is an ordained Christian person responsible for a small area, typically a parish. The term was formerly often used for some Anglican clergy and, more rarely, for ordained ministers in some other churches. It is no longer a formal term d ...
, and a resident of the village of Jurki, Zbigniew Puck."Uroczystości religijno-patriotyczne na uroczysku „Baran” w Kąkolewnicy"
/ref> President of Poland
Bronisław Komorowski Bronisław Maria Komorowski (; born 4 June 1952) is a Polish politician and historian who served as President of Poland from 2010 to 2015. Komorowski served as Minister of Defence from 2000 to 2001. As Marshal of the Sejm, Komorowski exercised ...
came to Uroczysko Baran on June 20, 2013, for a solemn ceremony of laying flowers and wreaths at the monument.


Notes


References


External links


Photographs from the official ceremonies at the unmarked graves in 2017.
{{coord missing, Poland 1944 in Poland July 1944 events Massacres in Poland NKVD War crimes in Poland